Monday, June 8, 2009

Congressman Ron Paul Talks Foreign Policy: New Face, Same Policy (HuffPo)

Kathleen Wells of the Huffington Post does a nice interview with Dr. Paul:

Kathleen Wells: As a member of the U. S. House of Representatives' Foreign Affairs Committee, what is your take on this issue of torture?

Congressman Ron Paul: Well, it's against the law - both our law and international law. So, we shouldn't do it. And I'm against it for personal, moral reasons. I think it's horrible. And for practical reasons, I think it's absolutely worthless. And if we are serious about getting information, if we use other techniques, we actually get more information.

Kathleen Wells: So, you do believe that we were committing torture in our interrogations in Guantanamo?

Congressman Ron Paul: I don't think the pictures I've seen were fictitious - the ones that were released a year or two ago. And, obviously, there are some more pictures of torture that they draw more attention to because they refuse to release them, which means that it must be a true indictment of what they were doing.

Kathleen Wells: What are your thoughts on President Obama's decision to release the torture memos?

Congressman Ron Paul: I think he is purely political. I think he has backed down on what he said. He was elected for change and it is the same old stuff and he is as much of a neo-con now as Bush was with this issue and other issues. The war has been expanded. He continues with not closing down Guantanamo. There is probably, for as most [sic] as we can tell, there is still secret rendition going on. We just moved some of this process overseas. We are not going to be aware of it in detail.

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