Ron Paul asks a question of General Petreaus who should have been able to answer it if he understood that the Congress has the power to declare war not the President.

You will have to scroll down several other videos to find the Ron Paul hearing video which happened in April.

http://nynerd.com/category/politics/

I still think that Ron Paul would be the best president despite his mistaken position on abortion and his religiosity. Those issues continue to count but ...

he is so right on so many other crucial issues and the others including McCain are so wrong.

I once worked as a lifeguard and saw someone running into the water too far away to warn of submerged rocks. Fortunately he missed hitting the rock. But I am reminded of it because I am having the same feeling about the election as if a dreadful catastrophy is going to occur if any of the current crop of candidates is chosen to lead the country. The sick feeling is for the country and the disaster is going to happen.

Needless to say I think Ron Paul would bring home our troops from the 700 military bases in 130 countries, lower the budget by hundreds of billions as a result enabling him to end the Federal Income Tax and abolish the IRS, restore the gold standard and eliminate the Federal Reserve Bank, end the war in Iraq and begin to dismantle the welfare state and the drug war.

Wm

The General takes his orders from the President, not Congress.

I have no idea how we have a military presence in 130 countries if we exclude Marine embassy guards.

--Brant

Brant, Thanks for your response. I just googled "U.S. military bases overseas" and there are over 4,000 links.

The first one listed over 700 bases in over 120 countries:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title..._bases_overseas

Here is a link to an excerpt from Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic by Chalmers Johnson

http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/1990

And here is a link to a video interview of Chalmers Johnson where he points out where the concept of blowback originated in the first four minutes of a rather lengthy interview:

http://www.zmag.org/zvideo/2499

Of course the largest contingent of troops are in Germany, South Korea and Japan, but there are several thousand troops in Spain, England and Italy as well. The point is that the cost of maintaining all these soldiers overseas amounts to close to a trillion dollars each year or at least several hundred billion dollars. Bringing those troops home, and I didn't even mention Iraq, would save a fortune! Might even enable a Ron Paul presidency to eliminate the Federal Income tax and abolish the dreaded IRS!

McWar would be a disaster as president. He is opposed to individualism and all for patriotic sacrifices for statist goals.

Wm

Which is it? A trillion or several bilion?

--Brant