The current debate is focused entirely on the question of troop levels. How many more troops should be sent over in order to pursue the war? The administration has already approved an additional 21,000 American service men and women to be deployed by November, which will increase our troop levels to 68,000. Will another 40,000 do the job? Or should we eventually build up the levels to 100,000 in addition to that? Why not 500,000 – just to be “safe”? And how will public support be brought back around to supporting this war again when 58 percent are now against it?

I get quite annoyed at this very narrow line of questioning. I have other questions. We overthrew the Taliban government in 2001 with less than 10,000 American troops. Why does it now seem that the more troops we send, the worse things get? If the Soviets bankrupted themselves in Afghanistan with troop levels of 100,000 and were eventually forced to leave in humiliating defeat, why are we determined to follow their example? Most importantly, what is there to be gained from all this? We’ve invested billions of dollars and thousands of precious lives – for what?

The truth is it is no coincidence that the more troops we send the worse things get. Things are getting worse precisely because we are sending more troops and escalating the violence. We are hoping that good leadership wins out in Afghanistan, but the pool of potential honest leaders from which to draw have been fleeing the violence, leaving a tremendous power vacuum behind. War does not quell bad leaders. It creates them. And the more war we visit on this country, the more bad leaders we will inadvertently create.

Another thing that war does is create anger with its indiscriminate violence and injustice. How many innocent civilians have been harmed from clumsy bombings and mistakes that end up costing lives? People die from simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time in a war zone, but the killers never face consequences. Imagine the resentment and anger survivors must feel when a family member is killed and nothing is done about it. When there are no other jobs available because all the businesses have fled, what else is there to do, but join ranks with the resistance where there is a paycheck and also an opportunity for revenge? This is no justification for our enemies over there, but we have to accept that when we push people, they will push back.

The real question is why are we there at all? What do our efforts now have to do with the original authorization of the use of force? We are no longer dealing with anything or anyone involved in the attacks of 9/11. At this point we are only strengthening the resolve and the ranks of our enemies. We have nothing left to win. We are only there to save face, and in the end we will not even be able to do that.

What if tomorrow morning you woke up to headlines that yet another Chinese drone bombing on US soil killed several dozen ranchers in a rural community while they were sleeping? That a drone aircraft had come across the Canadian border in the middle of the night and carried out the latest of many attacks?

What if it was claimed that many of the victims harbored anti-Chinese sentiments, but most of the dead were innocent women and children? And what if the Chinese administration, in an effort to improve its public image in the US, had approved an aid package to send funds to help with American roads and schools and promote Chinese values here?

Most Americans would not stand for it. Yet the above hypothetical events are similar to what our government is doing in Pakistan. Last week, Congress did approve an aid package for Pakistan for the stated purposes of improving our image and promoting democracy.

I again made the point on the floor of the House that still no one seems to hear: What if this happened on US soil? What if innocent Americans were being killed in repeated drone attacks carried out by some foreign force who was trying to fix our problems for us? Would sending money help their image? If another nation committed this type of violence and destruction on our homeland, would we be at all interested in adopting their values?

Sadly, one thing that has entirely escaped modern American foreign policy is empathy. Without much humility or regard for human life, our foreign policy has been reduced to alternately bribing and bombing other nations, all with the stated goal of “promoting democracy”.

But if a country democratically elects a leader who is not sufficiently pro-American, our government will refuse to recognize them, will impose sanctions on them, and will possibly even support covert efforts to remove them. Democracy is obviously not what we are interested in. It is more likely that our government is interested in imposing its will on other governments.

This policy of endless intervention in the affairs of others is very damaging to American liberty and security.

If we were really interested in democracy, peace, prosperity and safety, we would pursue more free trade with other countries. Free and abundant trade is much more conducive to peace because it is generally bad business to kill your customers. When one’s livelihood is on the line, and the business agreements are mutually beneficial, it is in everyone’s best interests to maintain cooperative and friendly relations and not kill each other. But instead, to force other countries to bend to our will, we impose trade barriers and sanctions.

If our government really wanted to promote freedom, Americans would be free to travel and trade with whoever they wished. And, if we would simply look at our own policies around the world through the eyes of others, we would understand how these actions make us more targeted and therefore less safe from terrorism.

The only answer is get back to free trade with all and entangling alliances with none. It is our bombs and sanctions and condescending aid packages that isolate us.

Well, Dr. Paul has tried this variants of this theme multiple times before over the past 30 years. For instance, HR 1148 was introduced in 1999 to abolish the Federal Reserve and obtained a whopping zero co-sponsors. This was repeated in HR 2755 in 2007. Result? Zero co-sponsors. Paul’s new clever strategy has been to extremely limit the scope of the bill – just audit the books of the FED, nothing more – and has been able to tap into the wide-ranging dissatisfaction surrounding the October 2008 banker bailout, the Obama stimulus plan, and the outright socialization of our banking, auto, and insurance sectors.

It only takes half a brain and a pulse to get angry about the fact that the central bankers gave the American people the equivalent of a middle finger on Bloomberg’s Freedom of Information Act request. The FED denied to disclose how they used $2 trillion dollars in open market operations that they executed outside of Congressional authority. Congress has no clue how the FED used the money either since that is not how the FED works.  Without an audit, Congress also has no clue how much gold our nation owns. (photo)

So what’s the big picture? Basically, the legislative process in Washington is usually as slow as molasses, and most bills die in committee with the obvious exceptions of very long lobbyist bills like the USA PATRIOT Act and urgent banker bailout-stimulus plans that no one in Congress admittedly even has time to read before voting on them. Ron Paul is a veteran legislator, and most of his bills this decade are quite short – HR 1207 is 446 words – and follows the K.I.S.S. Principle: Keep It Simple Stupid. Obviously he has not had a lot of success, but that’s mostly been due to lack of cooperation.

In the case of HR 1207, Paul has chosen this battleground wisely – who wants to be on the “No” side with all of the popular sentiment against it? Campaign for Liberty and Liberty Maven, two sites that publish my articles, and many more like-minded sites have thrown all their momentum into winning this one small battle. Galvanized supporters have watched in awe as the number of co-sponsors rise from 11 to 33 to 88 to 134 at present, an impressive feat.

The New American recently quoted Austrian economist Thomas Woods’s doubts as saying, “[The FED] is too complicated for most Americans. This isn’t going to galvanize people. I was wrong! He’s taken an issue that wasn’t even an issue, and he’s got a lot of Americans suddenly fascinated by the Fed, by monetary policy, by the Austrian business cycle theory.”  My thoughts are that Woods is severely underestimating both the number and intelligence of Paul’s supporters, especially when it is so apparent our future prosperity as a society is at stake.

The fight to pass HR 1207 by the House is winnable. Even if it fails, the rEVOLution will have learned a very important fact – which of the Representatives on either the Financial Services committee or in the House itself can be viewed as domestic enemies.

Disdain for what the FED has done to the American people is one of the reasons I am running for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 15th district, and also why I have contacted my current representative multiple times to co-sign HR 1207. I published my latest letter to him, and a reader asked the following questions. As a wanna-be Congressman, I thought I would take a shot at answering them!

Q: “What does it take to get this bill out of committee and on the floor of the House for a vote?”

A: The bill is currently in committee and must pass before a House vote can be called. It is possible the bill will be tabled, or die, while in committee. To pass, the committee must have quorum – the necessary amount of representatives present to vote on it. The exact number needed to obtain a quorum is determined by each committee. Passing requires a majority of those in attendance at committee before moving to a House vote where a simple majority is needed – this is democracy at work! This process is described here, see page 21/67.

Q: “How many co-sponsors does it need to force that? Or does that even matter?”

A: The number of co-sponsors does not matter. However, it does indicate the expected minimum support a bill will receive on the House floor, so is a key indicator while in committee. While bills are in committee, they can be marked up and amended, which is why the simplicity of Paul’s bill is key.

Q: “Is it really a matter of getting Barney Frank to move it to the House for a vote? What’s the process? Does anyone know?”

A: Representative Barney Frank, D-MA, is the chair of the Financial Services committee of 70 representatives. He has not co-signed the bill, and traditionally is allied closely with the banking special interests and the FED, so no cooperation can be expected from him.  Several weeks ago, Frank spoke about Paul, HR 1207, and committee politics – while boldly proclaiming that there is no inflation.

It is my guess that Campaign for Liberty and Ron Paul will take their time to have their supporters keep banging away on their local representatives to rachet the number of co-sponsors higher. Over 150 would be impressive, to say the least. At this point, page 20/67 states:

“Three or more members of a standing committee may file with the committee a written request that the chairman call a special meeting… If the chairman does not call the requested special meeting within three calendar days after the filing of the request, to be held within seven calendar days after the filing of the request, a majority of the members of the committee may call the special meeting by filing with the committee written notice… “

Since there are already three co-signers, the first step can be completed at any time. However, I think it would be best to target the remaining 6 of 29 Republicans on the committee who have not co-signed and try to pick up more than one Democrat (the other 40 have not co-signed) before proceeding. These six possible Republican banker-buddies are located in the states of NJ, NY, CA, and PA and here is a downloadable interactive list. Supporters of HR 1207 should contact any red-listed member as a top-priority (see below).

Rely on sites like Campaign for Liberty and Liberty Maven to keep up with the current status. When the bill goes to committee, it will be time to melt the phone wires on the phones of those Financial Services members still in red.

HR 1207 is not just an audit of the FED, it is an audit of your local Representative!

The United States has reported the largest reserves – over 8,100 tons, but GATA (the Gold Anti-Trust Committee) reports these holdings may not exist as they are strangely reported as “Deep Storage Gold.” 

Congressman Ron Paul’s bill, HR 1207, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, will audit the Federal Reserve, including our gold supply.  This week over 20 more co-sponsors joined, bringing the bill to 88 co-sponsors.

From my experiences of having lived in Shanghai, China for the past 3-4 years and having read the IMF reporting rules, I have the following comments:

1. China has a lot more gold than this doubling of their official reserves – for instance any state bank holdings are not reported to the IMF. One day the world will wake up and realize India and China possess a large amount of the gold in the world.
2. The timing of this announcement is, of course, an eco-political power play.  The gold price and the shrinking future spreads will be key to watch.
3. From 2006 through mid-2008 you could buy gold in the bank shops, and at banks, but this was fairly difficult to do.  In mid-2008, a massive propaganda campaign hit the major banks, with gold displays in bank lobbies and active advertisements.
4. Asian populations have a deep cultural appreciation and respect for gold as money, unlike most Americans.
5. China took over the title of world’s largest gold mine producer from South Africa last year.

As the integrity of the US banking system is compromised, private citizens should consider becoming their own central banks.  The days of irredeemable paper fiat currencies may be approaching its end, and there is a reason why the central banks hold gold – it is their default insurance.

Do not be fooled, the gold reserves of central banks are their actual Money.  Debt-based paper dollars, yen, pounds are all just ridiculous currencies, sad shadowy mirrors of their former selves, which is gold and silver coin.

So, got gold?

In the short 446-word bill found here, Representative Paul outlays the plan to enable the Comptroller General of the GAO (Government Accountability Office) to audit the Federal Reserve system before the end of 2010.  Per the Federal Reserve, “Monetary policy is exempt from audit by the Government Accountability Office.” - (page 15/146)  This audit should also include an audit of the Federal Reserve’s gold holdings.

Paul’s bill was co-signed by 11 colleagues, listed below. (emblem)

Rep. Lynn Woolsey [D-CA] 

As posted at lewrockwell.com, Paul gave the following speech:

Madame Speaker,

I rise to introduce the Federal Reserve Transparency Act. Throughout its nearly 100-year history, the Federal Reserve has presided over the near-complete destruction of the United States dollar. Since 1913 the dollar has lost over 95% of its purchasing power, aided and abetted by the Federal Reserve’s loose monetary policy. How long will we as a Congress stand idly by while hard-working Americans see their savings eaten away by inflation? Only big-spending politicians and politically favored bankers benefit from inflation.

Serious discussion of proposals to oversee the Federal Reserve is long overdue. I have been a longtime proponent of more effective oversight and auditing of the Fed, but I was far from the first Congressman to advocate these types of proposals. Esteemed former members of the Banking Committee such as Chairmen Wright Patman and Henry B. Gonzales were outspoken critics of the Fed and its lack of transparency.

Since its inception, the Federal Reserve has always operated in the shadows, without sufficient scrutiny or oversight of its operations. While the conventional excuse is that this is intended to reduce the Fed’s susceptibility to political pressures, the reality is that the Fed acts as a foil for the government. Whenever you question the Fed about the strength of the dollar, they will refer you to the Treasury, and vice versa. The Federal Reserve has, on the one hand, many of the privileges of government agencies, while retaining benefits of private organizations, such as being insulated from Freedom of Information Act requests.

The Federal Reserve can enter into agreements with foreign central banks and foreign governments, and the GAO is prohibited from auditing or even seeing these agreements. Why should a government-established agency, whose police force has federal law enforcement powers, and whose notes have legal tender status in this country, be allowed to enter into agreements with foreign powers and foreign banking institutions with no oversight? Particularly when hundreds of billions of dollars of currency swaps have been announced and implemented, the Fed’s negotiations with the European Central Bank, the Bank of International Settlements, and other institutions should face increased scrutiny, most especially because of their significant effect on foreign policy. If the State Department were able to do this, it would be characterized as a rogue agency and brought to heel, and if a private individual did this he might face prosecution under the Logan Act, yet the Fed avoids both fates.

More importantly, the Fed’s funding facilities and its agreements with the Treasury should be reviewed. The Treasury’s supplementary financing accounts that fund Fed facilities allow the Treasury to funnel money to Wall Street without GAO or Congressional oversight. Additional funding facilities, such as the Primary Dealer Credit Facility and the Term Securities Lending Facility, allow the Fed to keep financial asset prices artificially inflated and subsidize poorly performing financial firms.

The Federal Reserve Transparency Act would eliminate restrictions on GAO audits of the Federal Reserve and open Fed operations to enhanced scrutiny. We hear officials constantly lauding the benefits of transparency and especially bemoaning the opacity of the Fed, its monetary policy, and its funding facilities. By opening all Fed operations to a GAO audit and calling for such an audit to be completed by the end of 2010, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act would achieve much-needed transparency of the Federal Reserve. I urge my colleagues to support this bill. (photo)

Those wishing to contact their Representatives in Congress may do so. My recommended method is to join DownsizeDC.org and fill out a response letter from this letter campaign on unfunded liabilities which takes only a moment after a short sign-up process.  Depending on your principles, using the “End the Inflation Tax” in support of honest money or “End the FED” may also be appropriate.

The time to be silent has long since passed.  To paraphrase Edmund Burke,  “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing.”