Category Archives: Foreign Policy
Lew Rockwell: Another Nail in the Neocon Coffin
The recent opening of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity was a watershed moment in American history. There has never been anything quite like it. Ideologically diverse, the Ron Paul Institute reaches out to all Americans, and indeed to people all over the world, who find the spectrum of foreign-policy opinion in the United States to be unreasonably narrow. Until Ron Paul and his new institute, there was no resolutely anti-interventionist foreign-policy organization to be found.
Neoconservatives have not responded warmly to the announcement of Ron’s new institute. Whatever their particular gripes, we can be absolutely certain of the real reason for their unhappiness: they have never faced systematic, organized opposition before.
The Democrats would see the earth tumble into the sun before supporting nonintervention abroad, so they pose no fundamental problem for the neocons. Ron Paul, on the other hand, is real opposition, and he can mobilize an army. The neocons know it. What’s Tim Pawlenty up to these days? Where are his legions of well-read young fans who seek to carry on his philosophy? You see the point.
For the first time, strict nonintervention will have a permanent voice in American life. It is another nail in the neocon coffin. The neocons know they are losing the young. Bright kids who believe in freedom aren’t rallying to Mitt Romney or David Horowitz, and, like anyone with a critical mind and a moral compass, they are not going along with the regime’s war propaganda.
At this historic moment, I thought it might be appropriate to set down some thoughts on war – a manifesto for peace, as it were.
(1) Our rulers are not a law unto themselves.
Our warmakers believe they are exempt from normal moral rules. Because they are at war, they get to suspend all decency, all the norms that govern the conduct and interaction of human beings in all other circumstances. The anodyne term “collateral damage,” along with perfunctory and meaningless words of regret, are employed when innocent civilians, including children, are maimed and butchered. A private individual behaving this way would be called a sociopath. Give him a fancy title and a nice suit, and he becomes a statesman.
Let us pursue the subversive mission of applying the same moral rules against theft, kidnapping, and murder to our rulers that we apply to everyone else.
(2) Humanize the demonized.
We must encourage all efforts to humanize the populations of countries in the crosshairs of the warmakers. The general public is whipped into a war frenzy without knowing the first thing – or hearing only propaganda – about the people who will die in that war. The establishment’s media won’t tell their story, so it is up to us to use all the resources we as individuals have, especially online, to communicate the most subversive truth of all: that the people on the other side are human beings, too. This will make it marginally more difficult for the warmakers to carry out their Two Minutes’ Hate, and can have the effect of persuading Americans with normal human sympathies to distrust the propaganda that surrounds them.
(3) If we oppose aggression, let us oppose all aggression.
If we believe in the cause of peace, putting a halt to aggressive violence between nations is not enough. We should not want to bring about peace overseas in order that our rulers may turn their guns on peaceful individuals at home. Away with all forms of aggression against peaceful people.
(4) Never use “we” when speaking of the government.
The people and the warmakers are two distinct groups. We must never say “we” when discussing the US government’s foreign policy. For one thing, the warmakers do not care about the opinions of the majority of Americans. It is silly and embarrassing for Americans to speak of “we” when discussing their government’s foreign policy, as if their input were necessary to or desired by those who make war.
But it is also wrong, not to mention mischievous. When people identify themselves so closely with their government, they perceive attacks on their government’s foreign policy as attacks on themselves. It then becomes all the more difficult to reason with them – why, you’re insulting my foreign policy!
Likewise, the use of “we” feeds into war fever. “We” have to get “them.” People root for their governments as they would for a football team. And since we know ourselves to be decent and good, “they” can only be monstrous and evil, and deserving of whatever righteous justice “we” dispense to them.
The antiwar left falls into this error just as often. They appeal to Americans with a catalogue of horrific crimes “we” have committed. But we haven’t committed those crimes. The same sociopaths who victimize Americans themselves every day, and over whom we have no real control, committed those crimes.
(4) War is not “good for the economy.”
A commitment to peace is a wonderful thing and worthy of praise, but it needs to be coupled with an understanding of economics. A well-known US senator recently deplored cuts in military spending because “when you cut military spending you lose jobs.” There is no economic silver lining to war or to preparation for war.
Those who would tell us that war brings prosperity are grossly mistaken, even in the celebrated case of World War II. The particular stimulus that war gives to certain sectors of the economy comes at the expense of civilian needs, and directs resources away from the improvement of the common man’s standard of living.
Ludwig von Mises, the great free-market economist, wrote, that “war prosperity is like the prosperity that an earthquake or a plague brings. The earthquake means good business for construction workers, and cholera improves the business of physicians, pharmacists, and undertakers; but no one has for that reason yet sought to celebrate earthquakes and cholera as stimulators of the productive forces in the general interest.”
Elsewhere, Mises described the essence of so-called war prosperity: it “enriches some by what it takes from others. It is not rising wealth but a shifting of wealth and income.”
(5) Support the free market? Then oppose war.
Ron Paul has restored the proper association of capitalism with peace and nonintervention. Leninists and other leftists, burdened by a false understanding of economics and the market system, used to claim that capitalism needed war, that alleged “overproduction” of goods forced market societies to go abroad – and often to war – in search for external markets for their excess goods.
This was always economic nonsense. It was political nonsense, too: the free market needs no parasitical institution to grease the skids for international commerce, and the same philosophy that urges nonaggression among individual human beings compels nonaggression between geographical areas.
—–
Click below for the full article.
http://www.24hgold.com/english/news-gold-silver-another-nail-in-the-neocon-coffin.aspx?article=4355092296G10020&redirect=false&contributor=Lew+Rockwell
NY Times: U.S. Engaged in Torture After 9/11, Review Concludes
A nonpartisan, independent review of interrogation and detention programs in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks concludes that “it is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture” and that the nation’s highest officials bore ultimate responsibility for it.
The sweeping, 600-page report says that while brutality has occurred in every American war, there never before had been “the kind of considered and detailed discussions that occurred after 9/11 directly involving a president and his top advisers on the wisdom, propriety and legality of inflicting pain and torment on some detainees in our custody.” The study, by an 11-member panel convened by the Constitution Project, a legal research and advocacy group, is to be released on Tuesday morning.
Debate over the coercive interrogation methods used by the administration of President George W. Bush has often broken down on largely partisan lines. The Constitution Project’s task force on detainee treatment, led by two former members of Congress with experience in the executive branch — a Republican, Asa Hutchinson, and a Democrat, James R. Jones — seeks to produce a stronger national consensus on the torture question.
While the task force did not have access to classified records, it is the most ambitious independent attempt to date to assess the detention and interrogation programs. A separate 6,000-page report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s record by the Senate Intelligence Committee, based exclusively on agency records, rather than interviews, remains classified.
“As long as the debate continues, so too does the possibility that the United States could again engage in torture,” the report says.
The use of torture, the report concludes, has “no justification” and “damaged the standing of our nation, reduced our capacity to convey moral censure when necessary and potentially increased the danger to U.S. military personnel taken captive.” The task force found “no firm or persuasive evidence” that these interrogation methods produced valuable information that could not have been obtained by other means. While “a person subjected to torture might well divulge useful information,” much of the information obtained by force was not reliable, the report says.
Interrogation and abuse at the C.I.A.’s so-called black sites, the Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba and war-zone detention centers, have been described in considerable detail by the news media and in declassified documents, though the Constitution Project report adds many new details.
It confirms a report by Human Rights Watch that one or more Libyan militants were waterboarded by the C.I.A., challenging the agency’s longtime assertion that only three Al Qaeda prisoners were subjected to the near-drowning technique. It includes a detailed account by Albert J. Shimkus Jr., then a Navy captain who ran a hospital for detainees at the Guantánamo Bay prison, of his own disillusionment when he discovered what he considered to be the unethical mistreatment of prisoners.
But the report’s main significance may be its attempt to assess what the United States government did in the years after 2001 and how it should be judged. The C.I.A. not only waterboarded prisoners, but slammed them into walls, chained them in uncomfortable positions for hours, stripped them of clothing and kept them awake for days on end.
The question of whether those methods amounted to torture is a historically and legally momentous issue that has been debated for more than a decade inside and outside the government. The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel wrote a series of legal opinions from 2002 to 2005 concluding that the methods were not torture if used under strict rules; all the memos were later withdrawn. News organizations have wrestled with whether to label the brutal methods unequivocally as torture in the face of some government officials’ claims that they were not.
In addition, the United States is a signatory to the international Convention Against Torture, which requires the prompt investigation of allegations of torture and the compensation of its victims.
—–
Click below for the full article.
Fox News Fail: George W. Bush has saved more lives than any American president
We aren’t going to post any of this gem of an article, but you can check it out at the link below. This one took the cake as the Fox News Fail of the week (and probably month), but there were plenty of other contenders as Fox News tries to help remake the image of George W. Bush, the President who pushed for the Unconstitutional Patriot Act, created the TSA and DHS, expanded the size of government, fought Unconstitutional wars while going back on 2000 campaign promises of his foreign policy, and whose reckless spending left America on a pathway to bankruptcy.
NOTE: Dana Perino’s take deserves honorable mention:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/04/23/my-favorite-memories-president-george-w-bush/
Steve Chapman of the Washington Examiner: Stay out of Syria
With the Iraq war behind us and our departure from Afghanistan underway, the United States could be entering a well-earned respite from fighting. But even before peace can take hold, hawks are singing the old country song: “I’ve enjoyed as much of this as I can stand.”
They see a way to escape in Syria, where rebels have been fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad for more than two years. For most of that time, Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina have been leading the call for U.S. military intervention — and President Barack Obama has been declining the invitation.
His critics, however, think they now have him where they want him. Obama earlier said that any use of chemical weapons by Assad would be a “game changer,” and last week, the White House said it thinks he’s used sarin gas, though it said further investigation would be needed.
Obama was careful in his Tuesday news conference to emphasize the uncertainties: “What we now have is evidence that chemical weapons have been used inside of Syria, but we don’t know how they were used, when they were used, who used them.”
So far he’s settled for a minimalist response: possibly sending weapons to the insurgents. He added that as a result of the gas attacks, “there are some options that we might not otherwise exercise that we would strongly consider.”
Strongly consider? My advice is to consider them till the cows come home — just don’t actually adopt them. The options at hand are generally dangerous, ineffectual or both.
Graham says the United States has to act because “the greatest risk is a failed state with chemical weapons falling in the hands of radical Islamists.” In reality, the greatest risk is putting our troops into a civil war where they could end up targeted by both sides, as we ingeniously arranged in Iraq. As we showed there, removing a dictator can unleash endless sectarian conflict. Fortunately, even McCain says he doesn’t favor American boots on the ground.
The preferred instrument of hawks is air power — to enforce a no-fly zone against the regime or destroy military assets. But it’s a lot easier said than done.
To begin with, Syria has one of the best air defense systems in the world, built with help from Russia. “Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, frequently singles out Mr. Assad’s air-defense prowess as the biggest single obstacle to U.S. intervention,” reports The Wall Street Journal. Casualty-free intervention, a la Libya, is not a realistic possibility in Syria.
Taking out Assad’s anti-aircraft batteries — or tanks, trucks and infantry — would inflict heavy casualties on the people we’d like to help. Much of the fighting takes place in cities, where civilians are dangerously exposed.
Even precision bombs launched from drones, notes University of Chicago scholar Robert Pape, author of “Bombing to Win,” have a blast radius of up to 50 feet, and their shock waves can easily bring down neighboring buildings. Our drone strikes in rural Pakistan do enough collateral damage to sow deep anger among the locals. In urban Syria, civilian fatalities would be far higher.
U.S. bombing might backfire by inducing the regime to make full use of its chemical weapons while it can. Air power also can’t head off the danger of those supplies falling into the hands of Islamic radicals. Bombing chemical weapons sites, even if we could identify them, would mean spewing deadly nerve agents over a wide area — which sort of resembles the outcome we’re trying to prevent.
But securing them from militants would require ground forces — as many as 75,000, according to the Pentagon. Transporting the stockpiles out of the country or destroying them would take a lot of troops and time. “There is no exit strategy with this option either,” says Michael Desch, a national security scholar at the University of Notre Dame.
—–
Click below for the full article.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/steve-chapman-stay-out-of-syria/article/2528663
The Week: Conservatives must end their incoherence on counter-terrorism
What do we stand for? It’s not easy to pin down, and that’s a major problem.
In politics, effective leadership requires more than passionate words. You also have to strategize toward an achievable end game. And you must communicate that plan and those goals to your constituents.
Nowhere is this disconnect more apparent than with counter-terrorism policy in America today. Nowhere is true leadership more greatly missed.
In the Bush years, America’s counter-terrorism strategy was driven by unapologetic strategic purpose — deterring state adversaries and defeating international terrorists. This was a worldview with a vision — more freedom would equal more peace. Whether you agreed with him or not, we all knew where George W. Bush stood with it came to fighting terrorists.
Today’s conservatives have failed to offer such a compelling and clear vision on counter-terrorism.
We can’t agree on the threat and how to handle it. We can’t agree on our objectives, and how to achieve them. What do we stand for? It’s not easy to pin down, and that’s a major problem.
Listening to some conservative politicians, you’d consider the Islamist terrorist threat as unitary in nature. But this understanding is neglectful of undeniable facts — the fact, for example, that Shia and Sunni extremists hate each other almost as much as they hate us. It’s not simply us vs. them. There are many thems, and sometimes, it’s them vs. them.
We conservatives have also allowed our counter-terrorism discourse to be tarred by sociopaths like Pamela Geller; deluded souls who see all Muslims as a threat. We have to be smarter and better than this.
We also need to get away from the common conservative belief that regards engagement with the Islamic world as unnecessary. The reverse is true. If we conservatives are silent, Muslims around the world hear only one voice from America — that of President Obama. And let’s face it — his message, even if it’s well-intentioned — is essentially one of equivocation. It breeds the false idea of an America without courage of conviction. An America unworthy of friendship and unworthy of respect.
It needn’t be this way.
Many commentators, especially on the left, believe that America is hated abroad because of our supposedly ill-conceived actions. In reality, though, we’re hated based on the false perception of some nefarious motive behind our actions. This is a critical distinction. We’re hated because instead of articulating why we support Israel, we just support Israel. We’re hated because instead of explaining why Guantanamo Bay must remain open, we just keep it open. We’re hated because we wage wars of liberation and then quietly wish for authoritarians. We constantly fail to justify our actions — even when clear justifications exist.
Conservatives need to step in and remedy this. Defending America doesn’t just require arms. It also requires explanation.
The urgency is profound. But first, we conservatives must get on the same page. And we must get serious.
—
Click below to read Tom Rogan’s article on The Week’s website.
Army says no to more tanks, but Congress insists
Built to dominate the enemy in combat, the Army’s hulking Abrams tank is proving equally hard to beat in a budget battle.
Lawmakers from both parties have devoted nearly half a billion dollars in taxpayer money over the past two years to build improved versions of the 70-ton Abrams.
But senior Army officials have said repeatedly, “No thanks.”
It’s the inverse of the federal budget world these days, in which automatic spending cuts are leaving sought-after pet programs struggling or unpaid altogether. Republicans and Democrats for years have fought so bitterly that lawmaking in Washington ground to a near-halt.
Yet in the case of the Abrams tank, there’s a bipartisan push to spend an extra $436 million on a weapon the experts explicitly say is not needed.
“If we had our choice, we would use that money in a different way,” Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army’s chief of staff, told The Associated Press this past week.
Why are the tank dollars still flowing? Politics.
Keeping the Abrams production line rolling protects businesses and good paying jobs in congressional districts where the tank’s many suppliers are located.
If there’s a home of the Abrams, it’s politically important Ohio. The nation’s only tank plant is in Lima. So it’s no coincidence that the champions for more tanks are Rep. Jim Jordan and Sen. Rob Portman, two of Capitol’s Hill most prominent deficit hawks, as well as Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. They said their support is rooted in protecting national security, not in pork-barrel politics.
“The one area where we are supposed to spend taxpayer money is in defense of the country,” said Jordan, whose district in the northwest part of the state includes the tank plant.
The Abrams dilemma underscores the challenge that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel faces as he seeks to purge programs that the military considers unnecessary or too expensive in order to ensure there’s enough money for essential operations, training and equipment.
Hagel, a former Republican senator from Nebraska, faces a daunting task in persuading members of Congress to eliminate or scale back projects favored by constituents.
Federal budgets are always peppered with money for pet projects. What sets the Abrams example apart is the certainty of the Army’s position.
—-
Well it seems that both the Republicans and Democrats still have their stake in the Military Industrial Complex. Click below for the full article.
http://www.newsday.com/news/nation/army-says-no-to-more-tanks-but-congress-insists-1.5155180
Motley Fool: The Contractors that Will Thrive in the Era of Defense Cutbacks
The United States has ended its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And the government is now enacting major cuts in defense spending. As a result, some of the biggest defense contractors now have reasons to be worried. There is less money for contractors but more competition for a smaller pool of money.
Companies that draw a lot of revenue from government contracting such as Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) must adjust. Lockheed currently gets over 80% of its revenue from defense contracts and its biggest contract is an $3.48 billion aircraft contract. However, defense spending is shifting away from traditional military hardware to cyber-security and drones. President Obama is boosting the Pentagon’s spending on cyber-security 21% this year, to $4.7 billion. The government plans to spend a total of $13 billion on cyber-security in 2013.
As a result, companies that are positioned to supply the government with cyber-warfare technology and consulting will do well. SAIC (NYSE: SAI), which is planning to spin its information technology services division off from its other businesses, is one example. Another is Booz Allen Hamilton (NYSE: BAH), one of the top firms for defense cyber-security contracting and the company that just got an $11 billion Homeland Security contract.
Unmanned drones are another field that is expanding as traditional warfare contracts dry up. Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC) can expect to benefit from this trend. Northrop continues to win contracts related to drones, including a $434 million support contract for its Global Hawk long-endurance drone and a $37 million engineering contract for the Hunter surveillance drone.
Others contractors aren’t holding their breath as the government focuses spending on protecting its computer networks and unmanned aerial vehicles. General Dynamics (NYSE: GD) gets almost two thirds of its revenue from U.S. government contracts. But it hopes to make up the expected gap in future defense earnings through its Gulfstream division which is performing well, especially in Asia.
All of these companies are now going to be fighting for government contracts that are smaller in size and focused on a different type of war. While Lockheed Martin is a necessity for supplying military hardware, it’s hard to see it growing in this new environment. Its business is too dependent on traditional warfare. They will need to start pivoting away from this in order to succeed.
SAIC could do well, especially when it completes its computer services spinoff — keep a very close eye on them. Booz Allen Hamilton is the company that probably has the best prospects of all the contractors here. Its focus on consulting has lower overhead and higher margins than other government-focused business. Plus, the cyber-security focus that it has is in very high demand right now.
Northrop Grumman will do well with its drone expertise, as its early development in this space will pay off enormously. General Dynamics, which is trying to compete in the drone space, has been touting its Gulfstream division, but its backlog for planes has been decreasing. The obvious truth is that it is going to win less government money than it did in the past and has not come up with a contingency plan yet.
—-
Click below for the full article.
Reuters: Republicans, U.S. lawmakers press Obama to take action on Syria
Republican senators on Sunday pressed U.S. President Barack Obama to intervene in Syria’s civil war, saying America could attack Syrian air bases with missiles but should not send in ground troops.
Pressure is mounting on the White House to do more to help Syrian rebels fighting against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, which the Obama administration last week said had probably used chemical arms in the conflict.
Neutralizing the government forces’ air advantage over the rebels “could turn the tide of battle pretty quickly,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“One way you can stop the Syrian air force from flying is to bomb the Syrian air bases with cruise missiles,” the South Carolina senator said.
Graham said international action was needed to bring the conflict to a close but “You don’t need boots on the ground from the U.S. point of view.”
More than 70,000 people have died in Syria’s two-year-old civil war. So far, the United States has limited its involvement to providing non-lethal aid to rebels.
Obama said on Friday the use of chemical weapons in Syria would be a “game changer” for the United States, but made clear he was in no rush to intervene on the basis of evidence he said was still preliminary.
The U.S. fears anti-Assad Islamist rebels affiliated to al Qaeda could seize the chemical weapons, and Washington and its allies have discussed scenarios where tens of thousands of ground troops go into Syria if Assad’s government falls.
INTERNATIONAL FORCE
Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate in 2008, said the United States should step up its support for Syrian rebels even if it turns out that Assad’s forces have not used poison gas in the conflict.
“We could use Patriot (missile) batteries and cruise missiles,” the Arizona lawmaker, an influential voice on military issues in the U.S. Senate, told NBC’s Meet The Press.
McCain said an “international force” should also be readied to go into Syria to secure stocks of chemical weapons.
“There are number of caches of these chemical weapons. They cannot fall into the hands of the jihadists,” he said.
—-
So the Republicans, or specifically the GOP Establishment, still believe that it is the obligation of the United States to police the world. What do you think? Click below for the full article.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/04/28/usa-syria-idINDEE93R05220130428
Reuters: Senator Paul stirs business ire over blocking of U.S. tax treaties
Senator Rand Paul is coming under pressure from some multi-national businesses to drop his opposition to tax treaties between the United States and other nations.
Citing privacy concerns about Americans’ tax data, Paul, a Republican and libertarian, has single-handedly blocked Senate action on treaties with Hungary, Switzerland and Luxembourg that have been signed by authorities on both sides, but have been awaiting Senate review since 2011.
At least six other tax treaties or treaty updates – with Chile, Spain, Poland, Japan, Norway and Britain – may soon be added to the Senate’s queue for confirmation votes.
Major U.S. businesses such as IBM Corp and Fluor Corp are lobbying for Senate action on tax treaties, according to Senate lobbying disclosure documents.
“How many treaties will be held hostage?” asked Cathy Schultz, a lobbyist for the National Foreign Trade Council, a Washington, D.C.-based group that represents companies such asCaterpillar Inc and Pfizer Inc.
Paul has said he is concerned that recent treaties would give foreign governments too much access to U.S. citizens’ tax information, a stance that has some support among like-minded conservative libertarians.
“Rand Paul is not a typical senator who may bend over to business lobbyists,” said Chris Edwards, director of tax policy at The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.
“I am very concerned about this increasingly aggressive international exchange of information,” Edwards said.
NO APPROVALS SINCE 2010
No new tax treaties or treaty updates have been approved since 2010, when Paul was elected as the junior senator from Kentucky on a wave of support for Tea Party-aligned Republicans.
Paul recently declined to answer questions from a reporter in a Capitol hallway about the “hold” he has placed on the treaties. Under Senate rules, one senator can prevent a motion from reaching a vote on the Senate floor.
Paul’s staff did not reply to repeated requests for comment.
“There’s never really been an objection of this sort and a hold that’s gone on this long,” said Nancy McLernon, president of the Organization for International Investment, which lobbies in Washington on behalf of foreign companies.
In an effort to sway the senator, McLernon said her group would be lobbying both parties to draw attention to the tax treaties. “Let’s stop with the self-inflicted wounds,” she said.
The United States has tax treaties with more than 60 countries, ranging from China to Kyrgyzstan.
The agreements previously have routinely won Senate approval with little controversy and accomplished their main purpose of preventing double-taxation of income and profits.
In recent years, tax treaties have begun to play an increasing role in efforts by the United States and major European Union countries to crack down on tax avoidance.
The U.S. Treasury in 2012 began signing new tax pacts with countries as part of implementation of the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, a 2010 anti-tax-evasion law.
The law, known as FATCA, which takes effect in January 2014, will require foreign financial institutions to disclose to the United States information about Americans’ accounts worth more than $50,000.
SWISS A DRIVING FORCE
Switzerland, a long-time bastion of banking secrecy, is under international pressure to change its ways, and FATCA has been a driving force in that. The United States and Switzerland in February signed a FATCA implementation agreement that would make more information available to U.S. authorities about the financial interests of Americans in Switzerland.
But the taxpayer information exchange cannot go into force without Senate approval of the U.S.-Swiss tax treaty.
The Senate’s delayed action on tax treaties could convince other countries to stop negotiating with the United States on tax matters, said John Harrington, a former Treasury tax official who is now a partner at law firm SNR Denton.
Paul, seen as a possible 2016 presidential contender, has taken a position that sets up a clash of traditional Republican interest groups: big business and libertarian ideologues.
—
Click below for the full article.