Ron Paul has claimed that he receives more money from active duty military than all of the other remaining Republican candidates put together. Many people who believe the pundits when they insist Paul's foreign policy is dangerous and naive wonder if Paul's claim is true. Well, it is.
In fact, Paul was being modest; he could have further detailed that he actually received five times more than Romney, Gingrich, and Santorum (from January 2011 to September 2011) -- put together. You can even throw in military donations for Obama in with the Republican candidates, and Paul still beats all of them. It was the same story for Paul in 2007-2008. In the fourth quarter of 2007 alone, Paul raised $212,000 from active military; Obama was second with $94,000. Mitt Romney's top three donors during the 2012 campaign season came from Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse Group, and Morgan Stanley. Ron Paul's top three? Army, Navy, and Air Force.
Of course, just because Paul receives more campaign donations from active duty military does not mean he has nailed down every single veteran's vote or that the veterans that support him speak for everyone in the military. A Boston Globe article on Saturday surmised that Paul may do better with post-9/11 veterans "who are emblematic of the generational divide over the role of the military" than older "Cold War" veterans. But Paul is clearly the chosen leader among veterans and has received substantial support from both active duty military and veterans of all eras. There are tens of thousands of veterans supporting him on various Facebook pages (far more than I could find for any other candidate), and they are certainly from more than just post-9/11.
So in light of these facts, it is even more shocking that Fox News ran two segments (one Friday and one on Sunday) about which candidate veterans support, and yet failed to have a veteran on who supported Paul, when they had one each for Romney, for Gingrich, and for Santorum in both segments. Fox News did ask one of the veterans about Paul on Friday, to which she replied that she doubted Paul's claim about receiving more money from the military than the other candidates was even true. Fox did not correct her with any facts, and since they didn't have a Paul supporter on no one could dispute what she said. So once again, either Fox is showing their ugly prejudice towards Ron Paul or they are just really inept at doing their job and finding veterans who support him.
Now I don't have network research resources at my disposal, but just by doing a little research on my own I was quickly able to find and contact not one, but two veterans willing to talk to me about Ron Paul.
Ed Riccardi of Irving, Texas served in the US Army Infantry and Field Artillery D.I. from 1987 to 1997. He told Examiner on Monday, "Fox News has reaffirmed the fact that the media works diligently to marginalize Paul's candidacy and impact. They like to deify the military as sacrificial lambs but are not interested in letting their true voice be heard."
Since Fox News has not lived up to its "Fair and Balanced" slogan and has denied veterans who support Ron Paul an equal voice on their show, their voices are welcome here.
Kurtis Constantine, 35, of Herriman, Utah, served in the Air Force from 1994 to 2004. For six years he served in Security Forces (the Air Force's Military Police) and four years in the Office of Special Investigations specializing in counter-terrorism, narcotics, and child exploitation investigations. He seconded Riccardi's thoughts: "I'm not surprised they didn't have a Paul supporter on to debate the other military members. They were all spouting the talking points of candidates that want to demonstrate America's greatness through intimidation and by acting as the policeman of the world."
Constantine currently works as Director of Quality Systems at Merit Medical and is running for the Utah House of Representatives this year (in District 52) and will also be running to be a national delegate. He told Examiner that he first decided to support Paul in 2007. During that election cycle, he had started out supporting John McCain because of his military background, but he began to have doubts once he realized he didn't agree with him on many of the issues. After complaining to a friend that he didn't feel any of the candidates represented his views, his friend suggested he learn more about Ron Paul (like Constantine, Paul is also an Air Force veteran). He sent Constantine an hour long video about Paul, and at first he was reluctant to watch it, but he decided that he should learn as much as possible about all of the candidates.
He said,
I remember watching that video and cheering because I could not believe there was a candidate that could talk plainly about fiscal issues and foreign policy in a way that reflected my beliefs -- that we should stop spending money we don't have, and we should stop being the policeman of the world!
He continued,
Many people say they disagree with Ron Paul on his "foreign policy." They seem to think for some reason that he wants to turn our back on Israel and ignore Iran. This couldn't be further from the truth. He believes that we should stop providing aid to all countries for political purposes. For example, we give Israel billions in aid and then give their adversaries billions more in aid. We destabilize regions when we overthrow regimes, install puppet governments only to turn around years later and overthrow them again.
Ron Paul is the only candidate that acknowledges the fact that our actions around the world have repercussions, or "blow back." For example, the 9/11 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia. They stated their reason for attacking America was because of our military bases in the "holy lands" of Saudi Arabia. However, Americans were told they attacked us because of our prosperity and freedom. This is simply not the case. How would we feel if the Chinese or Iranians had bases in America? I suspect that some of us would go to extremes to make them realize we want them out of our country.
Constantine pointed out that Ron Paul understands that war is big business – especially undeclared wars. He served under the Clinton administration and watched military spending get cut severely. He remembers that in 1999 into early 2001 it was almost impossible to get the equipment and supplies they needed. After 9/11, he says they had more money than they could spend. "The war machine kicked into overdrive and has stayed there for 11 years. What other reason could there be for us to go into Iraq and Afghanistan, other than to feed the war machine? Again, I agree with Ron Paul that there was no strategic interest in those countries and no threat to our national security."
Riccardi, of Texas, said that he is tired of hearing people say they like Paul except for foreign policy. He said,
I think Ron Paul will be the most unifying president this country has ever seen and for all the right reasons. He is a leader with integrity and honesty -- this is a pretty alien concept in our culture. All Americans will benefit from a Paul presidency. The only ones that won't are selling something or addicted to the status quo.
Constantine believes as Ron Paul does, that we should not be committing our soldiers' lives and our nation's treasure to wars without a declaration of war. He said he believes that is the reason Paul gets more donations from the military than all of the other candidates combined. "Soldiers want to be defending our country, not sent to die in some country with no strategic value so a military industrial company's shareholders are happy."
He said he likes Paul's humble approach to foreign policy:
We should strive for peace and commerce with all, entangling alliances with none. When a country threatens our national security we go to war with a constitutional declaration of war. When we want to hunt down terrorists, we do so with constitutional Letters of Marque and Reprisal.
When considering why Paul receives so much more money from active duty military than the other candidates, Riccardi was reminded of something General Douglas MacArthur once said:
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
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