RUSSIA TODAY ANCHOR: Do you feel like Washington has lost its legitimacy to lecture other countries on international law and democracy?



RON PAUL: For me they have, but the people still listen, power speaks, and economic power a bit, but it’s sort of the nature of government. I don’t find any of the governments as being sacred and always being upfront with the people, so I see it as the problem, with too much government everywhere. So I deal with too much government here, and yes, I think there was a lot of deception going on with Iraq – I strongly opposed that - Afghanistan, Syria.



I want our government to have better trade relations with Cuba and Iran and all these things. But to lecture other people – I would think that there is going to be one day some built-up hostility redirected at US, because right now there is not much people can do, because we still are very powerful, but people do resent these things and they harbor them – look how long the Iranians resented the fact that we installed this Shah there back in 1953.



So memories last a long time and that’s why I think that interventionist foreign policy on our part is not good for us, no matter what the argument is, and there is always the justification for why we need to do it, for national security, and for the various reasons. But everybody, whether in the US or any place in the world, they should be very cautious when their government tries to tell them that they are the absolute arbiter of the truth. For the most part, governments protect themselves and this is why we need more whistleblowers, and more information circulating around the world, so the people can make much better choices on who to believe and what to do with their own government.