In fact; Ron Paul voted with most of the House to authorize use of force in retaliation against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
He pointed out in his book, however, that the more correct response would have been to issue letters of marque and reprisal, which would have been directed at the perpetrators. Doing so would have been the Constitutional response. In case you are not aware, letters such as those would have authorized third-party agents to kill or bring to justice the actual criminals.
What is bogus about the WOT is that it is not defined in scope, nor is the enemy clearly defined, and there is no clearly identified stage at which anybody could say "we won". The war on drugs has cost us lives and tons of money over the past 30 years, and the only measureable result is that drugs are now worth so much that the cartels can field small armies, bribe many in law enforcement and judges. The ones that can't be bought or simply killed. Meanwhile, we have seen an increase in drug traffic, rather than any decrease. I'm afraid that the "war on terror" will be pretty much the same thing.
If only the leaders and soldiers of Al Qaeda were the ones who are killed, no problem, however innocent civilians are also killed. Which serves mainly to recruit more soldiers.
The world hates us because we somehow see it our business to interfere with their internal affairs, asked or not.
We "defeated" the Soviet Union by forcing them to spend more than they could afford. Do you want that same fate to befall the U.S.?
“The actual criminals...” This makes it sound like if we find the one or two people who actually plotted the attack, that that would take care of the problem. That is delusional. In fact, the problems is the insane Islamofascists who want to kill us, not because we’re American, but because we’re not Islamofascists. The WOT is not defined in scope - cannot be - because the terrorists are fighting us on numerous fronts - they are amorphous, so we have to fight them as and where we need to. It seems to me that we have done a lot to put a dent in Al Qaeda, having killed many of their leaders, including Osama bin Laden. Yes, innocent citizens are killed, unfortunately - that’s war. You act as if they are going to simply stop bothering us if we “mind our own business.” We were minding our own business on 911 and look where it got us. Should we stay in Afghanistan indefinitely? No, but we also shouldnt have to fight a war with one hand tied behind our back and read a terrorist his nonexistent Miranda “rights.” My beef with you Ron Paul people is that you blame the US, just like the Democrats - in that respect you’re no different.