LAKE JACKSON, Texas - Today, 2012 Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul issued a statement on the situation in Libya. See comments below.

"The current situation in Libya may be a short term victory for Empire, but it is a loss for our American Republic. And, I fear it may be devastating to the Libyan people.

"There is no doubt that Moammar Gadhafi is a bad guy, and that he has brought harm and misery to his country. However, our involvement in another country's civil war is costly and unconstitutional.

"We have spent over $1 billion on a war that this administration has fought not with the consent of Congress but under a NATO flag and authorization from the United Nations.

"It is a serious thing for a President to engage us in a war. He is bound by our Constitution to seek authority from the People, through our Congress, prior to engaging in any military action unless that action is to address an imminent threat to our safety and security. The situation in Libya is a civil war contained within that country's sovereign borders, and it presented no imminent threat to the United States.

"And so, our government continues to spend trillions of dollars in overseas foreign wars while we face unsustainable debt, a looming dollar crisis, and our Constitution seems to lose any meaning. These actions will sink our country if we do not reverse course.

"Meanwhile, we must beware of any 'Mission Accomplished' euphoria. The conflict in Libya is far from over, and there could very well be war in Libya for a long time to come.

"While I hope and pray that the hostility draws to a close and the people there find peace, I fear this is only wishful thinking. We face a situation where a rebel element we have been assisting may very well be radical jihadists, bent on our destruction, and placed in positions of power in a new government.

"Worse still, Gadhafi's successor is likely to be just as bad, or worse, than Gadhafi himself.   Alternately, Libya may descend into anarchy like Somalia after the overthrow of dictator Siad Barre.  Much like when we removed Saddam Hussein, another thug in Iraq, the likelihood of either a new brutal dictatorship or tribal violence and a protracted insurgency are much more likely than the peaceful transition to democracy we are all hoping for.

"With all these problems and the predictable chaos that will likely ensue, we must ask why this administration was so eager to embark on this Libyan operation in the name of 'humanitarianism.' Governments in Bahrain and Yemen have this year used military force to put down democratic protestors. The Saudi regime, which practices Sharia Law, has also been repressive, yet we have not intervened there. These countries continue to sell us oil, while Libya had begun to turn their exports toward Russia, China, India, and Brazil. Could this war largely be about protecting our oil interests at the expense of our Constitution?

"This episode is all too familiar. We were already involved in two wars that have dragged on years longer than the people who led us into them initially predicted.  We can no longer afford to police the world, in terms of both dollars and American lives. We will destroy ourselves if we do not stop, build a strong national defense at home, and focus on trade and commerce with the world instead of Empire."

LAKE JACKSON, Texas - In a new Gallup survey , 2012 Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul takes third place among top GOP contenders and is within striking distance of second. The results, which are based on a survey of Republican and Republican-leaning independents, have Paul at 13 percent and ahead of most of the Republican primary field. These results come just a day after a newly released  Rasmussen poll showed him within 1 percent of President Obama in a head-to-head match up.

"The campaign is continuing to pick up momentum and energy," said Ron Paul 2012 Campaign Manager John Tate. "Dr. Paul is gaining ground in poll after poll, affirming that people are looking for real change instead of the status quo they are being offered from the establishment candidates."

Paul is coming off a strong finish in the Iowa Straw Poll, where he barely missed the top spot by less than one percent. In addition, recent surveys taken in both New Hampshire and Iowa show the Congressman in the top three of Republican contenders.

Another recent Gallup survey, conducted August 17-18, shows Paul only 2 points behind Obama in a general election match-up. In a similar head to head survey from last year done by Rasmussen, Paul actually drew a statistical dead heat with the President. And earlier this year in a survey by CNN, he did the best out of the other Republicans put up against Obama in a head-to-head poll.

LAKE JACKSON, Texas - Today, the Ron Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign released a schedule of campaign stops for this weekend. Paul will visit both New Hampshire and Iowa, marking his first visit back to the Hawkeye State since his historic showing at the Ames Straw Poll.

LAKE JACKSON, Texas - The Ron Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign announced today that constitutional and international law expert Bruce Fein will join the campaign as senior advisor on legal matters.

"Bruce Fein's participation adds to our campaign's already intellectual heft, enabling us to more broadly engage the conversation about constitutionality, civil liberties and the dangers to national security of an increasingly interventionist foreign policy," said Ron Paul 2012 Campaign Chairman Jesse Benton.

Mr. Fein served as associate deputy attorney and general counsel to the Federal Communications Commission under President Ronald Reagan.  He served as Research Director for Republicans on the Joint Congressional Committee on Covert Arms Sales to Iran, and on the American Bar Associations Committee on Presidential Signing Statements.  He has been a Visiting Fellow for Constitutional Studies at the Heritage Foundation and an adjunct scholar at American Enterprise Institute.  He has advised numerous countries on constitutional reform, including South Africa, Hungary and Russia.

Mr. Fein graduated from Harvard Law School with honors in 1972.  He has worked in and out of government in Washington, D.C. for 39 years, and penned a weekly column for The Washington Times for more than two decades.  He is a frequent witness before Congress.

Mr. Fein is the founding member of Bruce Fein & Associates, Inc., and is a principal of a public advocacy organization, The Lichfield Group.

He is the author of Constitutional Peril:  The Life and Death Struggle for our Constitution and Democracy, andAmerican Empire Before The Fall.

About his appointment, Mr. Fein stated:  "I am honored to advance the Republican presidential aspirations of Ron Paul.  He is the only candidate in the field who understands and practices the constitutional principles and philosophy of the Founding Fathers that made this nation a government of the people, by the people, for the people.  He is the only candidate who knows that limited government and war are antonyms, not synonyms.  He is the only candidate who repudiates aimless, endless wars at extravagant expense.  And Dr. Paul is the only candidate that recognizes that the glory of a Republic is liberty, not domination."