Posted on 09/07/2007 8:18:27 AM PDT by april15Bendovr
Ron Paul refuses to declare war against Al Qaeda terrorists in Iraq.
We have made it clear here at Free Republic that there is irrefutable documentation showing Saddam's WMD program and links to Al Qaeda under this section on the website
PreWarDocs
Ron Paul continues to appease our enemy.
I am officially posting a declaration of war against Ron RuPaul here at Free Republic on behalf of patriotic Americans who support our troops mission in Iraq.
Ron’s weekly message [5 minutes audio, every Monday]
No thanks.
I can get more information out of the new video from Bin Laden
“Ron Paul may go away, but he’s only a symptom...”
So was Ross Perot. Seen him lately?
So Dr Paul will build a bubble for the US?
Didn’t Mike Gravel propose a bubble for Alaska to fend off the harsh weather?
Paul/Gravel ‘08
Just occured to me it will be a very short war, cause Ron Paul won’t fight back, preferring to blame America for its policies over the past decade that caused this war in the first place....
Okay...I have to ask. What is the dark shadow at the bottom of the photo?
Sounds pretty conservative to me.
Or do you have to support interventionalist foreign policy and secretive government intrusion into peoples' private lives in order to be a 'Rush Limbaugh conservative'?
“Ron Paul is just another Lyndon Larouch.”
You got that right. Here is my idea for a Ron Paul Bumper Sticker.
“Ron Paul: Because Lyndon LaRouche Isn’t Running”
I have often been a Mugwump about Ron Paul:
I have appreciated his views against the United Nation’s in general and it’s, and it’s supporters attempts at social policy incursions into U.S. domestic policies; like in education for instance.
At the same time, I have seen some of his views of our sovereign federal government in general as “libertarian purest” - an approach that, in my own personal view, submits an often modern view of our founders intentions that imparts purest-libertarian views that are in part (not in whole) late twentieth and early 21st century re-interpretations of fine-line distinctions between state and federal sovereignty that in fact, in ALL U.S. history has never been a pure and fine line. My objection there is not always a philosophical disagreement about what would be best - in a pure philosophical sense - but whether or not it is in fact a historically correct view of accepted political philosophy delivered by the founders or historically correct interpretation of their views.
Has federal authority greatly, and incorrectly encroached on authority AND RESPONSIBILITY of the states? No doubt. Has every single such encroachment been completely outside the bounds permissible by the Constitution, in the Context (Constitutional as well as political) of each and every such instance? Many purest-libertarians say yes; I say no, not always, not in every instance.
I saw Ron Paul telescope his view of “sovereignty”, with the projection of the philosophy behind that view into the international arena in the last debate, when he claimed, falsely (and more like a Netroots’ zealot) that our invasion of Iraq was against international law because it somehow was an illegal offense against Iraq’s sovereignty. (My paraphrasing of what he said - not a quote, is: The invasion was an offense of international law because Iraq was a sovereign nation.).
Like some purest-libertarian views in our domestic arena, the position is not historically factual and the lack of factual basis stems from a denial of history.
Saddam Hussein signed agreements (the truce [not a peace tretay, but truce]) that placed, by his agreement, his ability to freely and without question make some national decisions, by his “sovereign” right alone.
He placed certain actions of his nation, by his agreement, under International scrutiny, review, approval and sanction. He did not have a peace treaty from his aggression, that resulted in the first Gulf War.
He agreed to place his nation (his sovereignty) under the terms of the truce, terms he had to follow and follow to the resolution of the demands and goals of those terms; if he was to obtain a peace treaty and get “his sovereignty” out from under the internationally sanctioned conditions.
A few factual lessons of international law are derived from this.
He did not have to place his sovereignty (his ability to act without international sanctions) under limits imposed from outside Iraq - he could have attempted to continue the Gulf War in 1991, hoping to reach a conclusion more favorable to him; in which the mission we belatedly started in 2003 would have been concluded before 2001 and before Iran had another ten years to subvert more Iraqi Shias to its fundamentalism.
The truce did not end the state of war with Iraq. The truce , as long as it was in affect, (1) truncated, by his agreement, the range of his sovereign activities, and (2) provided a lull (truce) in the fighting. The means to the end of that truncation of his activities (lifting of the limitations he agreed to on his sovereign abilities) was the successful completion of the demands sought by the sanctions imposed by the truce.
The truce, in international law, meant there was a lull in the fighting, from the first Gulf War, not yet a permanent end to it and it meant that that lull would continue as long as the parties that obtained the truce believed its enforcement was being achieved (and was only required to be continued by those parties as long as they accepted that sufficient enforcement of the truce actually continued).
And that lull (truce) would continue until either (a) its enforcement was no longer needed (the goals the truce sought had been met) and a final peace treaty signed, or (b)the parties that obtained the truce from Saddam believed its full enforcement was never to be met by Saddam.
Saddam was constantly in violation of any number of the terms of the truce (violations of “international law”), from day one and continuously. The coalition partners that turned back Saddam’s invasion of Iraq could have, under international law, taken the conclusion (that they finally took) that not only was the truce agreement not being adhered to by Saddam, but that there was every evidence that Saddam had no intention to adhere to it in a way that the goals of the truce could be met.
In other words, the coalition partners could have, under international law, acknowledge (and finally did), at many points in time (as there were many points in time that it was true) that the truce was broken and that Saddam no longer had grounds to retain the lull in the fighting that only the truce agreement provided to him.
During any point in the twelve years of failed diplomacy regarding the failed goals of the international sanctions on Iraq, the coalition that turned back the invasion of Kuwait could have ended the fiction of their truce being enforced and served notice that hostilities would resume.
The terms of the final UN resolutions on Iraq affectively served that notice.
Was anyone, the United States or the U.N. required to find WMDs in Iraq? No. Saddam was required by the truce to make the answer to that question completely and unconditionally transparent. Saddam played a game of international chicken, running two disinformation campaigns simultaneously. In one he publicly proclaimed he had no WMDS and in the other he provided enough constant obstruction and false intelligence for the international community to (a)have no assurance he was telling the truth and (b) sufficient grounds to believe he was not telling the truth.
There would have no grounds for getting rid of Saddam (for recognizing the truce from the Gulf War was no longer in force or enforceable) if he had taken the WMD-program-destruction approach of South Africa and the Ukraine - total and complete transparency and cooperation.
He played chicken with George Bush senior, Bill Clinton and the U.N. and bought twelve years of time. He played chicken with George Bush and lost.
Ron Paul is 100% wrong about projecting a pure, perpetual, constant inviolability of “sovereignty”, without any conditions, ever, in “international law”. It is a U.S.-domestic (among purest-libertarians) and international legal fiction.
An international agreement in the form of a truce/armistice, is by its legal nature and definition not a peace treaty and not an achievement of peace between warring parties. It is an agreed-on lull in the fighting under conditions agreed to and imposed by the truce; nothing more.
An international truce to a conflict is an international agreement that can, in international law, truncate, by terms placed in that agreement, the sovereign ability to act, if the terms of that truce make such impositions and the party against whom that truce was made wants the lull in fighting that the truce provides to continue.
When the parties that sought that truce declare its terms are not being met and they hold no prospect that they will be met, it is not a breach of international law to announce the resumption of hostilities that had been held only in abeyance by that truce.
By any standard of international law, the diplomatic course of the United States met all the obligations required by the truce with Saddam and by that same course acknowledged, finally, Saddam’s inability to live up to that truce and our ability, under international law, to no longer maintain the lull in hostilities that only the broken truce had previously provided.
Ron Paul cannot distinguish his own purest political philosophy of sovereignty from the actual and factual history - in practice and philosophically - of its agreed on limitations that may be obtained under international law - such as in a truce agreement; such as in the truce agreement Saddam failed to live up to.
How much did 9/11 cost us?
Ah. It was - Can’t the United States act Unilaterally within its own borders? thread
Sorry for the mix-up. :-)
“Regardless, the real issue is that the Republican base is well and heartily p!ssed at its leadership, primarily for its poor showing of any kind of results connected with key conservative issues.”
No one can argue with that. The question is “what is conservative?”, and in the case of the Paulistinians, to them conservative = libertarian. It doesn’t to the rest of us.
Not enough to justify the PATRIOT act.
No Sir.
Dr Pauls platform is trying to capitalize on a war weary nation.
Mr Paul has some well rooted ideas on limited government, but he is wrong on the idea that we can cloister ourselves away from the world and all of its troubles.
Well at least I know what will be coming if your boy makes a choice to do nothing about it.
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