Republican Ron Paul livens up GOP debate (Concord Monitor Ed board)

Concord Monitor ^ | 10/4/07 | Editorial Board

[wideawake]

Thank you for the informative history of Letters of Marque and reprisal.

No, thank you for reading it.

Perhaps "bounty" fits better the reasoning of Paul:

It's tempting to give him the benefit of that doubt, but the State Department had already placed a $50M bounty on Bin Laden's head before Paul proposed this letters of marque notion.

As far as Paul's idea that Western intelligence is unable to penetrate Al-Qaeda, all I have to say is that an American teenager named John Walker Lindh was able to get from a high school in Marin County, CA to a madrassah in Yemen to a madrassah in Islamabad to a training camp near Kandahar where he physically came within yards of Bin Laden.

All in a space of about 20 months.

Lindh was a complete outsider before he got involved - there is no reason why a CIA operative shouldn't be able to do that.

[secretagent]

I don’t know.

Lindh got close, but he believed in the jihad cause. Hard to fake that.

But even assuming you could fake the fervor, to kill Bin laden, you’d have to sacrifice your own life, probably.

[ejonesie22]

Arrgh!

Bring on the bloody Moors!

[taxed2death]

“What I find amazing is how Ron Paul supporters are given free reign and carte blanche to relentlessly post propoganda 24/7 while Giuliani supporters have been beaten down here to the point where some have been kicked off the FR website. Its sad.”

One is far right, one is far left.

Is it clearer now?

[secretagent]

It's tempting to give him the benefit of that doubt, but the State Department had already placed a $50M bounty on Bin Laden's head before Paul proposed this letters of marque notion.

That came later.

Apparently it was only at 20 million as of 10/10/2001:

MR. BOUCHER;...Now, we have received additional funding to pay those $5 million rewards. So we just got, I think, some $20 million to support this program out of the emergency funding. So if four people come forward, we can pay each of them up to $5 million. We have the money available.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_ponn/is_200110/ai_2984794109/pg_2

Your main point stands, though. Bin laden had at least a $5 million bounty on him for "information" going back to 1998. Paul should have addressed that, and argued for the superiority of LM&R vs bounties.

[the808bass]

But I have no reason to believe that he cynically advocated the letters of marque, knowing in advance they wouldn't work.

He does things like, IMO, to simply use language in the Constitution to stoke the fires of well-meaning Constitutionalists. They hear exact phrases from our governing document and they forget to ask "Um...ok...how does that work now?" And then they put up a sheet over the highway with "rLOVEution" scribbled in magic marker and donate their $50 to his campaign. And he continues his Quixotic tour of the Presidential election.

[wideawake]

But even assuming you could fake the fervor,

THat's what undercover operatives do.

to kill Bin laden, you’d have to sacrifice your own life, probably.

Or you could send a cellphone call that would alert air support to a target. Special forces do this all the time.

[Bookie1066]

I didn’t attempt to say anything like there was a reason not to vote for Bush over John F’in Kerry. Bush was the lesser of two evils in 2000 and 2004. But you still have to remember that the lesser of two evils is still evil.

And now it looks like the same thing happening. We’ll have the far left Hitler in a skirt or a warmed over Democrat mayor from NY. Tweedle dumb and tweedle dumber and the Republic keeps being flushed down the toilet.

[rideharddiefast]

One is far right, one is far left.

While Rudy is much more conservative than cut and run, I would hardly say he is far right.

[Badeye]

‘Careful, Badeye. Too much truth is unhealthy to your posting privileges.’

Any political website that does as you indicate isn’t worth being a member of. And I haven’t seen that here.

I have seen hundreds and hundreds of threads on other website, bought and paid for by people banned from Free Republic claiming this.

They are always kooks. Always. Upset they can’t spew whatever they want, whenever they want. Its childish in my experience. These types of posters are so maniacal, a couple of them got their butts banned from here just this week for spamming me via email over things that occured six months ago at Liberty Post for just one recent example.

As for Ron Paul....I don’t think anyone can say what he would do if the world turned upside down and he became President.

Hell, from what I can tell if he became the GOP nominee, won the election for President...he’s just as likely to say during his Inaugural Speech ‘I’m resigning from the Republican Party, and will be the first Libertarian President in history!’.

In short, his history indicates he’s simply not trustworthy politically.

And his view on the war is simply the adult version of hiding under the blankets hoping the ‘monsters’ won’t getcha.

No thanks.

[Badeye]

‘But you still have to remember that the lesser of two evils is still evil.’

Having seen evil in my lifetime up close, I don’t toss the term around so casually as many do.