[dead]

Paul smiles often and cuts to the quick of political folly. He was, he says, in the Air Force during the Cuban missile crisis, when nuclear warheads 90 miles offshore were pointed at America. That crisis was defused with diplomacy, he said. Now, politicians are talking about going to war with Iran and "hysterical over a weapon that doesn't exist."

The "diplomacy" was the threat of war with the US that caused the Russians to back down.

When JFK does it, it's "diplomacy", when Bush does it, it's "hysteria."

[SJackson]

The "diplomacy" was the threat of war with the US that caused the Russians to back down....When JFK does it, it's "diplomacy", when Bush does it, it's "hysteria."

:>)

The difference, of course, Sadaam didn't back down. If the Soviets hadn't, I presume Paul would advocate leaving the nukes in Cuba.

[wideawake]

The reality of the Cuban Missile Crisis is that it was neither resolved by diplomacy nor by threat of war.

It was resolved by a weak sister named John F. Kennedy caving in to the Soviets.

Kennedy got the Soviets to remove the missiles by removing our missiles from Turkey and agreeing not to invade Cuba in the future.

The US backed down and encouraged 30 more years of Soviet expansionism, exacerbated by Kennedy's equally cowardly successor's failure to assist the Czechs in 1968.

This is what Ron Paul thinks the US should do: whatever the enemy wants as long as he does not hurt us today.

[jmeagan]

*****The “diplomacy” was the threat of war with the US that caused the Russians to back down.

When JFK does it, it’s “diplomacy”, when Bush does it, it’s “hysteria.”*****

Actually part of the deal was that Kennedy agreed to remove some of our missiles which were very close to the Russian border. (In Turkey, I think.)