Not militarily. But they have demonstrated their ability to do us harm, and have vocalized that they (specifically Ahmadinejad) intend to have nuclear capabilities soon. An arms race with the Kremlin is one thing, suicide bombers with nuclear capability is another. This is an area where I believe Dr. Paul's style of foreign policy is dangerously naive.
I don’t even really believe Communism was as big a threat as it was made out to be.
Militarily, I agree with you. But only because we made the necessary effort to maintain a superior military. Pick the place: Mongolia, China, Korea, Vietnam. They're military succeeded until they were opposed (By us). Wherever their military did NOT succeed, it was because they were opposed militarily. The same with any military aggression. It WILL succeed if it is not superiorly opposed.
Their non-military strategies, however, have been terribly successful. It is the domestic political fight where they have their victories. Failure to recognize that we are vulnerable to defeat politically, failure to understand their strategies and how and why they work, and failure to respond with effective tactics that will reverse the trend, will still lose the fight despite them having an inferior military. If we don't stop that trend, the tables will turn and they WILL have a superior military.
I’m not trying to say that Communism (or radical Islam) aren’t threats, but sometimes I feel like any questioning of our policies against them leads to being labeled a denier or a left wing hijacker or a pacifist. My 2 cents anyway.
I can understand that frustration. It's the result of intellectual laziness by your opponents.
Yes, we have suicide bombers who want to harm us, but why do they want to harm us? Is it brought on by our past interventions, or do they hate us for our freedom and prosperity, such as we hear in the MSM? I don't think Ron Paul's foreign policy is naive, I just think that because it hasn't been used in over a hundred years it is hard to imagine how it could ever work.
Yea, I hear ya. Being an agnostic, I have the same problem with people who are absolutely convinced that there is a deity.