Posted on 05/21/2007 1:53:00 PM PDT by The_Eaglet
The reaction to the showdown between Rep. Ron Paul and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has been fascinating. Paul suggested that the recent history of U.S. foreign policy endeavors overseas may have had something to do with terrorists' willingness to come to America, live here for several months, then give their lives to kill as many Americans as possible.
Perhaps, Paul suggested, the 15-year presence of the U.S. military forces in Muslim countries may have motivated them. For that, Giuliani excoriated him, calling it an "extraordinary statement," adding, "I don't think I've heard that before."
Let's be blunt. Giuliani was either lying, or he hasn't cracked a book in six years.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
So you don't think we should have gone into Iraq?
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
“I offered no such solution and accused you of no fiction. Try again.”
Correct. I think I got your reply mixed up with another person’s reply. My bad.
“No, yours is the straw-man, and yours is the moral relativism.”
How so?
“Your assumption that we are the arbiters of what is tyranny is based on an assumed moral superiority. “
I never made that claim. As I stated earlier, I support Operation Iraqi Freedom and the objectives within. This includes the enforcement of the ceasefire agreement which is based on Iraqi compliance of the U.N. Security Council Resolutions. A provision of these resolutions was that the government of Iraq must ‘end repression of its civilian population’, per UNSCr688. In UNSCr1441, the Security Council unanimously concluded that Saddam was in violation of this provision. This is what I speak of when when I say ‘tyranny’, the ‘repression of his civilian population’. Thus, it is not based on an ‘assumed moral superiority’, but based on the cease fire conditions that ended the first gulf war. I did not write these provisions myself so you accusation that this is a strawman is ficticious. Whether you believe that the P-5 has the authority or not (it does) has no relevence, imo.
“That is the arrogance which leads us to interventionism and makes us no better than the Soviets during the height of their adventurism in Africa, Eastern Europe, and Afghanistan. “
Here you’re appearently comparing America efforts in Operation Iraqi Freedom, which freed millions from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, to aggression of the Soviet Union, which killed millions of innocents in Eastern Europe. There is no moral equivlence what-so-ever, imo.
“So what? The example I gave was in direct response to your assumption of our moral superiority in removing whomever we define as a tyrant. You are evading with legalisms.”
I’m not even sure what your accusing me of evading here. You then claim that my statement, “Thus, Operation Iraqi Freedom was the resumption of an earlier conflict. Your hypothetical omits this pretext.” is wrong. If you are saying that the cease fire agreement was NOT based on Saddam complaince of the provisions, your claim directly contradicts the multinational legislation that declared that the cease fire was based on Iraqis full compliance of the UNSCRs, as noted in 1441:
[Recalling that in its resolution 687 (1991) the Council declared that a ceasefire would be based on acceptance by Iraq of the provisions of that resolution, including the obligations on Iraq contained therein,
Determined to ensure full and immediate compliance by Iraq without conditions or restrictions with its obligations under resolution 687 (1991) and other relevant resolutions and recalling that the resolutions of the Council constitute the governing standard of Iraqi compliance].
“You stated that we were removing a tyrant and saving millions from tyranny. That is moral relativism founded on an arrogant assumption that we are the sole arbiters of what is and is not tyranny.”
As I stated above, I base my claims on the multinational legislation regarding Saddam’s Iraq. My claim that we were removing a tyrant and saving millions from tyranny is not based on ‘an arrogant assumption’, but based on both the Congressional Authorization For Use Of Force Against Iraq (which, btw, specifically cites my ‘strawman’, as it declares that ‘Iraq persists in violating resolution of the United Nations Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its civilian population thereby threatening international peace’, and also the multinational legislation that I cited earlier.
“Furthermore, any and all such arguments are anti-constitutional. There is no place in that document that authorizes us to exert our moral judgments on any sovereign nation. This is the basis of Ron Paul’s charge. You have not answered it.”
Correct, there is no place in the constitution that authorizes us to ‘exert our moral judgments on any sovereign nation’. I don’t see how this prevents us from something like enforcing the terms of a cease fire though.
“I’ve made no accusations against those nations and did not assert that Russia had made any such declaration.”
You had claimed that ‘Ah, so you would have no problem with the Chinese, the Russians, the Cubans, and half a dozen African hellholes teaming up to invade us, overthrow our government, and occupy our cities? After all, they consider our system tyrannical, our President a tyrant, and they would simply be acting to free millions from that tyranny.’
Who are you referring to when you say ‘they’, and which goverments that you cited declared Bush a ‘tyrant’?
“Of course if you’re going to do serious gaming, Stay with Windows, it’s better for such things.”
Thanks for the advise, pal. I’m a gamer so I’ll stick with windows.
“Of course, Congressman Paul did not support the legislation: He wanted a Declaration of War against Iraq instead. (Note that he did support and voted for the Afghanistan action).”
Interesting. I was unaware that he voted for the authorization in Afghanistan.
“As for whether or not the objectives of the Congressional Authorisation are met, who cares? We should not have gone there in the first place.”
I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on this part. I am a strong supporter of Operation Iraqi Freedom and I believe that achiving the objectives of Operation Iraqi Freedom are essential for America’s security and prosperity. Simply assasinating Saddam would not have met these objectives.
“We’re still waiting on you to document a single false accusation.”
In my earlier post, I cited how Ron Paul falsely accused the U.S. with his accusation that the U.S.-led sanctions were ‘responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children’ in Iraq. This is a direct contradiction to the findings of the Security Council, which unanimously concluded that [that the Government of Iraq has failed to comply with its commitments pursuant to resolution 688 (1991) to provide access by international humanitarian organizations to all those in need of assistance in Iraq]. As I said in a previous post, Saddam was killing his own and blaming it on the sanctions. He knew there are people (like Ron Paul), who will use this as an arguement to lift sanctions by blaming the humanitarian disaster on the sanctions rather than on Saddam. This is the same tactic as Al Qaeda, where killing innocent Iraqis is a goal as these deaths are blamed on the presense of MNF rather than on the Al Qaeda operatives who are actually doing the killing.
Here are absurd insinuations from the same Ron Paul article that puts Ron Paul in the moon-bat class:
“Could it be that only through war and removal of certain governments we can maintain control of the oil in this region? Could it be all about oil, and have nothing to do with US national security?”
These insinuations essentially make the absurd war-for-oil charge. If his insinuations were reality (ie, U.S. controls Iraqi Oil), it would put the U.S. in direct violation of Security Council Resolution 1546, which specifically states that the ‘Iraqi people freely control their own natural resources’. Do you know of any evidence that the U.S. is in violation of said treaty, and if not, why is Ron Paul making these absurd insinuations?
“The only thing you’ve got is that he appears on the Alex Jones programme from time to time (so do lots of other people, many of whom do not believe in or propagate conspiracy theories).”
I’m guessing he wasn’t there to rebut the conspiricy theories. His articles articulate on the conspiritorial accusations he makes. In regards to the objectives of Operation Iraqi Freedom, he claims that ‘The real reasons are either denied or ignored: oil, neo-conservative empire building, and our support for Israel over the Palestinians.’. This is conspiritorial nonsense as the objectives of Operation Iraqi Freedom are clearly spelled out within the congressional authorization for Use Of Force against Iraq. Also, on the Alex Jones radio show, he calls the 9-11 investigation a ‘cover-up’. Here is a link:
http://www.infowars.com/articles/sept11/paul_ron_says_investigate_911_cover_up.htm
This is what I talk about when I call him a conspiricy theorist.
“Are you saying that both the 9/11 commission (bipartisan), and the CIA Iraq desk are conspiracy theorists (cause that was his source in the SC debate)? If you are, get help. If you recall correctly, the 9/11 commission is being targeted by the kooks.”
I’m not talking about the recent debate. I’m referring to Paul’s other publications, which I have been refuting for years.
“Hello!, those fighters were over Iraqi air space. You honestly expect that we wouldn’t shoot at Iraqi fighters flying over our country? As for the Attempted assination of Bush 41, IIRC, Bush wasn’t the President at the time. It was an act of agression against George H. W. Bush, not the United States.”
This doesn’t counter my arguement that Ron Paul’s claim that ‘Iraq has never committed any aggression against the United States’ is indeed ficticious. Also, attempts by a government to assasinate a a former head-of-state DOES constitute an act of aggression against that state. For example, this is why the government of Lebanon was able to go to the Security Council for assistance regarding the assasination of former PM Hariri.
“Is it a lie?
Would those Iraqis have died if we had not bombed?
Would those Iraqis have died if the sanctions were not imposed?
Answer no to one of those, and your argument falls by the wayside.”
The questions don’t take into account Saddam’s violation of his commitments to the Security Council which led to the suffering. As I articulated earlier, Ron Paul’s attempt to blame the deaths on the sanctions rather than on Saddam is in line with the propagated falsehoods of Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. It is also in direct contradiction, as I noted earlier, with the unanimous conclusions of the P-5.
“BTW, you perhaps heard of the UN corruption involved in the “Iraqi Oil For Food programme” But, no, it’s all the easier to blame the Iraqi government for UN corruption, cause nobody liked them, right?”
Are you claiming that the findings of the Security Council are false, and that Ron Paul, Saddam Hussein, and Bin Laden are correct in regards to blaming the deaths on the sanctions rather than on Saddam? If not, what is the point of discussing UN corruption, other than a red-herring to the original arugement. You need to be precise. Certainly the UN needs much overhaul, but I don’t see how that nullifies the findings of the P-5 regarding civilian death in Iraq.
“Incidentally, your last paragraph proves that had the sanctions not been in place, those children would not have died, Saddam notwithstanding. Congradulations, you just proved Ron Paul’s point.”
The sanctions didn’t block humanitarian aid. The humanitarian aid was blocked by Saddam’s regime (as noted by the unanimous conclusion of the P-5).
I will admit one thing in regards to Ron Paul however. He is the only one that I can think of, that would truly punish the foreigners that take America’s good will and generosity for granted by treating us in a disrespectful fashion. I like, when he was talking about how much we spend of foreign aid, he declared something like ‘We can’t afford that!’. That was great to see. Even if I don’t entirely agree with it, it was still nice to here a politician express the same resentment that I feel towards ungrateful freeloaders abroad.
What passes for thought...
As I said at the time, not in the way it was done nor with the justifications emphasized. I'm not a total isolationist, but it's now clear that many neocon assumptions are not valid, so we've given up our true conservative values but haven't gained much on the foreign policy side.
Now that we're there, I want us to win, and I still think that President Bush owes it to the men and women of the armed forces--and of America--to better communicate why we are fighting, what we are doing, how we are succeeding, etc.
Where were the "Why We Fight!" videos? Even if the MSM didn't promote them, there's the 'net (now including YouTube). Why aren't there better resources that compile successes for supporters to tout? Even the statistics passed around in e-mail letters are rehashes of an old column by Robin Mullins Boyd (yes, it was from DoD info--but it took the voluntary action of a private citizen to compile and disseminate). And it took a lot of work and initiative by dedicated FReepers--not the White House--to compile The Citizens Report on Iraq. Where is the refutation of the claims that Saddam was no WMD threat? It takes people like you and me to tell others about the 500 tons of yellow cake that was in Iraq but with no inspectors allowed in.
A colleague of mine said something today that I think is very astute: "People don't think [President Bush] is arrogant because he doesn't communicate; people think he's arrogant because he doesn't seem to feel any need to communicate."
President Bush is a good and honest man, I believe, even though he's too liberal, too Big-Nanny-State for my liking. But that doesn't mean we should put our heads in the sand and ignore the fact that the true conservatives were right and the neocons were wrong.
Most of what you say is perfectly reasonable, but there is a problem at the heart of your logic. By "mess with their affairs", you mean things like, "defend Kuwait, along with several Middle East allies, from Saddam's aggression; and station a military force in Saudi Arabia at the specific request of her government", correct?
Well wait a sec, how is that "messing with their affairs" exactly? In both cases we were responding to serious, legitimate requests from "them" (well, some of them... but which "them" were we supposed to listen to?). That the likes of Osama considered this, that or the other thing "messing with their affairs" doesn't make it an accurate characterization.
A husband beats his wife; the police intervene; the husband says "don't mess with my affairs!" and assaults the police. Question - is the following statement accurate: "the man assaulted the police officer because the officer messed with his affairs"? It's accurate from the wifebeater's point of view, sure, but is it accurate? Did the police officer really "mess with the affairs of" the wifebeating husband?
See, the problem at the heart of your/Paul's logic is this: It concedes the (crazy, xenophobic, and fanatical) characterization of world events, and (even worse) of us, that is pitched by our enemies.
We need not do that, you know. I flatly and resolutely reject the wrongheaded notion that "we" (the United States) were "messing with their affairs" in any substantive, meaningful and morally-justifiable sense, at any recent time. What say you? You think we were? When? How? By doing what?
That would, of course, open up an actual discussion - of the supposed "messing with" actions we took - which then would have to be defended, or rejected - on their merits. But such a discussion, if rational, would rely not one whit on whether Osama bin Laden "liked" said actions or whether he thought the Koran forbade them. This is my real problem with Paul's comments - not so much that they were incorrect per se as that they were stupid because they are so irrelevant to any rational discussion of foreign policy actions, any given of which is guaranteed to anger some crazy person or another.
So, no action was justified against Germany in WWII either, I take it.
Those who have been anti-intervention but were afraid to speak up are now emboldened.
That's nice. I need more entertainment. But just so you know, "being more emboldened" is not the same thing as being correct.
I'd like to know where the hell you've been the last 5 years.
Pim Fortuyn was assassinated by a lefty fanatic, most likely for being considered "anti-Muslim", in Holland (the nation where "Amsterdamn" [sic] actually is).
Theo van Gogh was stabbed in the street for making a movie, in Holland.
Parliament member Ayaan Hirsi Ali receives death threats, in Holland.
If Bin Laden hasn't specifically "declared a Jihad against Amsterdamn", it's only because it's already well under way.
Heh. One would think that to most people, it would be implied. The Constitution describes how to make treaties. Treaties can create allies. One thing that allies do is... protect each other. These are basic concepts, to most people anyway.
Who killed a million people, and where? What are you referring to?
Damn shame.
Yes, to deal with these people we do need to understand them, that is understand their strengths and weaknesses, but that is not the same as attempting to know why they hate us.
You can find the reason for that in their Koran.
Two words again: Dual boot. While strictly not necessary, i'd recommend using a second hard drive for your Linux system. i'd also make one of your data partitions FAT32, which can be both read and written by Linux or Windows. This way it's easy for you to "cross deck" files between operating systems should you need to do so. i learned that last part the hard way when i discovered that although i could read from my Windows XP drive, i couldn't write files to it in Linux. To the best of my knowledge, the NTFS partitions cannot be written by Linux at this time. i had to email files to myself.
I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on this part. I am a strong supporter of Operation Iraqi Freedom and I believe that achiving the objectives of Operation Iraqi Freedom are essential for America’s security and prosperity. Simply assasinating Saddam would not have met these objectives.
The campaign aganst Saddam was a waste of military resources on a military that is of insufficient size.
It was a useless and needless war. Frankly, it is not our job. It was the job of the Iraqi People. No American interests were at risk from Saddam.
In my earlier post, I cited how Ron Paul falsely accused the U.S. with his accusation that the U.S.-led sanctions were ‘responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children’ in Iraq. This is a direct contradiction to the findings of the Security Council, which unanimously concluded that [that the Government of Iraq has failed to comply with its commitments pursuant to resolution 688 (1991) to provide access by international humanitarian organizations to all those in need of assistance in Iraq]. As I said in a previous post, Saddam was killing his own and blaming it on the sanctions. He knew there are people (like Ron Paul), who will use this as an arguement to lift sanctions by blaming the humanitarian disaster on the sanctions rather than on Saddam. This is the same tactic as Al Qaeda, where killing innocent Iraqis is a goal as these deaths are blamed on the presense of MNF rather than on the Al Qaeda operatives who are actually doing the killing.
Bottom line: If the sanctions had not been in place, Saddam would not have taken the actions. Q.E.D. Ron Paul was correct. Funny how you equate Paul explaining motivations with "accusing", or others equating explanation with "justification". Paul did not justify terrorists, or accuse the country. That was "Rudyspin".
It's pretty weak to try and "get inside the head" of a dead man. Who the hell knows what Saddam was thinking, or even IF he was thinking? It IS known that there was no Al Qaeda members doing operations in Iraq while Saddam was in power. This leads to another issue: namely that of 'it's all over oil'.
Since we weren't getting any significant amounts of oil from Iraq, they are irrellevant.
i'm getting awful sick of seeing American Treasure in terms of money and troops used to gaurantee the flow of oil from despotic states such as Saudi Arabia. Let them handle their own problems. Every time they get into trouble, their favorite song becomes "Onward Christian Soldiers". Funny thing, the 9/11 terrorists were mostly Saudi...imagine that.
Bottom line: We don't need to be there. SOMEBODY is going to end up in power, and we will buy oil from them, and they will gladly sell it to us. It is that simple.
As far as Ron Paul's alleged 'insinuations' go, Rush Limbaugh has made that concession after Gulf War I. Of course it is about oil, we have no other interests in the area. You think that Limbaugh is a moonbat?
I’m guessing he wasn’t there to rebut the conspiricy theories. His articles articulate on the conspiritorial accusations he makes. In regards to the objectives of Operation Iraqi Freedom, he claims that ‘The real reasons are either denied or ignored: oil, neo-conservative empire building, and our support for Israel over the Palestinians.’. This is conspiritorial nonsense as the objectives of Operation Iraqi Freedom are clearly spelled out within the congressional authorization for Use Of Force against Iraq. Also, on the Alex Jones radio show, he calls the 9-11 investigation a ‘cover-up’. Here is a link:
Here is the citation from that link:
HON. DR. RON PAUL: Well, that would be nice to have. Unfortunately, we don't have that in place. It will be a little bit better now with the Democrats now in charge of oversight. But you know, for top level policy there's not a whole lot of difference between the two policies so a real investigation isn't going to happen. But I think we have to keep pushing for it. And like you and others, we see the investigations that have been done so far as more or less cover-up and no real explanation of what went on.
Nothing in that statement indicates that Paul believes the Goverment or the Jews (two popular targets of the kooks) to be directly responsible for 9/11. If you want to see those moonbat conspiracies, go to LibertyPost and follow the links given you by the keywords.*Incidentally, you won't see them citing Ron Paul for support, although they may support him for one reason or another.
*DISCLAIMER: i have nothing what-so-ever against LibertyPost.org. It is merely observed that their policies are to censor no political opinion or view, no matter how unpopular. As a result, 9/11 and other kinds of conspiracy theorists, Nazis, Liberals and others will get an inordinate amount of posting as compared with Freerepublic...these choices are the policies of the respective owners/directors of both LibertyPost and Freerepublic.
This doesn’t counter my arguement that Ron Paul’s claim that ‘Iraq has never committed any aggression against the United States’ is indeed ficticious. Also, attempts by a government to assasinate a a former head-of-state DOES constitute an act of aggression against that state. For example, this is why the government of Lebanon was able to go to the Security Council for assistance regarding the assasination of former PM Hariri.
Perhaps Paul should have said 'unprovoked' agression. None the less, your comparrison of Hariri with former President Bush is not accurate. Former PM hariri continued to be a part of the Lebanese government, as is normal in a Parlimentary democracy, as opposed to our Constitutional Representative Republic. Former President Bush has no official (elective) role in the Government.
This is a bit like saying that the UK has committed an act of aggression against Chile for having put Agusto Pinocet on trial, or the World court for putting Milosivic on trial, or the US for putting the Nazis on trial at the Nurenburg tribunal. In all cases, it's absurd.
EPILOGUE: Ron Paul has been slandered by both the left and the right. Those who are doing the slandering have no knowledge of history, or the culture of the nation's present enemies. Knowing both of those things would provide Ron Paul, or anyone else with such knowledge, the insight to accurately predict the actions of such people, (as an admittedly insane James "Bo" Gritz did with his excellent analysis of the war on terror...if somebody crazy as Gritz can do it, why can't the US Goverment?) and use such knowledge against them. American troops should not be used for nation building, when their historical function has been nation breaking. The Germans, Japanese, and South Koreans rebuilt their own nations after their respective wars. That Iraq is either unable or Unwilling to do so is not our problem. Saddam's Iraq is broken, time to come home, rest, refit, and train for the next challenge. Mission accomplished
Ron Paul sees this, and is correct in his observations. No amount of spin is going to change that fact.
News flash: We did win.
Although i'm a strong Ron Paul Supporter, i can't deny what my eyes tell me. The United States Military performed brilliantly, and accomplished the purposes that it was created to accomplish. The Iraqi military is no longer a threat, and Saddam is worm food. Miller time! Let's go home.
What the Military was never designed for is to 'win hearts and minds'. Leave that crap to the striped pants boys and girls in the State Department.
Excellent points.
I also was totally unsurprised...by the attack. What I admit caught me off-guard, though, was how surprised my fellow Americans seemed to be.
I have many witnesses to my pre-9/11 prediction of the use of an airliner as a suicide weapon here, yet I never got a reaction of surprise when I suggested it. I took that to mean that I wasn't the only one who thought such a scenario was likely, but I now realize it was only people agreeing once I'd brought it up--having never thought of it before.
How the professionals in charge of such things had not thought of and prepared for it, though, is what really gets me!
I have no interest in pursuing the disintegration of my responses into cherry-picked bits and pieces. You are offering nits and legalisms as rebuttals. You appear to believe that our moral superiority is categorical and that the UN charter and international law trump our constitution. Those positions are, respectively, irrational and anti-conservative. Read what I write very carefully because I will not respond to misunderstanding.
You stated that Ron Paul is a liar and a traitor. You have not supported that argument with evidence. Naked assertion is not evidence. You have evaded and demurred and wandered off on side paths, but you have not proved your case. You have not successfully demonstrated that Paul knowingly told falsehoods or that he committed treason. Your charges are simply part of the mindless jingoist shouting that happens on every Ron Paul thread.
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