Posted on 05/24/2007 9:35:47 AM PDT by Captain Kirk
Longshot Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul on Thursday gave front-runner Rudy Giuliani a list of foreign-policy books to back up his contention that attacks by Islamic militants are fueled by the U.S. presence in the Middle East.
"I'm giving Mr. Giuliani a reading assignment," the nine-term Texas congressman said as he stood behind a stack of books that included the report by the commission that examined the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.
Giuliani was mayor of New York when Islamic militants slammed two commercial airliners into the World Trade Center, a role that has vaulted him to the front of the Republican presidential pack despite his liberal social positions.
"I don't think he's qualified to be president," Paul said of Giuliani. "If he was to read the book and report back to me and say, 'I've changed my mind,' I would reconsider."
Paul advocates a limited U.S. foreign policy, including an end to the war in Iraq and a reduction in troop levels abroad.
Paul said he was unfairly attacked during last week's debate by 10 Republican presidential hopefuls, when Giuliani dismissed his contention that U.S. policies in the Middle East had contributed to the attacks in New York and Washington.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Because Ron Paul only reads books by cut and run liberals.
Letters of marque and reprisal do not work, and were abandoned as useless more than a century ago.
If extradition is problematic today, letters of marque and reprisal were nothing but a weaker form of extradition.
It's a stupid idea that won't work - and this is with the benefit of a century of hindsight that Ron Paul should have.
I read it, and I made those comments.
How exactly do you think defense contracting got started as a business?
Nice bait-and-switch.
We should certainly listen to what the enemy says: it may well indicate what he intends to do and how we can defend against his threats.
Listening to what the enemy says and extrapolating useful information from it is very different from Ron Paul's approach of accepting the enemy's arguments at face value and accomodating him.
Only a moron would ignore what bin Laden has to say but only a moron would obey what bin Laden has to say.
Sure - what we need is a dork like Ron Paul running around apologizing to everyone. I don’t give a rat’s behind whose fault any of this is - even if it is Clinton’s fault - now is the time to win and win big. Those A-rabs don’t care whose fault it is, they just want to kill all of us, just as they have wanted to do for centuries. Ron Paul can go pound sand.
sheeesh....
The facts remain: Giuliani is too much of a liberal to be the GOP's nominee and Ron Paul is too much of a crackpot to be the GOP's nominee.
Give me a BREAK!!! The man turned my city into a POLICE STATE!! Who needs a police state worshiper. Ron Paul ain’t for no police state BRAH!! Ron Paul is 100% constitutional, pro- America, anti-illegal immigration, civil liberties, and so on.
Give us a break from the hyperbolic melodrama.
The man turned my city into a POLICE STATE!!
As someone who was born and raised in NYC and who lived and worked in NYC throughout the Giuliani administration, I can vouch that Rudolph Giuliani turned an out-of-control pigsty into a clean and pleasant city.
I will point out, of course, that you have absolutely no clue what a "police state" is. I know many fellow New Yorkers who personally endured the misfortune of living in an actual police state - Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Red China, Duvalier's Haiti, Khomeini's Iran, Castro's Cuba - before moving to New York.
None of these family friends and acquaintances of mine had anything but praise for Giuliani's attention to NYC's spiraling-out-of-control crime problem.
Ron Paul ain’t for no police state BRAH!!
The worldwide Islamic regime that Ron Paul's stupid policies are paving the way for would indeed be a police state. And Ron is working as hard or harder than any Congressman to make that future a reality.
Paul is 100% constitutional,
While I agree that Ron Paul's physical existence in no way contradicts the Constitution, Ron Paul himself is against the US Constitution. Unless you can explain to me how someone can be 100% for the Constitution and be an admirer of the anti-Constitution maniac Lysander Spooner.
pro- America,
You cannot say that you are for America and stab America's fighting forces in the back. Ron Paul is an out-and-out traitor, as pro-America as Code Pink and A.N.S.W.E.R.
anti-illegal immigration,
I find it amusing that a self-professed Libertarian would oppose any kind of immigration, but Ron Paul has never been one for consistency.
civil liberties,
I assume you are saying that he is "pro" civil liberties, as if any of the GOP candidates were against civil liberties.
Presumably you share Ron Paul's identical-to-the-ACLU stance on civil liberties.
and so on.
Nice ellipsis.
If they did not work, our 7 ship fledging Navy would have died stillborn. The French would have run us off the seas. We'd still be paying the Barbary Coast it's tithe. And both the War of 1812 and the Civil War would have had very different endings...
I’m telling you right now, this man Guiliani has used police state tactics to “clean up” NYC. He does not like blacks and Bloomberg CONTINUED in the Guliani tradition of a police state (cameras in HARLEM!!). After that, he brought in big business. They never gave DINKINS a chance. They trashed him left and right. You want me to sit here and listen to you? Guliani is a destructive man when using the police. Even his treatment of the poor is questionable.
Letters of marque and reprisal were completely useless against the French.
The Navy came into existence in large part because such letters were not recognized or honored.
We'd still be paying the Barbary Coast it's tithe.
As I pointed out to you already, such letters were utterly useless in the Barbary Wars - the federal government and the Marines had to step in to end them.
And both the War of 1812
The War of 1812's outcome was ensured by the actions of American military volunteers in New Orleans and New York and the US Navy in the Chesapeake.
Letters of marque and reprisal had zero impact on the war. American privateers motivated, quite rightly, by profit operated with or without the "help" of such papers, worth less than the paper they were written on. And UK privateers operated against American shipping as well - even though any letters they may have carried would not have been honored by US authorities.
and the Civil War
Letters of marque and reprisal had absolutely no impact whatsoever in the US Civil War. None.
Er... no. The Navy came into existance in 1775, but it took a long time to get things ramped up. With almost 1700 letter's of M&R out, it gave the US an instant fleet to fight for independence, the "un-war" against France, the Barbary coast, and the Brits again in 1812. Privateers even had a large role in the balance of power during the Civil War.
You may be "pointing things out"... but you sure as hell aren't sourcing a damn thing.
(1) You are a liar.
(2) You're not a very good one, since you can't even describe the tactics you allege - you are reduced to simply making bare assertions.
He does not like blacks
Ah, you're a slanderer as well as a liar.
and Bloomberg CONTINUED in the Guliani tradition of a police state (cameras in HARLEM!!).
There are cameras outside Harlem as well. And it really isn't Giuliani's fault or Bloomberg's fault that African-Americans are overwhelmingly victimized by their fellow African-Americans in their own neighborhoods.
After that, he brought in big business.
Oh, no. Nothing could possibly be worse for a neighborhood than commerce and - gasp! - jobs. What a horrible thing to do.
They never gave DINKINS a chance. They trashed him left and right.
Dinkins had four years to make a change. Four years is a lot of wasted time and a lot of botched chances.
Though your defense of a man who makes Rudolph Giuliani look conservative is hilarious.
You want me to sit here and listen to you?
Not at all.
I just want you to stop making stupid comments and to stop telling lies.
Guliani is a destructive man when using the police.
Oh, really? What did he destroy "using" the police? David Dinkin's all-time homicide record of 6 murders a day?
Even his treatment of the poor is questionable.
What did Giuliani do to the poor, exactly?
Get your act together.
Many American privateers sailed from Philadelphia, the largest colonial port of the day. The Dispatch was so eager to capture an enemy ship she sailed from port unarmed in 1776. Within a few days she succeeded in her venture and sailed her prize to France. Other privateers sailed from Baltimore, where shipbuilders converted merchant ships to meet the needs of the privateers. Before long, however, builders designed a vessel expressly built for privateering - the schooner. Although fairly small, she was very fast. Her foremast was shorter than the mainmast, but when she sailed with a tail wind, the square-rigged topsail of the foremast boosted her speed. These heavy schooners had crews of over 150 men and carried enough armament to engage British frigates. Baltimore became the premier port for privateers.
Like pirates, privateers preferred not to fight. They could be equally brazen. Jonathan Haroden (1745-1803) came alongside an English ship and demanded her surrender within five minutes. He stood beside a cannon with a lighted wick and waited. The ship struck her colors and Haroden captured her. Unbeknownst to the English, his threat was a bluff. Had he fired the cannon, it would have been his one and only shot because he had no ordnance with which to reload the gun.
Privateers of the American Revolution took over three thousand British vessels. They captured much-needed muskets and gunpowder, which they delivered to the Continental Army. The men who served aboard privateers sailed under the rule of no prey no pay. They only received shares of whatever plunder they acquired. For some, like those aboard the Rattlesnake, they returned home wealthy men after capturing prizes worth over $1,000,000 on a single voyage. The America (which weighed 350 tons, carried twenty guns and 120 crewmembers) took forty prizes, netting her owners a profit of over $600,000. The most successful privateer, a brig called Yankee out of Boston, captured forty prizes worth more than $3,000,000.
Not all privateers were so successful. The Dash sank during a storm off the coast of Maine, yet residents still remember her because her ghost continues to sail their coastal waters. During World War II, a couple making love on the beach saw the ship loom out of the fog.
American privateers played an equally important role during the War of 1812. Two months after war was declared, 150 privateers put to sea. The United States Navy owned twenty-three ships with 556 guns. During the war, they captured 254 British ships. In contrast the 517 privateers with their 2,893 guns took 1,345 prizes and cost the British an estimated $45.5 million in damage. As a result insurance rates for British merchants sailing the Irish Sea rose thirteen percent. The privateers also captured 30,000 prisoners.
Napoleon’s surrender, however, brought the full wrath of the British navy to bear on America. Their blockade of American ports brought commerce to a virtual standstill and privateering dwindled.
One of the last privateers was a gentleman named Jean Laffite. To this day, he remains steeped in mystery, but no one disputes the fact that he was a hero. Without his armament and men, the Americans might have lost the Battle of New Orleans. Although Laffite sailed with letters of marque from Cartagena, which was fighting for its independence from Spain, many considered him a pirate.
And why was that, exactly? Is it because the last ship of the Continental Navy was sold off in 1785 and the US Navy did not commission another ship until 1798?
With almost 1700 letter's of M&R out, it gave the US an instant fleet to fight for independence, the "un-war" against France, the Barbary coast, and the Brits again in 1812.
Independence was secured through the services of the Royal French Navy.
The undeclared war against France was fought by the US Navy. American privateers lost 300+ ships in that war - but the only French ships of strategic significance were captured by the US Navy (and the US Treasury!) and it was the newfound might of the US Navy that forced the French to accomodate the US with the Convention of 1800.
Privateers proved useless against the Barbary pirates, and again US armed forces intervened and put an end to hostilities. This is a point you really do not seem to get: the US Navy and Marines - using no letters of marque and reprisal - broke the Barbary pirates. The privateers were completely at the mercy of the pirates and their inability to get the job done resulted in tribute payments, not victory.
Privateers failed again in 1812 - it was the US military who prevailed in the face of the Royal Navy at Fort McHenry.
you sure as hell aren't sourcing a damn thing.
This is basic American history, not some recondite topic. Do you really need a citation to prove that Decatur really existed? Or that the French Navy was a decisive presence at Yorktown? Really?
I am assuming anyone reading this had a decent high school education.
|
U.S. Navy |
Privateers |
|
| Total ships | 23 | 517 |
| Total guns on ships | 556 | 2893 |
| Enemy ships captured | 254 | 1300 Whoops. Looks like you'd better starting sourcing your bullsh*t... |
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