Posted on 07/18/2007 9:32:48 AM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
Define the differences for us, please, realizing that RP is a conservative who has run most often as a Republican.
It will rightfully be rejected by the Admins, just like any article from moveon.org or DU.
How is what you posted him saying about the danger of a Gulf of Tonkin incident different than what Michael Moore would have said?
Or..........did that go over your head?
Answer: I think we are in great danger of it; we're in danger in many ways.
The following is an ELABORATION OF THE MANY WAYS IN WHICH WE ARE IN DANGER, based on flawed policies:
1) The attack on our civil liberties here at home,
2) the foreign policy that's in shambles,
3) and our obligations overseas and commitment which endangers our troops and our national defense.
4) So, everyday, we're in worse shape
5) and right now there's an orchestrated effort to blame the Iranians for everything that's gone wrong in Iraq.
6) And we're quite concerned, many of us, that the attack will be on Iran, and that will confuse things and jeopardize so many more of our troops.
7) So, I would say we're in a much greater danger than we've been even four or five years ago whether it's overseas or even by terrorists here at home because I just think the policies are seriously flawed.
Alex Jones [telephone interview]: “How much danger are we in now with the Homeland Security head feeling in his gut we are about to be hit. Republican Menos saying they need terror attacks they need Al Qaeda to hit us to be able to continue with the war...top military strategists saying it....”
“How much danger are we in of some new Gulf of Tonkin provocation?”
RON PAUL: I think we are in great danger of it; we’re in danger in many ways.
The direct question to Ron Paul concerning his thoughts about our being in danger of a Gulf of Tonkin provcation was answered by his stating that he thinks we are in danger of it. PERIOD.
He then elaborated on the many ways he believes we are in danger because of flawed policy.
“Since the Koran was written, Islamist will make any excuse to attack and conquer. Seeing it in any other way is suicide.”
I tend to agree. But should we be in the business of providing them an excuse with our intervention in their affairs on their soil? Would we allow any other nation upon our shores to intervene in our affairs?
Then what do with the muslims who have already invaded america, steadily building mosques all the while demanding special rights and privileges?
Pres Bush claims islam is a religion of peace. He has welcomed them into our midst while praising their values. Do you agree with his assertions?
Yep - he made a segue-way into a general discussion of the dangers of brinksmanship in a volatile, tense situation.
Personally, I wonder who here has thought about the cost of anyting other than a quick strike on Iran. Is that what our more ardent neocons want? Just a quick, clean missile strike or two? I am curious about what/how they imagine the aftermath would be? Democracy in the streets when the mad mullahs lose some key installations?
If the Prez has a plan for war, he ought to have a plan for "enforcing the peace" ala Iraq and a guesstimate of the time and reources that would be required. It is easy to stir up the blood for a quick strike.
I don't think they can think beyond their hatred or fear, whatever it is, of Ron Paul stating what should be obvious and of more concern in their minds about the consequences of such a strike, especially when our borders continue to remain open to terrorists. As the FBI just announced, Iraqis have been coming in through our southern borders, illegally, for over a year, and still are. As are other terrorists.
Am I sitting in all of the President's briefings with CIA/FBI, military and others? NO, and as such, will not second guess desicions that have turned out to be either incorrect or wrong.
I also know that only with few exceptions, wars are not easily won. However, I do know that a Ron Paul run war on terror would be a Janet Reno style war on terror, i.e., ZERO!
“Define the differences for us, please, realizing that RP is a conservative who has run most often as a Republican.”
No, I will NOT concede that the man is a conservative. He’s certainly conservative on a few issues, such as abortion, but no man that claim that US policy is responsible for Islamist crimes against it can be a conservative. No man that clings to isolationism can claim the mantle of Reagan.
Ed Royce, Republican Congressman is now reporting that the Department of Justice knows Hezbollah sympathizers are definitely among those that are being smuggled in illegally from Mexico.
The Congressman stated there is spreading trend of Mexican and South American Mosques, and they are actively recruiting the disenfranchised, Mexicans, and those from South American countries.Congressman Royce just stated AlQuida is actively attempting to put their operatives into the United States through the Mexican border.
If anyone is failing to understand anyone, it isn’t I. I understand your nuance quite well. By calling someing a “controled substance” you equate illegal drugs with legal drugs which are simply controlled. It is a little like calling an “illegal alien” an “undocumented worker.” It’s an attempt to blur the issue.
But I’m not surprized that someone who calls illegal drugs merely “controlled substances” fails to grasp that. They don’t call it “dope” for nothing.
I guess I don't know whether you mean he is isolationist in terms of trade or foreign policy. I think he probably draws the lines for foreign internvention closer to the border than Bush, who seems happy project force 1/2 around the world but leave our borders relatively unguarded. That seems backward.
I think for Paul the degree of provocation required to warrant military intervention in far-flung places is higher than Bush's and Clinton's. Still, he voted to authorize the Afghan invasion.
If RP was in office during the bombing of Libya, I'd like to hear his thoughts (at the time) on that.
Where has this emerged? I haven’t seen it.
“Since the Koran was written, Islamist will make any excuse to attack and conquer. Seeing it in any other way is suicide.”
Ok I am confused. Now you say, “Wherever radical Islam is, it should be snuffed out ASAP.”
Is there any particular reason you modified your stance to “radical Islam” within three posts?
Are you aware radical islam resides and “worships” in Dearborn Michigan? Sure you are, everyone is. And we don’t need to sit in on the President’s briefings to know this.
“However, I do know that a Ron Paul run war on terror would be a Janet Reno style war on terror, i.e., ZERO!”
I don’t know what you are basing your assessment on. But I do know that Janet Reno had no problem liquidating a bunch of “radical religious kooks” down in Waco. She barbecued them all and took full responsibility.
Meantime, RP voted for the afghanistan resolution. That ain’t ZERO. He did so because OBL was hiding out in the Bora Bora mountain range there. He, like the rest of us, wanted the man responsible for 911. Again, that ain’t ZERO.
So your claim of ZERO comes off as dishonest.
Yer' all hat... no cattle.
Hey Mary, shut up and get me a beer!
Insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result each time. Doing things the way we have done them the last eighty years culimated in 9/11. 3000 people crushed, burned, dismembered, splattered and suffocated, all in the course of about two hours.
I understand the skepticism of thinking it can work.
I am not sure at all if it will work. But I do know one thing: what we did before 9/11 obviously did not work. Doing more of the same will give us more of what we got on 9/11.
There is something else I know. We live in the greatest, most unselfish country in the world. We are a force for good in this world, whether the rest of the world ( or even many in our own countrty ) wants to recognize this basic fact. We are lucky to live here, and the world is lucky to have us.
There have been plenty of things out there on this subject, but two books that echoed my thoughts on this (or I theirs) are: Dinesh Desouza’s book ‘What’s So Great About America’ and Natan Sharansky’s ‘The Case For Democracy’.
One of the things that irks me most about the Left in America, is that listening to them talk about JFK and what a great hero he was just illuminates their hypocrisy. In his Inaugural Address, he spoke the famous passage: “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
We are being asked now to bear a burden in defense of democracy. The currency of our burden is the blood of our countrymen and the money from our treasury.
What we are doing over there in the Middle East is a good and noble thing. The fact that we hope to gain something from it does not detract in any way from the deed we are trying to do.
What we hope to gain from it is National Security. Yeah, it is a bit of a pipe dream to think we can plant the seed of democracy in the Middle East and somehow break them out of their Seventh Century mindset. We did not go over there just to free the Iraqis and Afghans. I would like to think I am altruist, as are the rest of my fellow citizens and the entire country.
But the truth of the matter is...we are involved in this for our own self interested reasons. There ARE reasons we are in Iraq and Afghanistan, but not in a number of other third-world hellholes like Darfur and Somalia.
Like it or not, we run on oil. We can and should change that, but as the fact stands...we are willing to pay for what they have, and we have an interest in keeping their product (oil) on the market for us to buy.
But more important is the fact that the Middle East is a festering pustule of hate, discontent and violence in this small world of ours. That hate, discontent and violence has been unchecked for the last four or five decades. We have been content to let them do what they like to each other, as long as they keep shipping us our oil.
On 9/11 we had 3,000 of our fellow citizens slaughtered in cold blood. Mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, grandparents, pregnant women, brothers, sisters, friends, co-workers, Americans. Some of them were pulverized to a fine mush under the weight of collapsing buildings. Some faced the choice of burning alive or plummeting a thousand feet to die on the pavement below. Others died screaming in terror as the planes flew past skyscrapers before hitting their targets.
I had an acquaintance of mine who died on one of those planes, American Flight 11. His name was David Kovalcin. My last memory of him is sitting up on a porch until 2 AM on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee drinking beers talking about life long after all the other people had gone to bed.
My new boss on 9/11 was a Colonel in the Army who had just retired weeks before. I was having my first interview with her in her office, when her phone rang. It was one of her former subordinates calling to tell her that a plane had just hit the Pentagon. After she hung up, she looked at me and said “I have a lot of close friends in that building.”
On 9/12, that mindset had to change, because we could not just sit back and wait for the next thing to hit us. If those people who perpetrated the horror of 9/11 had weapons that could kill a million people, they would have used them. They intentionally rammed those planes into the WTC to try to trap as many people in the top of the buildings as they could. If they could get their hands on a nuclear weapon, they would use it without hesitation. We did the right thing for the right reasons going into both Afghanistan and Iraq.
What we are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan may yet fail. If it does, with a great deal of certainty, we are going to be fighting a bigger and deadlier war at another place and time in the future towards the same end.
So, yes. We may yet fail. If we fail, we will be no worse off than we were on 9/12, waiting patiently for the next attack on us. And if that happens, we may be required to use the “glass parking lot” option, or even worse.
For our own safety and survival, we may be impelled to make them fear us more than they hate us. But I am morally satisfied that we have wielded the power we have in an unprecedented way. Since WWII, America has wielded the power we possess to make the world a better place. We may have done it clumsily or wrong, but there can be no doubt that we used our power to make the world a better and safer place, and not to conquer territory, make people our slaves or subjugate them.
We have fought a cultural battle, and have largely won. Whether you think that is a good thing or a bad thing is a reasonable debate, but many (if not the majority) of the people in the world would come to America given a chance. They already have our slang, entertainment and Chicago Bulls jerseys in remote parts of the world.
What we need to get into their hands is the real reason America is so great. It is our attitude. Anyone can really BE an American. There are not many countries around the world (if any) that can make that claim. If I go to France, give up my citizenship and become a French Citizen, I will NEVER, EVER be French. But you CAN come here and be an American, no matter who you are. The gift given to us by the Founding Fathers is the essence of what makes our ideas great.
As Rush Limbaugh is fond of saying (and it is so true) Democracy is HARD. Self-Reliance is HARD. And even though 5000 years of history say we may not be able to do it, I say we should try.
After all...it IS possible. There was near common unanimity after WWII that we would never be able to establish a democracy in a feudal society like Japan. But it worked. Look at them now.
The point is...if we have to carpetbomb the entire Middle East with nuclear weapons (and we may yet have to do that) history will record that we, as a nation, attempted to give another nation a hand up off the ground to try to end the cycle. We ARE trying to do it that way. As the strongest nation on the face of the earth right now...I think it is our responsibility to make the attempt.
We need to be in it for the long haul. And that is going to be hard. But we will benefit greatly, as will the Iraqis the nations around them and the rest of the world. If the USA fails, history will judge we didn’t try hard enough. If we succeed, history will judge the us kindly.
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