Replies

>> “Your problem is that so many of us Dirty Hippies got here eight years ago ... And you show up here with your few months of signup time and some Dirty Hippie scoffs at you, perhaps even posts sarcastically in your general direction. It’s so unfair. Really.”

My credentials are plenty well established.

>> I think there’s something on satellite called FreeSpeechTV in the 9400 channels and it might have connection with these DemocracyNow people but they’re all nutjobs.

I listen all the time - she’s a kook, no doubt. The problem is, on foreign affairs and national securituy, your buddy Ron Paul sounds JUST like her (as do virtually all of his supporters). Leaving the Arabian peninsula (including Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Saudi, Kuwait, etc.) at the demand of a terrorist organization (as Paul advocated last night) is tantamount to surrender. Such a blundering decision will have long-lasting detrimental effects when every two-bit dictator and terrorist organization around the world concludes that we don’t have the stomach to withstand a drawn-out war against our enemies, even after we lose 3,000 people in an attack on our home soil.

>> I hope I didn’t ruin your little Reds-under-the-bed thing you had going. But you can still obsess over the evils of Dirty Hippies if you like.

I still maintain, your credentials aside, that much of the online support garnered by Paul is from Democrats and Communists. This is why he does so well in random online polls, but cannot break 2-3% in polls of likely Republican voters ... the vast majority of likely Republican voters think he’s a nutjob.

>> Seems like a harmless hobby if you don’t shoot them.

I don’t shoot them, yet ... but my aim is improving.

No need to condescend, professor ... I’ve been a member for almost a year LONGER than you have. Perhaps you assume too much. I recently acquired a new handle (Hemorrhage), but have been a member since September 1998 under a different handle (ThePatriot1776).

Aha. Well, I do wish JimRob would allow an occasional change of screenname, maybe once every couple of years with previous handles noted on the user's home page.

I listen all the time - she’s a kook, no doubt..

You made me tune in to it tonight. I got the definite whiff of Leftism off her. And that news reader was radioactive. They had some blips of George Schultz on and were trying to get him to say something damaging about GWB's Mideast policies, especially to dissent on Iraq. He was making points like "Merely because there is a great deal of oil in the region and in Iraq, that doesn't mean that President Bush's decision to invade Iraq was about acquiring oil". Just my paraphrase. You know, it was good to see George Schultz again. A good man, essential to Reagan. Anyway, then they had some Lefty guy, Ehrlich, who wrote some enviroblather, probably some hortisodomy treatise, looked like a pervert. Anyway, then the Redder-than-Mao newsreader came on and I couldn't take any more of it. The many mentions of Stanford made me wonder if most of her regular guests are Stanford academics, obviously, Lefties.

The problem is, on foreign affairs and national securituy, your buddy Ron Paul sounds JUST like her (as do virtually all of his supporters). Leaving the Arabian peninsula (including Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Saudi, Kuwait, etc.) at the demand of a terrorist organization (as Paul advocated last night) is tantamount to surrender. Such a blundering decision will have long-lasting detrimental effects when every two-bit dictator and terrorist organization around the world concludes that we don’t have the stomach to withstand a drawn-out war against our enemies, even after we lose 3,000 people in an attack on our home soil.

But in fact, we have shown little interest in apprehending Bin Laden. He will be on TV again in a few days, celebrating that he killed 3,000 of us and promising even more. With our borders wide open, I don't know why anyone thinks we're especially safe. One of the major problems with "we'll fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" (a loony mantra) is that we already have a lot of them over here and no control over our borders or more than a basic grasp of who is or is not a budding terrorist, either self-radicalized or acting on Osama's orders.

Failing to make capture/trial/execution of Osama and his top henchmen a priority (or even a serious goal) has been an irrational policy for a war on terror. When you go after drug cartels, you don't just ignore the largest and most dangerous one. If you defeat Hitler's armies, you don't leave him alive. Or let the Japanese warlords who attacked Pearl die of old age. And you don't let Osama and his top lieutentants kill 3,000 people and show up regularly on TV bragging about it and promising to kill more of us.

Our very presence on the Arabian peninsula does, in fact, help Osama to recruit followers. These are holy lands to them. So our policy must priortize that there should be no Osama and no top al-Qaeda leadership left. And their financial network finally fully traced and those who fund them prosecuted or killed.

BTW, you included Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran in your list of countries on the Arabian peninsula. That's inaccurate. While small portions of Iraq and Jordan are geographically a part of the Arabian peninsula, they are not considered a part of the Arabian peninsula (aka Arab Gulf states) in foreign policy circles. You need to look at a map because in no way can Iran or Afghanistan ever be considered on the Arabian peninsula. This is how CFR documents, CIA reports, etc. routinely refer to them. The context of Ron Paul's comments on withdrawal from the Arabian peninsula were in regard to our rush to get our troops out of Saudi as quickly as possible. We transferred 4500 to Qatar, leaving behind some 500, deeding portions of that base to the Saudis. Wolfowitz and others at the time were talking about how our presence in the Saudi kingdom did actually recruit terrorists for Osama. The actual countries of the Arabian peninsula are

Bahrain, geographically an island off the east coast of the peninsula.
Kuwait
Oman
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
United Arab Emirates
Yemen

So I think you may have misunderstood that portion of the debate. As for Ron Paul advocating closing most bases around the world and bringing troops home as a better foreign policy and a necessary measure to overcome the ever-growing government and to help pay for the Boomer retirement and escalating medical costs, infrastructure needs, yes, he does certainly advocate it. Absolutely. If you don't like the choice offered, that of America as a global policeman and welfare agency vs. being good neighbors and trading partners, then don't vote for Ron Paul. What puzzles me is when people demand no choices or options in foreign policy and especially its relation to domestic policy, let alone such hosility that they are offered any choice. These domestic issues I mentioned are choices directly related to the purely military and geostrategic goals we presently pursue in the region.

But American forces in the Middle East are not just unnecessary, they are demonstrably harmful. In late February 2003, before the start of the war, Wolfowitz admitted that the price paid to keep forces in the region had been "far more than money." Anger at American pressure on Iraq, and resentment over the stationing of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia, Wolfowitz conceded, had "been Osama bin Laden's principal recruiting device." Looking ahead to the post-Hussein period, Wolfowitz implied that the removal of Hussein would enable the United States to withdraw troops from the region. "I can't imagine anyone here wanting to . . . be there for another 12 years to continue helping recruit terrorists."

Troops in Saudi Arabia Are Superfluous and Dangerous - Cato

Ron Paul and his supporters are no less dangerous than Hillary Clinton, Amy Goodman or the dirty hippies that support her. I’d rather a Democrat win than Republican Ron Paul, because if a President is going to send the country down the toilet, I’d rather he didn’t have an (R) beside his name.

Fine. Vote for Hitlery then. Maybe Maddy Allbright could fix what's wrong in the Mideast. Personally, I'd expect a real war to break out. So good luck with that.

I still maintain, your credentials aside, that much of the online support garnered by Paul is from Democrats and Communists. This is why he does so well in random online polls, but cannot break 2-3% in polls of likely Republican voters ... the vast majority of likely Republican voters think he’s a nutjob.

I think I've yet to hear of any communist supporting Ron Paul. They're pretty decimated and pathetic from what little I've seen. No doubt we do have some Democrats, my wild guess is 10% to 15%, not so terrible unless you thought Reagan should have rejected his Reagan Democrats to get a landslide. We have probably a majority of Republicans, the rest are a mix of Libertarians and a whole bunch of college kids and young people in their twenties who aren't very partisan or political about any party yet but who realize the welfare state is about to fall on their heads with the Boomer retirement. IMHO. You can learn a lot by looking at Facebook or MySpace or the MeetUps. Of course, we do have quite an assortment of single-issue voters. Like these online gambling people.

I don’t shoot them, yet ... but my aim is improving.

Well, then, we can at least agree on the virtues of the Second Amendment and the need for target practice.

[cva66snipe flagged, for when he gets back in a few days]