Read post 326
Ron Paul wants it done in a Constitutional manner. There is Letters or Marque and or Reprisal which allow for dealing with ones like Saddam and Bin Ladden. If used correctly they are quite effective and much, much, cheaper in cost of U.S. human life and tax dollars.
We started into this mess by helping to put the Shah of Iran in power. That was bad enough as it was none of our business to start with. He wasn't a saint and generated a hatred toward him in Iran. In the mean time we made a major blunder thinking that Islamic Nations or Arabic states were stable when history says otherwise. We armed Iran to the teeth in the 1960's up till the overthrow. These were not low tech guns etc. I'm talking about what was our state of the art Navy Fighters namely the F-14 Tomcat. Much of it's systems are classified information. See a problem?
Well then came the increase in state sponsored terrorism. Many Republicans like to blame this solely on Carter and ignore the real issue created by Gerald Ford who made Letters of Marque and Reprisal and impossibility against the likes of Adi Amin, Qaddafi, Arafat, Saddam. etc and they knew it.
The Shah was overthrown and our military was not in condition to stop it. But that again was not just a Carter issue as the military was quite broken when Carter took over. There was major resentment by the Iranian Revolutionist against the United States. I'm not saying it was right what I am saying is our dealing with the Shah fueled their hatred of us. That is cause and effect. Not blaming but understanding.
Then came the Iran/Iraq war who's side were we on? We quietly supported Saddam who was also a thug inside his own nation. We supported Bin Laden as well while Russia went broke chasing him through those mountains. Then there was our State Departments coddling of such trash as Arafat until the day he died. All tolled we added up quite a lot of resentment by both friends of one and enemies of another over there.
Our best policy would have been to stay out of their internal affairs long long ago as they were not a threat until we allowed them to become such by removing fear of death of heads of state.
Reagan in his first term realized there was no dealing with them. He learned by watching for example Israel as they in a matter of minutes destroyed Saddams nuclear program. Again had we simply stayed out of Israels way how many problems do you think we would have in the M.E. today? I say very few. Our own State Department is a curse to us in it's appeasement policies. Our real Neville Chamberlain's are the ones working there who have been following the exact same policy since 1989 and before 1981 as well. There is no real policy difference between the Johnson State Department, Nixon State Department, Ford State Department, Carter State Department, Bush Sr State Department, Clinton State Department, or W's for that matter. Same mistakes, same results, repeated year after year.
Only one person right now is saying hey wait a minute I see a pattern in all this. His name is Ron Paul. We can not end Islam. The tribes are as old as Ishmael and Esau and so is the jealousy toward Israel {Isaac and Jacob}.
Now we can either continue on the course or quietly pull back and fortify our own national security which means truly securing our borders etc, or we can fight Islam for generations. They M.E. will always be in turmoil. The sooner we realize it and stop trying to resolve THEIR fights for them the sooner we stop becoming a target. When threats to our security pop up like the one building up to our south quietly take them out. No posturing, suttle warnings, and stealth action via Letters of Marque.
BTW we make no friends pandering to the Sauds either. And some friends they are huh? Most of the 9/11 attackers were from Saudi Arabia. None were from Iraq. Who was and actually is our biggest threat then? The sooner we become energy dependent the sooner no more Saudi deals. But Bush isn't even pushing that hard now is he? Why not? He should have the GOP making drilling ANWR a number one priority as well as off the coast of Florida. We need refineries ASAP as well. What is the focus instead? Iraq. It just makes no sense.
No Ron Paul is no Chamberlain but his ideas are a threat to those who have less than honorable intentions for our nations future in both parties. I would feel secure with Paul as CIC of the armed forces because he would have them watching over the United States of America with a domestic force unseen since Reagan. He would secure our borders. That right there is how we will be attacked again and Bush is the one practicing appeasement at the expense of our national security in our very own back yard. That concerns me a lot more than any M.E. issues. We can stop them before they get here. We can kick out threats already here. But none of even that will get done because NOBODY is trying. That too is appeasement. None dare call it that unless a DEM is in charge. Islam has never been a religion of peace. NEVER!