Is Ron Paul really so crazy? (townhall)

Is Ron Paul crazy for his position on the war and for criticizing our nation's foreign policy? Many believe this to be the case. But, might we be mischaracterizing Ron Paul by over simplifying or clouding the issues? A much closer examination based on facts and sound principles is in order. In the end I will conclude that Ron Paul is indeed crazy. Sorry to spoil it for you.

There are many things in his favor. To answer pressing questions of our time, Ron Paul relies on historical facts many American's are ignorant of. He isn't afraid to reveal clandestine operations and interventions motivated out of our national self-interest or special-interests that have had detrimental results to other peoples in the world.

He is even bold enough to admit there is a tendency on the part of government to cover-up things to maintain a façade that we are always on moral high-ground in the world. Some see in him a rare privilege to have a candidate step forward with a willingness to reveal these inconvenient truths while others choose to characterize him as a “Blame America First” fringe candidate and dismiss the possibility that he could be on to something.

Ron Paul's tendency towards transparency on these matters is at the root of why he is being attacked and marginalized because there is so much denial due to various forms of conditioning of people's opinions. Some people simply can't accept the reality that we are not always angelic and beneficial to others in the world as we were taught in grade school but this is an area where a reality check is definitely in order.

For example, who is it that "radicalized" Islam to fight against the Russians? We did! We created Osama Bin Laden. We created and installed Sadaam Hussein. We have been purposely destabilizing numerous regions and have and are causing all kinds of malice and strife among nations. Could Al Qaeda actually be like Frankenstein’s Monster? Do we really want to tamper so frivolously with the Law of the Harvest as we have been for decades? We deserve to know the facts as a self-governing nation so that We the People can make the best decisions. It’s our responsibility to search them out.

Ron Paul’s popularity is because there are many who are hungry for answers that make sense of all they see going on in the world who don't buy the idea that we are hated because we are rich and free. These people want the truth and are willing to accept the truth of our nation’s imperfections, even if they are unintended consequences of well-meaning actions. Inevitably, this is the crowd who is willing to face up to the reality this implies and to seek to make the world a better place in as peaceful manner as possible. Does this sound insane to you?

Ron Paul’s impeccable record of public and private conduct gives him a very rare position to speak on all matters of his platform without hypocrisy; especially where Constitutional matters are concerned. Coupled with his obvious absence of guile when he speaks he is greatly enlarging the soul of this nation. He is the heart of a much needed revolution to put aside shaping this world through force and control and replacing it with going back to setting a good example and using persuasion and friendship instead, reserving force of arms strictly for self-defense as a last resort only. Is this crazy?

Ron Paul sees Iran as acting in a very logical manner based on what he knows of the history and current events. He recognizes all we are doing to engender strife and conflict and sees how it is coming back to haunt us as countries seek to defend themselves against our policies of aggression. He sees how the continuation and escalation of these failing policies of our past will simply make our national security more threatened. There is an excellent video hosted by TownHall.com where Ron Paul talks about this: Video Link

I am eager to hear other's perspectives and see if I can discern any blind spots or failings in Ron Paul's platform but so far nobody has prevailed against him. Bill O'Reilley’s attempt was miserable because he refused historical facts and valid parallels to be examined to establish a reasoned perspective. Please watch this video: Video Link

There was a post here on TownHall.com by Phil Harris on 10/23/07 where he says that Ron Paul is giving a prescription for disaster but Phil also failed to convince me. In fact, Phil convinced me all the more that Ron Paul's detractors are the ones prescribing the path to disaster. The path Phil promoted is nothing short of an all-out full scale escalation of war with the defined goal to utterly and totally subdue the Islamic people based on the notion that the Islamic people simply want Israel and the USA exterminated from the planet. He promotes the idea that we either annihilate them pre-emptively or they will annihilate us. He leaves no room for any other scenario in his perspective. In either case he promotes there is certain disaster so by his own admission he is the one issuing the prescription of disaster, not Ron Paul.

This kind of over simplification is a brainwashing tactic that tries to get people to think they are helpless and without alternatives while they accuse their opponent of exactly what they themselves are guilty of. Reasoning from a fear-based viewpoint tends to exhibit this kind of contracted and self-accusing thinking and those doing it are knowingly or unknowingly acting as an agent for those who stand to benefit from the war and destruction this mentality will assure. Phil acts as if we are totally powerless to effect real solutions that will avert the death and destruction an all out world conflict would cause. Thanks to having Ron Paul on the stage we get to hear valid alternatives even if they sound crazy to some.

There is a better way but it involves us humbling ourselves as a nation and repenting of our evils we have perpetrated and forgiving the evils that have been perpetrated against us. The world overall will be a much better place by abiding by these principles and trusting in our Creator who gave us these principles with the promise that “eternal life” comes to all who abide by them. This is Ron Paul's platform and it will save this nation, not sacrifice it.

With all the advances in technology we had better evolve as a people before we self-destruct and render our precious planet uninhabitable in our foolish pride and fears born of false assumptions. Could the “eternal life” spoken of in the Bible actually be referring to the set of principles we must collectively live by in order to avoid a conflict to such a point that this planet is rendered unable to accommodate our presence? This question deserves our most serious and sincere consideration. The last person we want in front of "the button" is a myopic fear-based person who is prone to shoot first and ask questions later.

Our current mentality insists that we have to force and sculpt global conditions to stamp out any potential threat pre-emptively as if there is no Creator watching over and protecting this nation. Unfortunately, this is the very mentality that will cause us to become unworthy of divine protection and we will be left to our own strength and devices and we will become considered as “salt that has lost its savor” and we will end up “trodden under the foot of men”. This is universal law in my book.

I implore everyone to set aside some time to do some sincere and humble research into this issue and even make it a matter of prayer/meditation and fasting. I challenge everyone to assure you are not taking this responsibility to chose our Commander in Chief lightly. I challenge all to step up and articulate their position that strikes against the establishment's headlong plunge of our nation into an abyss of death and destruction as Phil, not Ron Paul, is prescribing.

And, as I promised, I do sincerely conclude that yes, Ron Paul is crazy. He is taking on a very powerful group that have patiently endeavored for generations to acquire the positions of power they control and Ron Paul is courageously standing up and giving our nation an opportunity to wake up and keep this nation a free country governed by We the People. The adversary of our freedom is only authorized to sieze the power we willingly lay down. If we don't wisely govern ourselves the default governance imposes a loss of our liberties and we only have ourselves to blame. There is nothing to fear when we seek with all our hearts, might, mind and strength to be responsible and passionate about maintaining our liberties. Darkness cannot abide the light.

This is a very defining moment in our nation's history. All Americans should do a reality check on Ron Paul before dismissing him. We as a nation of self-governance must be willing to stand up and accept the responsibility to be vigilant in preserving our individual liberties and champion those who take the lead, crazy though they are for doing it.

Right or wrong we helped SH, it was in ‘our’ interest at the time.

How the CIA found and groomed Saddam Hussein

Indo-Asian News Service
April 16, 2003

WASHINGTON: US forces may now be searching high and low for Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein but in the past he was seen by US intelligence as a bulwark of anti-communism, reports UPI.

American intelligence operatives used him as their instrument for more than 40 years, according to former US intelligence officials and diplomats.

UPI interviewed almost a dozen former US diplomats, British scholars and former US intelligence officials to piece together the following account. The CIA declined to comment.

While many have thought that Saddam Hussein became involved with US intelligence agencies from the 1980 Iran-Iraq war, his first contacts date back to 1959 when he was part of a CIA-authorized six-man squad tasked with assassinating then Iraqi prime minister General Abd al-Karim Qasim.

In July 1958, Qasim had overthrown the Iraqi monarchy. According to US officials, Iraq was then regarded as a key buffer and strategic asset in the Cold War with the Soviet Union...

For example, in the mid-1950s, Iraq was quick to join the anti-Soviet Baghdad Pact which was to defend the region and whose members included Turkey, Britain, Iran and Pakistan.

Little attention was paid to Qasim’s bloody and conspiratorial regime until his sudden decision to withdraw from the pact in 1959.

Washington watched in marked dismay as Qasim began to buy arms from the Soviet Union and put his own domestic communists into ministry positions of real power.

In the mid-1980s, Miles Copeland, a veteran CIA operative, said the CIA enjoyed “close ties” with Qasim’s ruling Baath Party.

In a recent public statement, Roger Morris, a former National Security Council staffer in the 1970s, confirmed this, saying the CIA chose the authoritarian and anti-communist Baath Party as its instrument.

According to another former senior State Department official, Saddam Hussein, while only in his early 20s, became a part of a US plot to get rid of Qasim.

According to this source, Saddam Hussein was installed in an apartment in Baghdad on al-Rashid Street directly opposite Qasim’s office in Iraq’s ministry of defence to observe Qasim’s movements.

Adel Darwish, a Middle East expert and author of “Unholy Babylon,” said the move was done “with full knowledge of CIA” and that Saddam Hussein’s CIA handler was an Iraqi dentist working for CIA and Egyptian intelligence.

The assassination was set for October 7, 1959, but it was completely botched. One former CIA official said the 22-year-old Saddam lost his nerve and fired too soon, killing Qasim’s driver and only wounding Qasim in the shoulder and arm.

Qasim, hiding on the floor of his car, escaped death, and Saddam Hussein, whose calf had been grazed by a fellow would-be assassin, escaped to Tikrit, thanks to CIA and Egyptian intelligence agents.

He then crossed into Syria and was transferred by Egyptian intelligence agents to Beirut.

While in Beirut, the CIA paid for Saddam Hussein’s apartment and put him through a brief training course. The agency then helped him get to Cairo.

During this time Saddam made frequent visits to the American Embassy where CIA specialists such as Miles Copeland and CIA station chief Jim Eichelberger were in residence and knew him.

In February 1963, Qasim was killed in a Baath Party coup. Morris claimed that the CIA was behind the coup, which was sanctioned by President John F. Kennedy.

The CIA quickly moved into action. Noting that the Baath Party was hunting down Iraqi communists, the CIA provided the submachine gun-toting Iraqi National Guardsmen with lists of suspected communists who were then jailed, interrogated, and summarily gunned down, according to former US intelligence officials with intimate knowledge of the executions.

Many suspected communists were killed outright, these sources said. Darwish told UPI that the mass killings, presided over by Saddam Hussein, took place at Qasr al-Nehayat, literally, the Palace of the End.

Saddam Hussein became head of the Baath Party’s intelligence apparatus.

The CIA/Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) relation with Saddam Hussein intensified after the start of the Iran-Iraq war in September 1980. During the war, the CIA regularly sent a team to Saddam Hussein to deliver battlefield intelligence to aid the effectiveness of the Iraqi armed forces.

A former CIA official said that Saddam Hussein had assigned a top team of three senior officers from Iraq’s military intelligence to meet the Americans.

According to Darwish, the CIA and DIA provided military assistance to Saddam Hussein’s ferocious 1988 assault on Iranian positions in the al-Fao peninsula by blinding Iranian radars for three days.

The Saddam Hussein-US intelligence alliance of convenience came to an end on August 2, 1990 when 100,000 Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait. America’s one-time ally had become its bitterest enemy.

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