First, I appreciate your reasonable approach to this discussion. I’d like to respond to some of your assumptions.
“I am in favor of winning the war against Islamism.”
Me too, and the idea that we have not won it yet can not be a valid reason for not winning it now. If anything, you make a good case for stepping up the effort, not walking away from it.
“that moment has passed.”
As long as the enemy is not ready to quit, that moment has not passed.
“There have been several domestic plots over the past 4 years, but excellent police work by NYC and the FBI have caught the bad guys before they could do their dirty deeds. Well done!”
A truth that would NOT be true without the Patriot Act, a major target of the Paul (and left) campaign. We could have stopped 9/11 itself, had we had the Patriot Act. We knew the Atta cell in NYC a year earlier. Only the Patriot Act made it possible to know and act on that information. Paul’s wrong on this one too.
“If we, in some fantasy, elect Ron Paul President, he brings our troops home, and our country is then attacked again by Islamists, there would be total national unity”
No, what you would have is a national tragedy and a whole lot of “I told you so.”
“on a declaration of war and a devastating response.”
Wrong again. We are not at war with any nation now. We have not been at war with another nation since WWII. There is NO nation to declare war against. Our enemy operates in 60+ nations, most of them our allies, but under no flag. That’s why there is NO declaration of war.
“Even Ron Paul, after all, voted for the Afghan war resolution.”
Is there a “declaration of war” against Afghanistan that I don’t know about? Paul cast the same vote for Afghanistan that he now criticizes about Iraq, which he voted against. Paul fails to make any connection between the WOT and Iraq, but 95% of US and ally experts agreed on the connection. Most of them still agree today.
“Personally I like Tom Tancredo’s plan of holding Mecca and Medina hostage for our country’s peace and tranquility. The outrage from CAIR that greeted Tom’s idea was a sure indication he was on the right track. If you like, add Teheran to Tom’s list.”
I’m good with this, but by itself, it won’t be enough.
“But if we are still mucking around in the Middle East, and our country is attacked again, there will be no national unity on what to do; just endless recriminations.”
35 years later, people still disagree on Vietnam. So long as there is political exploitation of the war, there will be no national unity on the war.
The best thing for the war on terror is another attack on US soil, a really BIG one, level a few US cities maybe.
Is this what we want to help us understand that until the enemy is ready to quit, we can’t quit?
“There is NO nation to declare war against.”
There is Saudi Arabia — we were attacked by Saudis in 2001; and the Saudis are still sending forth their Wahabbi-Islamo-Nazi imams who are spreading their message of hatred for all unbelievers. They are here in America right now, spreading their message of hate.
I believe that the Saudis understand that they are going to be targeted, and that’s why they are trying to fashion a solution for the Israel/Palestine dispute, before it ends in nuclear war.
We cannot prosecute this war any further now, because President Bush has totally obscured who the real enemy is. He receives CAIR at the White House, and his family does business with the Saudis.
I know of no consensus that invading Iraq was necessary to fighting Al Qaeda. I really don’t know why Bush made the decision to invade Iraq. Perhaps it was the supposed WMDs; perhaps partially due to the attempt on his father’s life; perhaps his neo-Wilsonian desire to spread democracy across the globe. Whatever his probably well-intentioned reasons, the main effects of the Iraq invasion have been to greatly weaken the Republican Party, and greatly raise the influence of Iran. Not good at all!
On the Patriot act, I would say that you have a strong argument. There must be some reason we have stayed relatively safe with our nation’s borders wide open, and the Patriot act may well have provided the edge our law enforcement forces needed.