Posted on 09/27/2009 7:14:55 PM PDT by yongin
As contemptible as this is, I’ve got two good reasons to spare you a harangue about it. One: I’ve already written that harangue, and after the summer coup in Tehran and another year of cheat-and-retreat on their nuclear program, it’s truer now than it was then. And two: Thankfully, this old crank’s isolationist denialism is so fringe on the right that not even mainstreamers who are sympathetic to his broader agenda, like Glenn Beck, will go near it. It’s almost not worth bothering about. But suffice it to say, in the unlikely event that the three-percent rEVOLution ever commands the foreign-policy agenda of the GOP, I’ll run — not walk — into the Blue Dogs’ arms. As Paul spoke passionately about ending all military operations and keeping government out of people’s “lifestyles,” a lone heckler began to shout, “Tell her!” Bachmann remained serene, hands folded in her lap, facing Paul. Bringing up Obama’s announcement that Iran had secret underground nuclear facilities, Paul announced that he had had enough of “fear-mongering” for the sake of the “military-industrial complex.” Bachmann, who once advocated nuking Iran, kept her eyes trained on Paul as her heckler repeated, “Tell her! Tell Michele! Tell her!” A few more choice quotes from Think Progress: We should never go to war if they’re telling us a lie about what’s happening. … We took the position, over my strong objection, we took the position that we had to have regime change in Iraq. What they’re getting ready to do is put very, very strong sanctions on Iran. … But sanctions, and blockades, and prevention like this is an act of war. I’m not sure what “lie” it is we’re being told about Iran, but then this is a guy so eager to see American “lies” at work vis-a-vis enemy powers that he’s been known to accuse the feds preemptively of telling them. Anyway, the point to take away about his Iran shtick is that it’s not an argument about strategy, i.e. “They’re a threat but non-intervention is the best way to stop them.” It’s an argument about facts, i.e. “There is no threat,” which it has to be because once he admits that Iran is dangerous his isolationist “solution” becomes impossible to sell. In that sense he reminds me of opponents of waterboarding, forced to insist that coercive interrogation never ever works because once they admit that it does, their absolutist opposition is politically dead on arrival. Conservatives complain frequently about Paul’s penchant for blaming America — and here, too, in the blockquote above, he’s already laying the groundwork to say “we started it” if and when Iran tries something — but his foreign policy, such as it is, leaves him with no other choice. The only way isolationism works is if literally any form of intervention against an enemy is morally wrong and just cause for disproportionate reprisal. Which is another way of saying it doesn’t work. Happy viewing.
lol You’re really that afraid of the Iranians, huh?
THIS is the reason I will NOT vote for Ron Paul.
It was a decorated Republican veteran who first warned us of the encroaching influence of the military industrial complex...Do you still like IKE?
We will not be brought down by foreign enemies..we are being brought low from within by imperial over-reach...a classic collapse in historical terms..the dollar is about to fail...that will change everything.
ping
You say that to convince yourself
You don’t have a clue.
You dont have much of a clue either.
No, I would not go to war unless attacked. Germany declared war so we had no choice. To answer your question, I would not have gone to war with Germany had they not declared war. Instead, I would have prevented the holocaust by letting the Jews freely immigrate to the United States, thus the saving the millions who died under FDR’s watch. Unfortunately, the heartless FDR turned them away when they tried to enter American reports in the 1930s.
How is utopian nation building in the Trashcanistan preventing a tornado?
Ron Paul comes across as a real nut job, something about him makes me think the elevator doesn’t go to the top floor. Everytime I see Ron Paul I think of Marshall Applewhite, the wacked out leader of the Heaven’s Gate cult, I think they were separated at birth. I can almost picture Ron Paul in a pair of “Star Trek”pajamas and sneakers waiting for the Halle Bop comet to come into view. Whereas Paul may not be quite that far gone his foreign policy view as just as crazy and suicidal in this day and age.
It was a decorated Republican veteran who first warned us of the encroaching influence of the military industrial complex...Do you still like IKE?
Paragraphs.
It would be great if we could take the economic side of Ron Paul and mate it to a rational foreign policy but alas! that sort of repackaging is not to be.
100% spot on. Paul has always seemed to have a particular soft spot for the regime in Tehran. The Iranian front groups in this country are especially smitten with him.
Mr. Paul thinks that the US should never have fought the Civil War or World War II. It is he who would fail to defend the constitution.
Yeah, because Obama got soooo much support from Boeing and Northrop Grumman in the last election...Good grief.
Obama has basically the same foreign policy and national security philosophy as your hero Paul. You should be content.
Paul and Obama have very similar national security policy agendas.
And both are essentially sitting atop cults of personality.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.