Posted on 06/29/2014 7:03:07 AM PDT by Kaslin
Flattus wrote: It's funny to watch Cons attempt to portray this disaster in Iraq as Obama's issue. Sorry, no sale. Thinking Americans know whose war this is. But it's not surprising to see you run from it.From Ron Paul's column today, referring to Necons:
"They cannot admit they were wrong about the invasion being a ‘cakewalk’ that would pay for itself, so they want to blame last week's events on the 2011 US withdrawal from Iraq. But the trouble started with the 2003 invasion itself, not the 2011 troop withdrawal. Anyone who understands cause and effect should understand this."-- Welcome Our Newest Ally! Iran!
Dear Comrade Flattass,
Doctor Ron “Buy Gold at Any Price” Paul is an interesting man. Very smart too.
But he’s no historian. Or investor.
Half the time I don’t even think he’s sane.
Why is it that libertarians have given themselves over to a man that they treat more as Saint Paul than they do as just another man?
Because what "Saint" Paul has written about the Iraq war isn’t Gospel. It is even accurate.
The trouble in Iraq didn’t start in 2003, or in 1990—the First Gulf War—or with the toppling of the Shah of Iran in 1979. Or in operation “Ajax” in 1953 when we deposed the government of Iran and installed the Shah in its place.
Everything in history is part of what came before it.
I have no problem admitting that the Bush administration was wrong in portraying the war as a cakewalk. War should never be declared while dismissing “the many disappointments and many unpleasant surprises,” that Churchill warned was attendant upon any war. I said this at the time.
War rarely goes as one would wish.
As one Lt. General told me: “We had a plan. And it was almost like the purposefully [screwed] it up.”
If the second Bush administration made a long-lasting, salient case for American involvement in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, I don’t remember it.
But for Doctor Ron “Buy Gold at Any Price” Paul to sit back and say the THAT’S the problem in Iraq now, is either willful ignorance or lack of vision.
Here’s the problem in Iraq: They have ten percent of the world’s oil reserves. And there have been, in my lifetime, three powers tussling over the control of the region.
The first is the Soviet Union, popularly styled as “Russia” today.
The next is Islamic militants, who you can’t be rooting for—I mean you can be for them, but see the insanity defense about Doctor Ron “Buy Gold at Any Price” Paul above.
And finally there have been secular dictators, who from time to time have received support from the U.S.
Now you may argue that we should butt out of the Middle East, as Obama and Doctor Ron “Buy Gold at Any Price” Paul argue, saying: “Let them sort it out internally.”
But that ignores one reality you can’t get past: What is in the best interest of the United States of America?
My America is a great country. My America held fair and free elections in Iraq, a first in the Middle East outside of Israel. My America is a voice of peaceful—relatively speaking—change for Arabs who, just like you, covet freedom-- no matter what urban hipster doofuses like you say.
Is freedom just an American birthright that liberty snobs like you inherited from the blood bought by better men than you?
I don’t think so. I think freedom is inalienable.
That means it applies to Iraqis as it does to members of inconsequential third parties like libertarians, who too often just hide their mediocrity behind non-conformity.
Real reform is accomplished by staying and fighting.
There is only one right part of this debate.
If this world is to survive the next 100 years other countries would do better to imitate the United States—the totality of our national experience, not the last 20 years—than to stick to their outmoded, old fashioned concepts of global real-politik.
The worst misfortune to fall to Iraq was Saddam Hussein.
One might argue that invading Iraq to get rid of him was a mistake. But that doesn’t make leaving Iraq afterward right, either by logic or morality. Nor does it make it in the best interest of the United States.
I would like the rest of the world to enjoy the blessings that an old-fashioned butt whopping gave both Germany and Japan.
I want a world that looks more like America, not less.
That, not nuclear-free zones, or cutting carbon, or making marijuana legal, is how the next century will be decided.
And make no mistake: Withdrawing from the world won’t make it safer for us. It will just mean we have fewer allies, if any, when fight comes to your front door.
Or are you too busy reading that phony Ayn Rand to know this?
You meant to say it’s panties, didn’t you? The answer is, yes they did.
It was because the left didn’t let them do what needed to be done, the same they did in Vietnam
You are so right. There is no such thing as a western worldview in the ME, and that includes Turkey. We lived THERE for 6 years, and I can tell you the ME mindset is one of a kind. All those countries have the same mindset, so one has to understand the ME mindset before trying to make change in the ME.
In the fwiw department, I truly believe that you can’t force a 7th century culture into a 21st century democracy.
As is abundantly clear, the best thing to do is kill them all and let G-d sort them out.
5.56mm
You want to make a practical American-interest-based argument for interventions, I'll listen. But as for "freedom is inalienable": that doesn't obligate America to pay, money nor blood, to get it for anyone else.
No thankies. You never know what you’ll catch.
The Bush administration never portrayed the war as being a “cakewalk, “
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.