Ron Paul: If MH17 Missile Was Russian, So What? ISIS Has U.S. Weapons

mediaite.com ^ | July 18, 2014 | Andrew Kirell

[Tailgunner Joe]

While both the Ukrainian and Russian governments continue to point fingers at one another for the MH17 crash, former Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) urged caution Friday against jumping to any conclusions about where blame lies.

Some American pundits accuse Vladimir Putin of having “blood on his hands” since the missile that took down the Malaysia Airlines flight may have been a Russian weapon given to pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine.

Speaking with Newsmax TV’s John Bachman earlier today, Paul said “Putin is a little bit smarter than that. I don’t think he would ever come close to participating in an act like this.”

“At the same time, there have been these new sanctions from the White House,” Bachman replied. “And there have been a lot of fingers pointed in Putin’s direction for not directly being involved but being complicit with the fact that some of these weapons — he might turn his back to it — but they’re Russian weapons.”

Paul’s response: “That may well be true, but guess what? ISIS has a lot of American weapons. We send weapons into Syria to help the rebels and if al Qaeda ends up getting it, it doesn’t mean our American government and Obama deliberately wanted ISIS to get American weapons.”

[sickoflibs]

RE:”Paul’s response: “That may well be true, but guess what? ISIS has a lot of American weapons. We send weapons into Syria to help the rebels and if al Qaeda ends up getting it, it doesn’t mean our American government and Obama deliberately wanted ISIS to get American weapons.”

If he said Libya it might make some sense. Ron is proof that mood altering drugs have their drawbacks.

On Syria Obama went for his buddy Putin's help.

[listenhillary]

Putin can wipe out our entire civilization in minutes with nuclear weapons.

So why hasn’t he done so?

[gaijin]

400 Libyan MANPADS were taken at Benghazi, confirmed.

But then also some really top-shelf US *recent* manufacture Stingers also trickled their way to the baddies via Qatar (they found a complete serial # tab lodged in the engine nacelle of a US CH-47 that crash-landed in Afghanistan).

The wild card is the other 15,000+ older WTO-bloc MANPADS that had been floating around Libya.

ALL these missiles are outside the USA….?

That would surprise me.

[MeshugeMikey]

the page was linked not the image

[cripplecreek]

The Turks were also sending Stingers to the “moderate” terrorists in Syria. Turkey makes them under contract with us. In fact there are some 30 nations that are known to use Stinger missiles.

[Viennacon]

The Turks are a terror government. They should never have been admitted into NATO.

[ansel12]

Ron Paul is an idiot, ISIS isn’t trying to conquer Canada for us and being led by us.

[Forgotten Amendments]

Putin can wipe out our entire civilization in minutes with nuclear weapons, but some drooling imbeciles would rather shiver in fear of stupid cave-dwelling haji ragheads.

On THAT, we agree. It's amazing how easily Americans are terrified.

[ansel12]

Have you heard of the Cold War, and how the assurance that we could make Russia cease to exist, deterred them from Nuking us, which led them to focus on conventional warfare to conquer Europe and the world?

[BobL]

“Ron Paul is an idiot, ISIS isn’t trying to conquer Canada for us and being led by us.”

Definitely an idiot, but right on this one. His point is that there is NO UPSIDE to Putin shooting down a passenger jet. The world already knows that Putin (or us, and probably a few dozen other countries) can bring civil aviation to its knees if he wants to...so why do it?

[Mastador1]

Most people would rather have a bottle in front of them, than have a frontal lobotomy. I think Ron Paul downed the bottle, of pills, in front of him and still had the frontal lobotomy!

[ansel12]

He is an idiot and he is wrong on this one, this is a Russian invasion of Ukraine, and a Russian supplied weapon brought down the aircraft.

ISIS isn’t conducting an invasion of one of our border nations for the US.

[DB]

A few points.

First, a number of airlines were flying over the Ukraine at high altitude on the same day.

Second, an air traffic controller in another country (claimed to be Poland) directed MH17 to fly over the Ukraine to avoid bad weather. It wasn’t in their planned flight path.

Third, the “rebels” weren’t supposed to have access to advanced Russian weapons. The antiaircraft weapons they were known to have were not good much past 10,000 feet up.

Forth, the commander that apparently ordered the launch is reported to be a Russian operative that did Russia’s dirty work in other parts of the world. He’s not just some random “Ukrainian” that happens to be implementing Putin’s agenda.

Last, it isn’t just some random happenstance that this commander came across an advanced mobile Russian antiaircraft battery. Somebody provided it.

The above is based on various news reports. If the “facts” change then the above changes.

[FreeReign]

Definitely an idiot, but right on this one. His point is that there is NO UPSIDE to Putin shooting down a passenger jet. The world already knows that Putin (or us, and probably a few dozen other countries) can bring civil aviation to its knees if he wants to...so why do it?

Don't think many people are saying that Putin ordered the shoot down of a passenger jet.

If that's his strawman fallacy Paul is wasting our time with, then he really needs to STFU.

[Zhang Fei]

4 Americans died at Benghazi, but the terrorist Kadaffy murdered dozens of innocent American civilians.

Hundreds.

[Impy]

This is why Ron’s acolytes like Justin Amash should be purged from the party, nutters and morons, the whole lot.

[jjsheridan5]

He is an idiot and he is wrong on this one, this is a Russian invasion of Ukraine ...

If Russia had invaded Ukraine, there would already be a puppet government in Kiev, and the only way to talk about the Ukrainian military would be in the past tense. An actual invasion by Russia would look very different than what we see here. Russia would defeat the Ukrainian military very quickly, and would have little difficulty gaining control of the government. And then they would be bogged down in a quagmire.

What is occurring here is in that very broad grey area between non-intervention, and outright invasion. Are they supplying arms, logistics, expertise, and possibly some cross-border excursions? Definitely. There is a separatist movement on the country that borders theirs. It would be surprising if they weren't, at least to some degree. Are they going too far? Probably, but I do question how other countries would handle a similar situation. I suspect that many of the holier-than-thou crowd would be holding themselves to far looser standards than they currently hold Russia. But to call this an invasion is not accurate. Not even close.

And you are right. ISIS isn't even close to invading the US.

[GeronL]

“So what?”

Great response, even worse than Obama’s response

[FreeReign]

Paul’s response: “That may well be true, but guess what? ISIS has a lot of American weapons. We send weapons into Syria to help the rebels and if al Qaeda ends up getting it, it doesn’t mean our American government and Obama deliberately wanted ISIS to get American weapons.”

If Obama directly or recklessly indirectly gave weapons to ISIS or Al Qaeda than Obama is at fault.

Meanwhile Putin has been directly arming the rebels in Donestk/Luhansk and he has blood on his hands.

Why is the idiot Ron Paul defending two tyrants??

And why are a few here on FR defending this idiot?

[FreeReign]

“So what?” Great response, even worse than Obama’s response

Amazing isn't it. And we have a few here who defend it.