Libertarian, Constitution Party Leaders endorse Ron paul for President (2 Articles)

[FreeReign]

What this demonstrates is that the Iraqi invasion did nothing to deter Pakistani shipments of nuclear materials to Libya, nor Libyan determination to secure them. It was getting caught with their hand in the Pakistani cookie-jar in October 2003 that blew Libya's WMD program open, not anything related to our invasion of Iraq.

Iraq_invasion + Libya_getting_caught = Qadhafi_surrender

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

Iraq_invasion + Libya_getting_caught = Qadhafi_surrender

What we know for a fact is:

Libya_getting_caught = Qadhafi_surrender

The rest is just speculation. Qaddafi had been bombed before when he got caught doing evil, long before the Iraq invasion; whereas the Iraqi invasion did not deter his attempts to secure WMD's, getting caught did.

[FreeReign]

Iraq_invasion + Libya_getting_caught = Qadhafi_surrender What we know for a fact is:

Libya_getting_caught = Qadhafi_surrender The rest is just speculation. Qaddafi had been bombed before when he got caught doing evil, long before the Iraq invasion; whereas the Iraqi invasion did not deter his attempts to secure WMD's, getting caught did.

Both what you say and what I say are speculation. Both can't be proven.

And you make my point. Qaddafi was bombed before and it didn't deter him. Now he sees Saddam being pulled from a spider hole and low-and-behold Qaddafi surenders.

[WOSG]

I read it ... "the Lebanese branch" is apropos. Lebanon is a separate country from Iraq. ... 20 years ago and another country. Moreover, the statement misses the real story - Hezbollah was an Iranian-initiated operation, and there were specific people involved in created it. I named them. They were Lebanese, not Iraqi, and THOSE PEOPLE TODAY ARE RUNNING HEZBOLLAH, NOT THE GOVT OF IRAQ. The Dawa party in Iraq today and Hezbollah are 2 different entities.

The fact the Democrat party once created the KKK ... well, you can use it to call Barack Obama a white racist, or all Democrats cross-burners, but it would be a stretch. Same here.

You are still engaging in a guilt-by-association smear to drag down the elected and legitimate Government of Iraq. The Iraqi Government is a coalition Govt that goes beyond al-Dawa. Dawa in the 1980s was a dissident group that was engaged in a struggle against a violent dictator. Hundreds of their followers were killed by Saddam, who ordered the death of every member of the party, while they in turn tried to assassinate Saddam and his followers.

Iran took advantage of the situation to use splinter groups of these parties to attack the west. The attacks against west (including the Kuwait embassy) that were done as part of proxy war by Iran are described thusly in
http://www.answers.com/topic/islamic-dawa-party-1
"The party would later claim that the perpetrators of these attacks were agents who had been "hijacked" by the intelligence directorate of Iran's revolutionary guards. In any case al-Daawa and its sympathizers make great efforts in distancing their movement and party from these violent acts."

This is why I say the war against Iran is since 1979. They never stopped and *Hezbollah* not Iraq is their proxy.

The biggest threat to Iran today would be a successful democratic Iraq. Bashing the Iraqi Government is music to the ears of Al Qaeda and the Iranian theocrats.

[WOSG]

He doesn't seem to understand that ... when he says ...

"While in Tehran, it spun off a shadowy set of special ops units generically called "Islamic Jihad," "

... he is failing to credit the real authors of these actions: Iranian Intelligence and Iranian Government.

This is a use of selective facts.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

You are still engaging in a guilt-by-association smear to drag down the elected and legitimate Government of Iraq. The Iraqi Government is a coalition Govt that goes beyond al-Dawa. Dawa in the 1980s was a dissident group that was engaged in a struggle against a violent dictator. Hundreds of their followers were killed by Saddam, who ordered the death of every member of the party, while they in turn tried to assassinate Saddam and his followers.

And also directly claimed responsibility for the bombing of the US Embassy in Kuwait (and have been directly implicated in the bombing of the US Marine Barracks in Lebanon).

The biggest threat to Iran today would be a successful democratic Iraq. Bashing the Iraqi Government is music to the ears of Al Qaeda and the Iranian theocrats.

Hardly. AL DAWA is music to the ears of the Iranian theocrats. They conceived the Al Dawa Party, birthed it, nurtured it and its Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah monster-children, and now their baby enjoys effective control of the Iraqi Government through Al Dawa domination of the Ruling Coalition in the Iraqi Parliament and control of the Prime Ministership.

And yet, you think that we should be supporting this terrorist-riddled government.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

"The party would later claim that the perpetrators of these attacks were agents who had been "hijacked" by the intelligence directorate of Iran's revolutionary guards. In any case al-Daawa and its sympathizers make great efforts in distancing their movement and party from these violent acts."

Of course they do, as long as they're receiving US military and financial support... even while they harbor at least one Convicted Terrorist member of the "Kuwait 17" as an Al Dawa Party member of their Ruling Coalition in Parliament.

Talk about DoubleSpeak. The Islamic mujaheddin in Afghanistan claimed to be our friends for awhile, too.

I don't trust them. Not any of them; not one.

[WOSG]

"Now he sees Saddam being pulled from a spider hole and low-and-behold Qaddafi surenders."

No connection whatsoever. Because OP says so, facts be damned.

Never mind that capturing some goods at sea did *NOT* expose Libya's full WMD program, (eg chemical weapons), we got that from Qaddafi's mea culpa. Never mind that we have as much intel on Iran as we got from our exposure of the Khan nuclear-tech network, but it hasnt seemed to do the trick, has it?

And when Qaddafi explicitly said there was a connection and that he gave it up because of what he saw happen to Saddam, well, who can beleive a madman like the dapper despot of the desert, eh?

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

I'll acknowledge that Qaddafi admitted to being afraid after he got caught. I was merely pointing out that the Iraq invasion itself did nothing to deter his intent to secure WMD's. He was still working on it in October 2003, long after the invasion of Iraq.

[FreeReign]

I was merely pointing out that the Iraq invasion itself did nothing to deter his intent to secure WMD's. He was still working on it in October 2003, long after the invasion of Iraq.

And as pointed out above it was a combination of the two -- (1) being caught and (2)the invasion -- that lead to his surrender.

[WOSG]

Your history is wrong. Dawa was created well before the current Iranian Government came into existence.

HEzbollah and the terrorist attacks were creatures of Iranian influence but Dawa was not, and it never needed Iran to succeed as an Iraqi party.

Once again, you confound the Iraqis with 20 year ago acts of a different group, Hezbollah, done by a different group. I named the perps explicitly.

You obviously are locked into hating the democratic Government of Iraq rather than looking at all the facts squarely.

The biggest threat to Iran today would be a successful democratic Iraq.

[WOSG]

Btw, go back reread #140 on who created Lebanon's Islamic Jihad.

[WOSG]

The ICC.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

And as pointed out above it was a combination of the two -- (1) being caught and (2)the invasion -- that lead to his surrender.

Alright, I'll grant the possibility for the sake of argument.

However:

• 1.) That doesn't prove the speculative proposition that Qaddafi *would have* continued his WMD program after getting caught anyway, given the prior American military action against Qaddafi himself in the 1980s and the military response to Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11; and

• 2.) Even if granted wholesale, it doesn't justify the continued occupation of Iraq in support of an Iraqi government which is dominated by an Islamic Al Dawa Party with a long history of Anti-American terrorism.

[The Pack Knight]

perhaps they're just nuts and eat their own because he didn't have an (LP) next to his name on the ballot. You tell me.

Ask Neal Boortz about that one...

[Texas Mom]

Surprise, surprise, surprise.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

Btw, go back reread #140 on who created Lebanon's Islamic Jihad. ~~ Mugniyah, Fadlallah and terrorist Hassan Nasrallah were co-founders of Islamic Jihad:

• Mugniyah: Freeing the al-Dawa prisoners in Kuwait was one of the main objectives of a string of kidnappings and bombings perpetrated by Hezbollah over the next several years. (One of the Kuwait 17, Mustafa Badreddin, is a relative and associate of Hezbollah leader Imad Mugniyah.[10]) -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Dawa_Party#_note-9

• Fadlallah -- Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, the spiritual mentor of the Lebanese Shi'ite militia, was born in the Iraqi city of Najaf in 1935 - three years after the British Mandate over Mesopotamia, as the region was called, cameto an end. There, he studied with Muhammad Baqr al-Sadr, who founded the al-Dawa Islamiyah party in 1959 and encouraged Fadlallah to get equally as involved in politics. Muhammad Baqr al-Sadr is also the late uncle of Muqtada al-Sadr, the 20-something firebrand whose Sadr Movement is currently backed by Iran. In 1965, Fadlallah moved to Lebanon and set up a local branch of al-Dawa. ~~ http://www.sais-jhu.edu/pubaffairs/SAISarticles03/Deeb_JP_112703.pdf

• Nasrallah -- He was only 16 but he already had some political experience as a militant in Lebanon's Amal movement, founded by the imam Musa al-Sadr. In Najaf Nasrallah was introduced to the Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, founder of the Islamic al-Dawa (the call) party, which flourished in Lebanon in the 1970s and is now represented in the Iraqi government by the prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jafaari. Baqir took Nasrallah under his wing and entrusted him to Mussawi, another of his Lebanese disciples. ~~ http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianweekly/story/0,,1481252,00.html

Right... they're all Terrorists either directly associated with, or actually trained and nurtured by, the Terrorist Al Dawa Party of Iraq -- just as I've been saying all along.

And you actually think we should support the Al Dawa-dominated government of Iraq?

[The Pack Knight]

I'm what you'd call a "small l" libertarian, and, despite the fact that I'm leaning towards Gingrich currently, I consider myself sympathetic to Ron Paul's ideas, and might even consider voting for him.

But I have to say something, and don't take this the wrong way. When I see the same poster making essentially the same elaborate post repeating the same quotes and figures time after time INSISTING that someone whom I know to be a libertarian is really a social conservative.. well.. lets just say I get the same feeling I get when someone's trying to sell me a 60 mile per gallon carburetor or "natural male enhancement".

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

When I see the same poster making essentially the same elaborate post repeating the same quotes and figures time after time INSISTING that someone whom I know to be a libertarian is really a social conservative.. well.. lets just say I get the same feeling I get when someone's trying to sell me a 60 mile per gallon carburetor or "natural male enhancement".

In regard to Ron Paul's positions on Abortion and Illegal Immigration, he is a social conservative -- he favors repeal of Roe v. Wade, has sponsored the Sanctity of Life Act, has voted for strong border security... et cetera.

He is "libertarian" or at least "States-Rights" on many social issues, but on Abortion and Illegal Immigration, he ranks as highly as Tancredo or Hunter (or nearly so) amongst the interest groups rating such issues.

As a former Operation Rescue veteran, do you think I'd be supporting Paul if I wasn't 100% convinced of his opposition to Roe v. Wade? That's the biggest Social Conservative issue of all, to me.

[Smokin' Joe]

The only "conservatives" who will are the same ones who were celebrating the 2006 election results because it "taught the GOP a lesson."

Any such, should they exist, are fools because it is apparent the GOP has not learned anything. The helm keeps spinning to port...