Who will run in 2012

[RoyalShock]

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you say Paul blames America. But that is the common retort anytime someone questions our involvement in the middle east.

In Paul's own words (from your link to the debate video) he says the 1953 intervention started it. That foreign policy opened the door for more and more intervention, spawning more and more hatred and resentment toward the US among a faction of Islam. That's in the 9/11 report, from the CIA's expert on Bin Laden, as a primary factor for the terrorist's actions. That logic is hardy absurd.

Santorum sounds more absurd saying it all started with Iran taking Americans hostage in '79, implying the act was predicated on nothing but unfounded hostilities. Let's say the '53 overthrow had nothing to do with it. Then it must have been due to our support of Iraq at the time (more meddling). Then what did Iraq do years after we armed them? They went into Kuwait and now we're fighting the guy we used to support. Bin Laden and the Taliban is a similar story. How many more times are we going to fund and arm our future enemies?

My threshold for military action is higher than just a threat to national interests. We're going down the same road we did with Iraq. And that's not worth thousands of American soldier's lives, in my opinion.

[Maggie]

I have to catch a flight….I will tell you what I think Royal, barring any unforeseen circumstance, in the morning.

If any one else would like to chime in – that would be great. Personally, I think both I and Royal have good points to make. That said, I think Royal is a bit misguided, a little off true north (if that exists).

[SB Shock]

That foreign policy opened the door for more and more intervention, spawning more and more hatred and resentment toward the US among a faction of Islam.

Islam will always hate us regardless of whether we are in or not in the middle east. The see the west as Christianity (or as pagans) that must be defeated.

Santorum sounds more absurd saying it all started with Iran taking Americans hostage in '79, implying the act was predicated on nothing but unfounded hostilities. Let's say the '53 overthrow had nothing to do with it. Then it must have been due to our support of Iraq at the time (more meddling).

You have to look at in the context of the time. In 1953 with the cold war going full steam the U.S. was more concerned that Iranian government might fall into the Soviet influence (during this time there were a lot of countries that were getting their freedom from out from under french/british/dutch/german colonialism and were determined to go in a different direction. So the CIA installed their man - the Shah. The U.S. was really worried that USSR would invade Iran to take their oil and/or shut down the Straits of Hormuz to strangle the west.

Maybe it would have been better if the U.S. had worked with democratic government at the time, but I don't think nobody knows that for sure, because there must have been something that drove the CIA to support the coup.

When Iran took over the American embassy that was an act of war. There is a reason why you never see a Russian embassy overran ever. In some ways if we were a little more brutal, some of these wars might not have to be fought (and there would actually be less live lost). We usually get into these conflict when our adversary underestimate our resolve.

Then what did Iraq do years after we armed them?

Iraq was a client state of USSR. If you noticed all their equipment was Russian BMP, T-55, T-62, T-72, Mig-23, AK-47.....

You might be getting mixed up with the Iran Contra when we sold military equipment to Iran but tried to counter any advantage by providing Iraq with intelligence information and turned a blind eye as U.S. companies selling duel-use technology. We were playing Iraq and Iran off on each other. As long as they were preoccupied with each other we didn't really care.

They went into Kuwait and now we're fighting the guy we used to support. Bin Laden and the Taliban is a similar story. How many more times are we going to fund and arm our future enemies?

kind of follows the old adage "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". We are doomed to repeat it. We created and supported the mujahdeen because we thought the soviets were a much bigger threat than the afghanistanis would be. Probably the real mistake we made was after the Soviets were defeated, we just a walked away and turned our back and didn't provide any economic support to the country and then the taliban took control in the void.

My threshold for military action is higher than just a threat to national interests. We're going down the same road we did with Iraq. And that's not worth thousands of American soldier's lives, in my opinion.

It seems that is when you should fight wars - when it is in your National interest. It seems you get in trouble when you fight war for other people to bring them "freedom" - because if they are not really willing to fight for it in the first place it is going to be a waste of time as they won't appreciate after your done and it will be a waste.

[Kung Wu]

Ok I totally just stole my tagline.

[SubGod22]

Ok I totally just stole my tagline.

NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICE

[RoyalShock]

SB, thanks for your reply.

I realize the US had their reasons for previous actions. Even if those reasons are justified (I'm not saying they are) we are fools if we ignore how those actions affected future events. And that is exactly what a lot of people are doing when they dismiss those earlier interventions when trying to understand current hostilities. Furthermore, we can't just fall back to the position that since the US did it, it must have been right. We don't know what would have happened had we not gotten involved.

I just can't get on board with the idea they are attacking us across the Atlantic because we are "Christian". I've seen a lot more evidence that it is because they see us as "infidels" due to our military presence in their holy land.

I agree with you that we should not be spreading the cause of freedom by fighting for the freedom of those who won't fight for it themselves. I also don't believe we should be fighting a war unless there is reason to believe not fighting will result in our borders being threatened or an ally was attacked directly. But a threat (sabre-rattling) does not qualify in my book.

[SubGod22]

The extremists believe they are to convert or kill everyone who is not Muslim. So yes, they would still be attacking the rest of us. Did our military presence accelerate those actions towards us? Maybe. But our presence did not create them. They were there long before we got involved over there.

[RoyalShock]

The extremists believe they are to convert or kill everyone who is not Muslim. So yes, they would still be attacking the rest of us. Did our military presence accelerate those actions towards us? Maybe. But our presence did not create them. They were there long before we got involved over there.

I understand that, but why go after a country on the other side of the world? Why are they not going after people and nations closer to them who are not Muslim? Why only nations that are or have been a part of our military alliance?

[SubGod22]

Influence

[Maggie]

SB, thanks for your reply.

I realize the US had their reasons for previous actions. Even if those reasons are justified (I'm not saying they are) we are fools if we ignore how those actions affected future events. And that is exactly what a lot of people are doing when they dismiss those earlier interventions when trying to understand current hostilities. Furthermore, we can't just fall back to the position that since the US did it, it must have been right. We don't know what would have happened had we not gotten involved.

I just can't get on board with the idea they are attacking us across the Atlantic because we are "Christian". I've seen a lot more evidence that it is because they see us as "infidels" due to our military presence in their holy land.

I agree with you that we should not be spreading the cause of freedom by fighting for the freedom of those who won't fight for it themselves. I also don't believe we should be fighting a war unless there is reason to believe not fighting will result in our borders being threatened or an ally was attacked directly. But a threat (sabre-rattling) does not qualify in my book.

Quickly: You are, in my judgment, making a category error in your historical extrapolation. Besides, no one, as far as I can tell, is asserting that U.S. foreign policy is the equivalent of a proclamation from the Pope. In hindsight, mistakes have been made, and always will be.

What I think Ron Paul fails to appreciate (in large part to his adherence to Libertarian principals) is the real world. You know I played a bit of soccer in my younger years (I became a sweeper) – I knew the rules as written, I knew the letter of the “law”. But I also knew that in the course of the game, those rules are shiftable sand. You play the game in accordance to how those “rules” are enforced in a particular match, not according to some idealized notion of how YOU think they should be enforced. I would never allow my side to be “penalized” or at a disadvantage because I thought the refs were incompetent – you play the game as it is called (and we pushed those boundaries, to our advantage, as far as possible) and adjusted accordingly.

Paul’s world assumes too much. Global relations, nation states, don’t play by Paul’s rules. And they never will. Certain things tend to get simplified, for mass consumption I presume, in this day and age. But Paul does this too – he has blinders on when it comes to foreign policy. Sticking his fingers in his ear, screaming loudly, as a child would if they were revolted by broccoli. Paul has many good things to say but he is out of his depth when it comes to foreign policy.

[Maggie]

I am not sure what to make of this article in The American Spectator, by Jeffrey Lord. While I agree with some of Lord’s assertions related to Paul’s foreign policy views, there is something I can’t quite get past: Lord advances a guilty-by-proxy argument to bolster his claim that Ron Paul is an anti-Semite at heart – and, in this case, I am not sure I approve of that line of reasoning – mostly because I have never heard (I could be wrong) Paul say anything anti-Semitic. Has he been critical of Israel? Yes he has, but that doesn’t mean he hates Jews.

In any event, in the second link a man named Jack Hunter who apparently is “the official Ron Paul 2012 campaign blogger” responded to Lord’s article and Lord responds to Hunter’s criticism.

Ron Paul and the Neoliberal Reeducation Campaign

Ron Paul and Conservatism: An Exchange

[Maggie]

If you have 20 minutes or so, watch this:

Senator Rubio at The Reagan Library

This guy is good, very, very good. No matter who becomes the GOP candidate that person better be on the first flight to Florida and while there he or she better be begging this man to be his or her VP.

[RoyalShock]

I am not sure what to make of this article in The American Spectator, by Jeffrey Lord. While I agree with some of Lord’s assertions related to Paul’s foreign policy views, there is something I can’t quite get past: Lord advances a guilty-by-proxy argument to bolster his claim that Ron Paul is an anti-Semite at heart – and, in this case, I am not sure I approve of that line of reasoning – mostly because I have never heard (I could be wrong) Paul say anything anti-Semitic. Has he been critical of Israel? Yes he has, but that doesn’t mean he hates Jews.

In any event, in the second link a man named Jack Hunter who apparently is “the official Ron Paul 2012 campaign blogger” responded to Lord’s article and Lord responds to Hunter’s criticism.

Ron Paul and the Neoliberal Reeducation Campaign

Ron Paul and Conservatism: An Exchange

I read that Lord piece the other night and by the end of page 2 (of 6 pages) it was clear this guy was using guilt-by-association to manufacture a hit piece. In his response to Hunter's counter-column he did the same thing, using words a 1988 primary opponent uttered calling Reagan a fasist, and attributed the sentiment to Paul. Why? Because their views are aligned. Why are they aligned? Because Lord said so! Paul and Reagan were mutual admirers, but Paul did criticize Reagan for his large spending increases. There are some on the right who consider Reagan strictly "hands off", so any criticism gets them riled up quickly.

When Paul criticizes policy and/or actions, his opponents cry hater/racist/anti-semite/etc. To say a guy is an anti-Semite because he uses the word "neoconservative" and some people in the past who used the word also said some things that may have been anti-Semitic is silly.

Lord also fails to address Hunter's counter-arguments on Paul's conservatism. He further fails to back-up his re-assertion that Paul is anti-Semitic with anything from Paul himself. Then he goes after Hunter in an attempt to discredit the messenger.

To me, that says Lord really doesn't have much he can nail Paul on directly using Paul's own words (except the Iran stuff). Instead he tries an end-around out of desperation and gets tackled for a loss.

[Maggie]

First off, Ron Paul is not “conservative”. Second, neoconservative has been used in the past, and to this day, to describe certain intellectuals who happen to be Jewish – people do use it as a slur; most of the original people considered neoconservative (a label they didn’t give themselves) were defectors, so to speak, from the Left – and some did happen to be Jewish - this didn’t make the Left very happy. Third, Paul’s foreign policy does closely resemble the intellectual left – that is a fact.

But I think is fair to point out that Lord takes his argument a too far – he didn’t need to write what he did. If you want to slam Ron Paul from the Right on foreign policy – that is low hanging fruit. For Lord to lower himself to that level of argument without backing it up with empirical evidence – is frankly, sad. It is not enough to say Paul decided to lie down with dogs – because that doesn’t always mean you get fleas.

And, sorry Royal, desperation is not the word – Ron Paul will not get the GOP nomination. I don’t know what the word is – except, maybe, bewildered, at least I am bewildered as to why this article was written to begin with.

[RoyalShock]

Could you be bewildered because you don't want to accept there are those like Lord who take Paul seriously enough to resort to those tactics? Either Paul is a credible threat or Lord has an ax to grind.

Over lunch I heard the guy filling in for Rush (Mark something or other) talking with a caller about the MSM selecting our candidates. I got in on the middle but it sounded like Mark was agreeing. Then the caller asked why Bachmann is getting more coverage than Paul considering she is polling behind him now. Mark responded by saying it is because Paul's poll numbers are temporary and doesn't warrant any mention. But if he polled at 25% for 2-3 months (nice arbitrary standard there, Mark), then he's earned coverage. The problem is that Paul's numbers have been on a steady incline for months, while Bachmann's is on the decline from the polls I've seen. Talk about pot meeting kettle.