Pat Buchanan defending Ron Paul

[Boats]

SO are you Paul supporters seriously suggesting that HERE, of all places, that there exists some demographic of sacchirine sweet tooths who need to be fawned over, lied to, and otherwise misled and abused to be beguiled or stampeded into voting for whomever is not Dr. Paul?

From what I have seen, RP's supporters credit themselves too generously by half for their own sophistication, intelligence, and foreign policy acumen.

However, that's just one guy's opinion of the situation. Your kool-aid is just a different color is all.

Speaking only for myself, my "reflexive. unreflective, shallow, imprudent, non-Chomsky endorsed" take on the merits of confronting radical Islam abroad as aggressively as we can, comes merely from first hand interaction with the byproducts of that brand of Islam. They are the kind of guys who would follow you home and kill your entire family in front of your eyes if they could.

I'd sooner zap them in their own neighborhoods when given a say in the matter.

"Blowback" is no more the entire answer than is "they hate us for our freedoms." The analysis of the problem is not one that lends itself to a binary either/or choice.

That's why I find RP naive on foreign policy. Leaving people alone is a great idea on paper. In practice, trouble can find you even when you aren't looking for it.

My policy preference is that we maintain a presence that is geared towards containing trouble when it is small and far away rather than after it has festered and spread.

Let me know when we have closed down Lake City for lack of use and I'll back off my position some.

 

[ArmedBear]

"Blowback" is no more the entire answer than is "they hate us for our freedoms." The analysis of the problem is not one that lends itself to a binary either/or choice.

Bingo!

 

[GTSteve03]

Speaking only for myself, my "reflexive. unreflective, shallow, imprudent, non-Chomsky endorsed" take on the merits of confronting radical Islam abroad as aggressively as we can, comes merely from first hand interaction with the byproducts of that brand of Islam. They are the kind of guys who would follow you home and kill your entire family in front of your eyes if they could.

I'd sooner zap them in their own neighborhoods when given a say in the matter.

So, why aren't you over there helping out, Boats? Don't you know there's a war on?

I mean, there's thousands of radical Islamofascists out there right now, with more being made by the day. You'd better pack a helluva lot of ammo with you, you'll certainly be needing it.

Once you've finally managed to send every last one of those barbaric Jihadists to meet Allah and you climb out of your piles of spent brass and look around, are you expecting to met with flowers and puppy dogs?

Good luck with that, and I just want you to know, we're all counting on you down here.

 

[TX1911fan]

Boats, good points.

 

[Derek Zeanah]

"Blowback" is no more the entire answer than is "they hate us for our freedoms." The analysis of the problem is not one that lends itself to a binary either/or choice.

I guess the quick response to that is "great! Now, express it in the 30 seconds candidates were given for replies..."

 

[Boats]

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. Getting that business from free riders is rather galling though, but I have gotten used to it.

It's easy to criticize from behind the walls.

I'll take a pile of expended brass, reloaded as often as need be, over letting that malignancy spread hither and yon.

This problem is much bigger than Iraq or Afghanistan. People rather doltishly point out, "What about Switzerland?"

Duh. What about Thailand? What about the Phillipines? What about India? What about. . .oh forget it.

Some people can see the bear and others want to feed Israel to it or just ignore it until it's chowing oneself down like a Timmy Treadwell nugget.

I'll take piles of brass everytime. Screw puppies, flowers, and sunshine. Oderint dum metuant.

 

[Boats]

I guess the quick response to that is "great! Now, express it in the 30 seconds candidates were given for replies..."

It's not rocket science to say that we need to lessen the allure of jihad through placing a better emphasis on diplomacy, alliance building, and information sharing with those allies, than has the Bush Administration, while still confronting militant Islam head-on in the field with our armed forces wherever such appears.

We need to speak more softly, and much more clearly, but still be packing the big stick.

Wait, that must be rocket science because Dr. Paul couldn't articulate such in any meaningful way in the time allotted.

 

[GTSteve03]

Oderint dum metuant

Quoting a corrupt Roman emperor, how fitting.

"Let them hate us as long as they fear us." Great plan there, sparky. It's obvious that years of us killing them hasn't really gotten the message across. How do you get someone who is willing to kill himself in order to take out his enemies to fear you? Obviously, death isn't much of a demotivator there.

But lets keep on killin' em. At least we'll rack up a helluva body count.

 

[BigG]

A reality check - what is this with Dr Paul? Oprah is a Dr, too. What do you expect to gain by emphasizing that title; promote him to the ranks of famous fakirs or what?

Ron Paul is good enough - that phony Dr stuff only sounds cheap and brassy. Nuff said.

 

[ArmedBear]

death isn't much of a demotivator there.

Hanging one scoundrel, it appears, does not deter the next. Well, what of it? The first one is at least disposed of. H. L. Mencken

 

[antarti]

He mentioned two foreign interventions, Mohammed Mosaddeq being replaced by the Shah in Operation Ajax (CIA shouldn't even get credit since the British came up with it and planned the whole thing). Madeleine Albright apologized for it. Now you might wonder why Operation Ajax could piss off the Arab world forever since it was an op against Persians Shias and had nothing to do with religious matters, we kicked out of power a socialist that would have aligned Iran with the Soviets. It's one of the lamest answers to the "why they hate us question",

Mosadeq (sp?) was actually elected IIRC, despite his political leanings.

I wouldn't want the Iranian CIA-equivalent trying to depose elected officials from my own government (no matter how tempting that might sound at times, given some of our elected officials), would you?

 

[.45&TKD]

So what if they hate us? Are you suggesting we kill them until they start loving us?

Bud, I am saying that they have historically acted on their hatred of us and we need to defend ourselves.

 

[Brass Fetcher]

@BigG -

Ron Paul is good enough - that phony Dr stuff only sounds cheap and brassy. Nuff said.

. He is an Obstetrician, you know, a Doctor.

 

[TrybalRage]

Actually, he was one long before he got into politics.

 

[budney]

Bud, I am saying that they have historically acted on their hatred of us and we need to defend ourselves.

OK, so you don't care either that they hate us; you only care if they attack us. That's cool; you and I are agreed then.

So do we also agree that we can't just go ahead and kill them because of something they might do someday? In other words, is everyone clear on the difference between attack and defense? And that we should focus on defense--starting with recalling home our troops currently occupying 130 of the world's 160 nations? They can't defend us if they're so far away from our territory...

--Len.

 

[enc0re]

I am no Oprah expert but I was under the impression that her doctorate was honorary.

Paul on the other hand has an M.D. and practiced medicine. I believe it is quite common for M.D.s to be referred to as doctors.

On the issue of the big stick:
Didn't Paul introduce legislation authorizing letters of marquee and reprisal against UBL et al. backed by $40 billion (with a b) of "incentive bonds"? IMHO, that's a pretty big stick.

Visualize, if you will, a company like Blackwater USA, with congressional authorization to operate outside of the U.S. ("marquee") by any means necessary ("reprisal").

 

[Derek Zeanah]

Ron Paul is good enough - that phony Dr stuff only sounds cheap and brassy. Nuff said.

I thought he was a flight surgeon when he was in the service? That sounds like a general surgeon at least...

 

[ArmedBear]

Mosadeq (sp?) was actually elected IIRC, despite his political leanings.

That may be.

However, there's nothing saying that we wouldn't have seen something a lot like Afghanistan, in Iran, after the fall of the USSR, after years of Soviet-bloc rule.

I may not like what the Brits did with our help, as their empire disintegrated post-WWII. But Iran, most likely, would not be our best buddy now, whichever side of the Cold War it ended up on.

Actions have consequences. It is often impossible to know what would have happened if the world were different 50 years ago. There's no guarantee that things would be better. Maybe so, maybe not. Water under the bridge.

The President, while trying not to repeat past gross errors, is charged with answering the question "Now what?" when it comes to national security. He's not charged with generating endless "what-ifs" about the now-distant past.

It's not wrong to do that, of course. But that's not the job that the candidates are applying for.

 

[coltrane679]

No one (or almost no one) questions that the US should kill those who

(a) want to kill us;
(b) have the means to kill us;
(c) are willing to suffer the consequences of trying to kill us.

The Soviets, as dangerous as they were, never, fortunately, got past (b).

What that has to do with the disaster in Iraq is another question. LOTS of people in the Mideast hate the US; a fraction of those are motivated enough to do something about it; and a fraction of those actually have the means to do so. Our focus should be on that fraction of a fraction. Iraq has been a HUGE distraction from that.

I have read, more than once, words to the effect "I don't want the US to leave Iraq like it did Vietnam."

Um, OK--but are saying the US shouldn't have left Vietnam? Exactly how many years, lives and billions of dollars are enough?

The most common fallacy of your average American when it comes to foreign policy is this: believing the ability to destroy a nation (or the world, for that matter) somehow equates to the ability to control it. Doesn't work that way, unless you are prepared to embrace genocide on a scale Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot could not have even dreamed of.

 

[BigG]

He is an Obstetrician, you know, a Doctor.

Oh - in that case I withdraw my objection to the phony title. Most of them are self ordained or honorary and the overuse cheapens them for real MDs.

I still think he ought to go by Ron Paul because that sounds folksy. Also the pics I have seen of him look about 30 years out of date according to his recent TV appearance. He is sorta like Ann Landers where she used a picture of herself when she was thirty well into her eighties.

 

[Igloodude]

IIRC Senators Bill Frist (R-TN) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) are/were also practicing MDs prior to being elected to federal office.

 

[Derek Zeanah]

I may not like what the Brits did with our help, as their empire disintegrated post-WWII. But Iran, most likely, would not be our best buddy now, whichever side of the Cold War it ended up on.

At the same time, they had a democratically elected prime minister that we took away from them and replaced with a tyrant. In order to get out from under the heel of that tyrant, lotsa people ended up supporting militant Islamists.

So in a very real way, that policy swapped a left-leaning populist (but democratically elected) leader for the Ayatollah. Agreed?

 

[ArmedBear]

Sure Derek.

People would have also supported the Islamists to fight the Soviets, as they did in Afghanistan.

Or maybe Iran would have been allied with France or something, because the Cold War saw many countries with a lot of desirable resources taking some third route, since neither the US nor the USSR were interested in them. Except that France and the other left-leaning "free world" of the time were no different. They still aren't, if you've been reading the news!

You're talking about the moral problems of the Cold War Era. I'm talking about what we do now.

I'm not electing a President to solve the moral problems of the Eisenhower administration. I want someone informed, so we try not to repeat mistakes, but beyond that it's not what I want to hear about when someone is running for office. It's like a job interview. Cut the noise, or you don't get the job.

 

[Titan6]

At the same time, they had a democratically elected prime minister that we took away from them and replaced with a tyrant. In order to get out from under the heel of that tyrant, lotsa people ended up supporting militant Islamists.

So in a very real way, that policy swapped a left-leaning populist (but democratically elected) leader for the Ayatollah. Agreed?

Yes but this had little to do with religion or politics and a lot to do with greed. The division of profits after the installment of the Shah made it clear as a bell who wanted what and why. It has always been, is now, and always will be about money. And it was really about personal greed more than anything as the policy was so short sighted.

Reagen supported the Afgans because he knew how costly the war would be for the soviets. And he really wanted to defeat communism.

 

[Derek Zeanah]

You're talking about the moral problems of the Cold War Era. I'm talking about what we do now.

Me too. It's just that it's so rare when I can get someone to agree that "meddling in foreign affairs often suffers from the Law of Unintended Consequences," even if it's just in one instance.

Though, in a roundabout way, I am trying to talk about what we do now. I think we need to start by acknowledging that we'd be better of if we could snap our fingers and undo 7 decades worth of meddling internationally, because it always seems to come back to haunt us. If we'd admit that, maybe we'd be less willing to meddle nowadays, which might mean less people internationally hate my grandkids than hate me...