Exposed: Ron Paul’s Foreign Policy Ignorance and Naivety
Among other qualities, a good presidential candidate must be knowledgeable and able to think outside the box; equally important, he must not be naive or gullible — certainly not swallow everything the enemy says hook, line, and sinker.
During the recent Republican candidate debate, Congressman Ron Paul exhibited his ignorance and gullibility when the panel was asked: “Do you plan to decrease Defense spending, to balance spending, or do you believe high spending is essential to security?”
After Paul explained how he was “tired of all the militarism that we are involved in,” and his plan on cutting back, he said, “But we’re under great threat, because we occupy so many countries. … The purpose of al-Qaeda was to attack us, invite us over there, where they can target us … but we’re there occupying their land. And if we think that we can do that and not have retaliation, we’re kidding ourselves.”
This is, of course, an old and well known narrative.
By questioning Paul, however, Rick Santorum exposed the latter’s naivety when it comes to the goals and motives of al-Qaeda:
On your [Paul’s] Web site on 9/11, you had a blog post that basically blamed the United States for 9/11. On your Web site, yesterday, you said that it was our actions that brought about the actions of 9/11. Now, Congressman Paul, that is irresponsible. The president of the United States — someone who is running for the president of the United States in the Republican Party should not be parroting what Osama bin Laden said on 9/11. We should have — we are not being attacked and we were not attacked because of our actions. We were attacked, as Newt [Gingrich] talked about, because we have a civilization that is antithetical to the civilization of the jihadists [full transcript here].
After rejecting Santorum’s thesis, Paul made his fatal blunder:
Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda have been explicit — they have been explicit, and they wrote and said that we attacked America because you had bases on our holy land in Saudi Arabia, you do not give Palestinians fair treatment, and you have been bombing — [audience booing] I didn’t say that. I’m trying to get you to understand what the motive was behind the bombing.
This exchange clearly revealed Paul’s lack of knowledge concerning the nature of the enemy. After all, it’s one thing for some Americans to believe that the source of all conflict is the United State’s presence in some countries, it’s quite another — it’s dangerous — for a potential president to think, and speak, this way.
Raymond Ibrahim’s knowledge of islam, islamic history and epistemology make his writings a must read for anyone trying to truly understand what is behind the perennial muslim hostility to everything the West and other non-muslim lands stand for. Too bad Ron Paul isn’t likely to start reading them to get rid of his ignorance of this subject.
proud kafir, i agree totally!!! and i see this article already has 642 reader recommendations so i would say that plenty of people agree with you.
and dont forget ron ”the nutjob” paul ran in the republican presidential primary in 2008. he got 5% of the vote. that means 95% of the voters wisely rejected this loser and his message.
i see this article aready has over 1000 recommendations. that speaks volumes about the large number of people that despise ron paul and his lowlife paultards.
I will at the risk of questioning your maligning spirit: as someone else questioned, why did Bin Laden not attack the US many years ago while he was a much younger and healthier man if indeed their hatred was because we are who we are? Why wait all these years? Please sit back, take a few deep relaxing breaths and imagine Red China setting up a military base right in your back yard….. Chinese soldiers marching, drilling, training, walking our streets and shopping in our stores. Flirting with our women.
If you thunk for one minute this would not stir up some ill feelings, you are the naive one, Mr Pajamas Media! This is human nature. We need to pull our troops from around the globe and shut down those military bases. Bring our troops who are securing South Korea from North Korea to secure our borders!
Is it possible that you are both right?
1) Having troops stationed in foreign nations does in fact invite undesired hostile feelings in some of the inhabitants of those countries.
2) UBL is using this as a straw man argument to explain his psychotic and murderous tendencies.
Do you think Rome was universally beloved by the countries they occupied? Even though they arguably made those countries more civil and prosperous.
How would YOU (Raymond Ibrahim) feel about 50.000 Japanese troops stationed in New York or 20.000 French troops stationed in California? Would you let them date your daughter?
Nice try. Did it occur to you that occupation forces and troops who have come to bolster your defences are not the same thing? And that UBL’s hate against America began well before there was a single American soldier in Saudi Arabia? I see that Chomsky’s and Ron Paul’s academy has produced enough graduates for some of them being available for flooding Pajamas Media.
If we all had the same thoughts one comment would be enough.
Diferring is one thing, lying or believing a blatant lie another.
Still, look at the timeline:
In the fall of 1990, the U.S. stationed troops in Saudi Arabia, in preparation for ousting Saddam from Kuwait.
But even after the Gulf War ended in early 1991, those troops remained–with no announced plans to withdraw them.
And just two years later came the first World Trade Center bombing, in February 1993.
If this was not the proximate cause, the trigger, then why did Osama strike in February 1993 rather than 5 years before, or 7 years before, when he was a younger man?
All the other stuff about Islam demanding fealty to Allah is old news. But we weren’t attacked on our home soil by terrorists before the Gulf War. (Qaddafi blew up Pan Am Flight 803, but he didn’t do that in the name of Islam.)
It’s not a black mark on the United States that we failed to anticipate the reaction to a long-term U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia. Britain failed to anticipate the reaction to the end of World War I, that they were unwittingly planting the seeds of another European conflict. But them’s the breaks. No government and no leader is omniscient.
“Bolster your defenses”? Whose defenses?
The U.S. sent troops to Saudi Arabia to bolster the *government* of Saudi Arabia. The very top of the Saudi royal family may have been our ally–but the people of Saudi Arabia (and even the younger members of the Saudi royal family) are more Islamist than their government.
We should have learned the hard way that in authoritarian societies, what the government wants and what the people want are two different things. Propping up an unpopular government just alienates the people from us even more.
Now in the example that poster described, the occupying force usually stands up a local puppet government to prop up and play the role of “ally.” Nazi Germany had the Vichy government in France, for example. But patriotic Frenchmen hated both. And after the Nazis lost, the patriotic French punished Vichy “collaborators” severely.
Well, I guess it depends on whose defenses one is bolstering. In the case of the Saudis, it is the royal family’s defenses that are bolstered (While we protect our access to oil.) To put that on the same level with bolstering forces in other countries where we are defending free nations and free people who were under threat– that’s not a legitimate comparison. We are protecting something very different in Saudi Arabia.
As for the date and intensity of UBL’s hate of America: It is also not a legitimate argument to try to reduce such a complex issue to the precise date one individual first expressed his anger. (It is akin to arguing that the Tea Party is racist because they didn’t object to what Bush was doing. There is such a thing as a tipping point, and it is only noticed AFTER something tips.)
I have looked at the timeline: it was dangerous for Americans to be near UBL’s camp in Pakistabn as ealy as during the Afghan war.
What does that have to do with anything? What is your point?
20, 000 French tropps, did you really read what you wrote? we’ll send in the girl scouts to evict them
Humm, I think it was those same French troops who liberated Jerusalem, forced George Washinton to surrender, beat the Germans again and again even when outnumbered three to one (Auerstadt), took Moscow (something the Germns never did), were instrumental in breaking the Cassino stalemate and contributed to plug the hole, after the American, err, retreat at Kasserine.
Every nation has had its moments of shame, even the Americans. Don’t assume neither bravery nor cowardice from something who happened decades or centuries ago.
Those were all the SAME TROOPS?! Jeez, the French really are impressive, what with their immortal zombie army!
Meanwhile, have they done anything worthwile in the last 75 years? No? Didn’t think so.
I think they may both be right. After all, there is no law in human nature that says a person must have only one motivation. Neither is there a law that says he will always be rational. A muscular American presence in the M.E. provides plenty of indignation to a proud Islamic supremacist (even if that presence often saves Muslim lives), while Islamic doctrine gives him all the moral and spiritual support he’ll ever need. We would be foolish to ignore either side of the equation.
Bingo. It’s not just THIS or JUST that.
The problem with Paul is that he refuses to see the big picture, and instead is simply regurgitating the enemy’s talking points. Verbatim.
“Do you think Rome was universally beloved by the countries they occupied? Even though they arguably made those countries more civil and prosperous.
How would YOU (Raymond Ibrahim) feel about 50.000 Japanese troops stationed in New York or 20.000 French troops stationed in California? Would you let them date your daughter?”
False equivalence. We do not occupy countries. Even in Iraq, once the new government was established, we remained only in accordance with the Status of Forces Agreement. We do conquer countries, but we remain only at the countries’ behest afterwards. We are not like other countries.
If 50k Japanese or 20k French were stationed here, I would have no problem with it, as long as they were invited. As a matter of fact, a good chunk of the modern Luftwaffe IS stationed here in the USA, because the skies are very crowded in Germany. They need room to fly in order to train. Most people do not know this. A few other countries have troops here, too. We do not blow ourselves up in their countries trying to take some innocents with us as coppers for the ferryman as a result. Heck, most are not even aware they are here, and couldn’t care less that they are.
Islamists blame the victims of their attacks. They rape women, then call the women whores for “allowing” them to rape her. One cannot take the arguments of such people seriously.
Dr. Paul does not know the difference between reasons and excuses. If we were not there, they would still have attacked us on 9/11. The excuse would have been different. Psychopaths do not need a reason to do their killing. They just need to whitewash it with an excuse, so they can have leave to continue killing.
We should have just destroyed Afghanistan, letting not one stone lie upon another. Kabul should have been renamed Kabulstones. Every single city, town, and village should have been reduced to rubble. This is the language the followers of Islam understand. Afterwards, no country would dare harbor terrorists hostile to us. Indeed, they would be handing them over as their jizya to us.
We have retreated in the world. Other nations are emboldened. China is acting up in the Pacific. Turkey is acting up in the Med. Russia is maneuvering. Stable ME States are now in turmoil. South American countries are maneuvering again. Iran is completely unchecked. And we are suffering reverses in Iraq and Afghanistan. Libya was a mess. Pax Americana is at an end.
Dr. Paul also does not understand the difference between non-intervention and isolation. Thus, does he get foreign policy all wrong. Many others share this ignorance. Woe to the world. The hard times are returning.
That’s precisely how we fought WWII. Total destruction until the civilian population demanded that their government stop fighting. Since then we have fought in accordance to the U.N. and ended up with a stalemate in Korea, a loss in Viet Nam and a long drawn out conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan trying to win hearts and minds.
Panama – in, take out the enemy target (Noriega), out. Grenada – in, rescue the Americans, out. Kuwait – in, throw out the Iraqi Army, out.
Fight to win the fight or don’t go.
But you left out something.
We were able to bomb Germany and Japan into rubble without qualms, because we really hated the Germans and Japanese and what they had done. Actual newsreels had shown how savagely the Germans and Japanese were behaving in occupied countries, and to our own POWs in the Bataan Death March.
But we were NOT attacked by the Afghan people. They hadn’t brutalized other nations like the Japanese and Nazis did. We were attacked by a Saudi expatriate named Osama bin Laden who just happened to have bought the Afghan government to let him live in their country.
So how do you justify bombing Afghanistan into rubble and killing all those people because of a deal cut between their government and Osama bin Laden? What equivalent of the Bataan Death March did the Afghan *people* commit?
The German people enthusiastically backed Hitler AND his eugenics program. I don’t see evidence that the Afghan people were proud of 9-11.
Governments of nation states that commit atrocities are responsible for their actions. The government of Afghanistan aided, abetted and then harbored UBL and his terrorists. They are responsible. Whether we have worked up enough hate against the citizens of a country is hardly a rational argument for or against war.
What would you do? Ignore 9-11 because it wasn’t the whole of the Afghan people who did it? Take it to the UN? Impose sanctions?
We did what was necessary, and we gave the government of Afghanistan the chance to avoid war by turning over UBL and Al Qaeda. They had a chance. And we did not indiscriminately bomb the citizens.
You say they think they have three choices:
“This medieval threefold choice, then — conversion, subjugation, or the sword — is the ultimate source of conflict, not U.S foreign policy (see also “Reciprocal Treatment or Religious Obligation,” which compares al-Qaeda’s messages to the West with its internal messages to Muslims, documenting all the contradictions).”
I say give them a fourth choice, Be peaceful or die.
It appears I would agree with JL above. But I wanna emphasis I agree with you about Paul’s ignorance and naivety. It concerns me he has the support he does now but I also understand why. I believe we have to get the hell out of “nation building” as well as military intervention promoting “democracy” and “human rights”. I don’t believe we should be in NATO either. Leave it to the largely anti-American Euros. I’m concerned about Chinese global ambitions but I think it’s about time South Korea protect it’s own border and the Japanese their islands.
Pajamas coverage of Islamist threat is completely hysterical and falls into the ”Clash of civilization” nonsense pattern.
”we have a civilization that is antithetical to the civilization of the jihadists” is part of the ”they attacked us because of our freedom” nonsense.
Lets put this in perspective : Do you really think that it is materially possible for Islam to conquer and subjugate the west Militarily and that they will ride on camels to force conversion ? Don’t make me laugh.
Islamist aren’t Faculty couch ideologues who are to die for a completely impossible goal to achieve, are they that moronic ?
But as Ron Paul said ”Foreign policy didn’t start in 9/11”, it started earlier.
Also for all of the talk about Ron Paul ”naivety” is funny coming from the people who can comprehend the idea that American can be wrong, will at the same time want to play global police … How is it adult to don’t even being willing to consider that your actions do have consequences ?
Small mistake in my previous post : talk about Ron Paul ”naivety” is funny coming from the people who CAN’T comprehend the idea that American can be wrong, will at the same time want to play global police
Sams, I’m a libertarian and I can’t stand that wing of the libertarian party that claims the US is ultimately to blame for everything. Sometimes I think its a misappropriation of anger with a world that despises us regardless of what we do and conveniently comes up with paranoid, conspiracy theories as to what our “real” motivations are when we act on the global stage. This anger then is misdirected at those assets we use to attempt to fix the problems. Almost like thinking: every time I see an American soldier abroad, the US is in trouble. Therefore, American troops are the problem.
I have little or nothing good to say about defending a world that hates us and twists everything we do. Therefore, I’m ultimately on the side of Ron Paul. But for completely different reasons.
By the way, anytime you would like to debate the history of American foreign policy, I’m right here.
It’s a century-long project, so while it’s ridiculous that they could conquer us tomorrow, it’s not so ridiculous that they will be ruling us in a century. Plus, it will be done mostly by non-military means, either by outbreeding us here in the West (especially in Europe) or by pushing for advantages, little ones at first and then bigger ones later. A mosque here and there, shari’a courts for Muslims, prayer rooms at public universities, and so on will be the start, and later on when they have lots of power, they can throw out the Constitution and simply impose shari’a totally.
The big advantage they have in their favor is that they have the will to impose on us, and we lack the will to resist. Who, after all, of our elites do you trust to oppose them? They are all in favor of accommodating Muslims as much as possible.
I agree the bit about camels is ridiculous, but that’s from you. They didn’t use camels on 9/11.
Just wondering: are you threatened by Beth Din? Are you threatened by Catholic canon law? Beth Din is Orthodox Judaism’s answer to “Sharia courts”. Same goes for Canon law. Civil disputes settled by a religious arbitrator that both parties agree to in place of civil court.
The thing is, we allow Catholic canon law to be used in civil courts. We allow Orthodox Jews to use Beth Din. Why can’t the practitioners of Islam use Sharia in civil disputes? That’s the only way that it has been used in this country: for the dispute of inheritance, for the drawing up of marriage contracts, for business disputes between two Muslim litigants, for divorce disputes. Never has Sharia law been considered outside of civil cases.
I’m not talking about criminal court. They will never, NEVER, be able to get away with honor killings in this country. We wouldn’t let any other religion practice ritual sacrifice either.
Even in an area as Muslim-centric as Dearborn, Michigan, Sharia law is not legislated or enforced. In fact, a pork sausage factory is still in operation adjacent to the area’s first mosque. Alcohol’s still legal. Strip clubs are still in the area. It has been a very heavily Muslim populated city for decades, and still it’s free of any drastic “Islamization” that people fear. Sure, there may be Halal markets in the area, but they’re catering to their clientele.
Plus, we’re talking about less than 1% of the population. I’m pretty sure we can keep them in check.
People were in such a panic over Catholicism when the Irish settled here in the late 1800s – early 1900s. They were also worried about Kennedy taking his marching orders from the Pope in the 60s. This xenophobia has always turned out to be wrong, in spite of the hysteria.
There will always be Islamic radicals, and we need to be prepared to deal with that if/when it arises. But there have always been Christian radicals as well and we have dealt with those problems accordingly.
“Lets put this in perspective : Do you really think that it is materially possible for Islam to conquer and subjugate the west Militarily and that they will ride on camels to force conversion ? Don’t make me laugh.”
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The only thing laugh worthy is your simplistically stupid “hypothetical”.
Are the Islamists in Iran seeking “nuclear camels”, fool?
Are the Islamists in Iran testing methods of launching “ballistic camels” from cargo ships, fool?
Are the Islamists in Al-Queda seeking “dirty camels”, fool?
Islamists are simply students of history and they understand one thing: strike hard enough and the gut instinct of a coward is to yield as quickly as possible. The West is currently filled to the brim with cowards and weaklings.
Futhermore, they also know that all the M.A.D. talk is just that…talk. Does anyone really believe that the moral abyss that is today’s Democrat party or the Leftist-dominated European govts would ever go along with a wholesale retaliatory nuclear strike against a civilian population center?
I thought not.
As such, what then is the deterrent for the Islamists? “Strong denunciations” from the UN?
There are Democrats and there are Democrats.
During the 2008 campaign, Hillary said she would push the nuclear button in retaliation for a nuclear attack on the U.S. And I believe her. I think that as President, Diane Feinstein would do it too.
One thing I’ve noticed about women in power, whether its Indira Gandhi or Thatcher or Bhutto or Merkel–or Hillary some day: They don’t shrink from wielding power. They wield it with relish. (Indira Gandhi test-fired India’s first nuclear bomb.)
Every President would push the button for a nuclear response if nukes were used against us. Every single one. Nobody could ever get elected to POTUS by suggesting otherwise.
If any President failed to immediately retaliate to a known attacker with overwhelming nuclear force, he or she would be impeached and removed from office in a heartbeat. The next President would be sworn in, and would immediately launch the attack.
Hillary is not my kind of POTUS, but she knows there is only one answer to that question.
‘If any President failed to immediately retaliate to a known attacker with overwhelming nuclear force, he or she would be impeached and removed from office in a heartbeat. The next President would be sworn in, and would immediately launch the attack.”
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And that’s precisely why Iran – or whoever – would never be stupid enough to simply launch a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile from their own soil. Any such attack would be done in a manner that would make pinpointing the exact culprit difficult. Why? Because it allows time for the morally decripit Left to begin undermining a nuclear retaliation…
“But we’re not 100% sure that it was them!!!”
“It’s not the peoples’ fault…it’s the fault of their govt! Are you gonna just murder millions of innocent people?!?”
That is precisely what would happen. And I don’t care what Democrat you’re talking about – none of them would have the fortitude to order that strike.
Ron Paul is neither ignorant nor naive. He is a despicable demagogue who profits of and fuels conspiracy theories like trutherism, the NWO, evil international bankers (wink, wink) or the Bilderberger nonsense which is all promoted by the likes of Alex Jones on whose show Ron Paul is a regular guest. What he revealed in the mentioned debate is nothing but the tip of the iceberg.
You can be an anti-interventionist or an isolationist without being a blame-America-firster and the rights equivalent of Ward Churchill or Lydon LaRouche. But thats exactly what Ron Paul is.
Just reading about Ron Paul’s position on Civil War teached me all I needed to know about him: he is either a pathological liar in Chomsky’s class or he is completely nuts and one who hates America with passion.
“After rejecting Santorum’s thesis, Paul made his fatal blunder:
‘Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda have been explicit — they have been explicit, and they wrote and said that we attacked America because you had bases on our holy land in Saudi Arabia, you do not give Palestinians fair treatment, and you have been bombing — [audience booing] I didn’t say that. I’m trying to get you to understand what the motive was behind the bombing.’
This exchange clearly revealed Paul’s lack of knowledge concerning the nature of the enemy. After all, it’s one thing for some Americans to believe that the source of all conflict is the United State’s presence in some countries, it’s quite another — it’s dangerous — for a potential president to think, and speak, this way.”
I wonder what it is about “blowback” that you don’t understand? RP has never claimed that these are the “sole” source of conflict, but he very reasonably points to these wildly disproportionate military operations as instrumental in giving the Caliphist jihadists a ready-made platform for advancing their cause. OBL and company baited the trap, and the US went “all-in”. Ten years later we teeter on the edge of national insolvency. This is a pretty effective outcome for the jihadists, at the miniscule cost of a few million dollars in order to turn a handful of commercial passenger jumbo jets loaded with aviation fuel into skyscraper busters. http://fabiusmaximus.wordpress.com/2011/09/12/28753/ As pointed out in http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110905-911-and-successful-war , there are aspects of the response that were very successful in preventing another similar attack and rolling up many of the resources available to Al Qaida, so it hasn’t been a totally wasted decade. However, in the coming decade an appropriate assessment of the effective and the counterproductive aspects of the US response to OBL will need to be conducted, and policy adjusted accordingly. Of the various candidates out there, RP has a greater likelihood of accomplishing this than the rest, who are still mired in commitment to the most counterproductive projects, which continue to bleed financial and human resources. It’s no accident that RP is the most popular GOP candidate in terms of active military voters’ contributions to campaigns.
If we only had a presence in other countries to tend to the graves or dig up the bones of our young who died in battle we would still be “occupying” these foreign lands. Minding our own business seems to not have worked over the years as we always seem to be pulled into others conflicts. It seems these days that it is majority of our young from this country who die keeping the peace in places where peace has no home.
In Islam one grain of sand occupied by an infidel who does not bow to the final prophet is cause for war. In Islam one person who supports Israel’s right to exist is cause for war.
Ron Paul a man who longs for the days where capitalism was pure and socialism was in the hands of the church will never understand the world because if a man can separate the two he will never be a whole man.
THE SUPERPOWER OF LIBERTY
Ron Paul has nostalgia for an America that is lost forever. For the necessarily isolationist America of the 19th century-an America that was a stepping stone in our providential evolution into the SUPERPOWER OF LIBERTY.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZNfuIvtLos&feature=related
I believe the former head of the CIA BIN laden unit.
Exactly Dan. Despite what the MSM is delivering, even the CIA thinks that is the Bin Laden motive. If there’s anyone to blame, it isn’t Bush–despite his incredible and obvious flaws–but Bill Clinton. His near-decade-long attacks on Bosnia, Kosovo, Sudan, Saudia Arabia, etc. certainly had some serious blowback. Ron Paul predicted it in 1998, amidst the Monica Lewinsky media-show distraction.
“Unfortunately the politicians are very comfortable with preaching the idea that this is a very small group of people who are opposing us, and that they hate us for our freedoms and our liberties. The politicians really are at great fault for not squaring with the American people. We’re being attacked for what we do in the Islamic world, not for who we are or what we believe in or how we live. And there’s a huge burden of guilt to be laid at Mr. Bush, Mr. Clinton, both parties for simply lying to the American people.” –Michael Scheuer, former Chief of the CIA’s Osama bin Laden Unit
“Despite what the MSM is delivering, even the CIA thinks that is the Bin Laden motive.”
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Yeah, the CIA also thinks that Iran isn’t trying to develop a nuclear weapon, remember? Or have they changed that…again?
And what’s your excuse for the Islamists attacking and aiding attacks in Africa?
…and in Russia?
…and in China?
…and in India?
Look at a map of the world. Anywhere you see a Muslim nation bordering a non-Muslim nation, you will find conflict. Anywhere you see a nation that has a sizeable Muslim population mixed with other groups, you will find conflict.
What’s your excuse for that?
Islam has been at war with the West since the 7th century. Muslims only stopped when they were defeated at Vienna in 1683. The reason they stopped is because they knew that they couldn’t win and that they were facing a vibrant, self-assured civilization that would have absolutely no qualms about invading their lands and putting them to the sword if they persisted. But there has never been any “peace”…the hostility simply became a “cold” war, rather than a hot one.
Until now.
After WWII broke Europe’s self-assurance and the West embraced the hollow ideology of secular Leftism, the Muslims began to sense that their ancient enemy was weakening. Over the past century, they have slowly been testing the waters of re-engaging. The West’s tepid response to the Iranian Revolution in 1979 was the final green-light they needed and they have been waging an ever-escalating war against us ever since.
But by all means, keep deluding yourselves into believing in the I’d-like-to-buy-the-world-a-Coke school of geopolitics.
I agree with your Gates Of Vienna synopsis of Muslim motives on the world stage. However, I also believe that it is not America’s job to fight Islam- Gates of Vienna style. Our secularism has killed the church. Thanks to Oliver Cromwell, if the Muslims want another invasion, we really have it coming. We in the west have abandoned our Judeo-Christian morals and institutions, and a new call to arms throughout the “Chrsitian world” (Gates of Vienna Style) to fight against the Muslims would be considered just another Anders Breivik hate tantrum. Unless we turn back to religious grounds for retaliation, all we have is right-wing extremist grounds- which looks too much like social darinian Nazi proaganda for our feminized secular western self-loathing postmodern morally nihilst civilization.
“Unless we turn back to religious grounds for retaliation, all we have is right-wing extremist grounds- which looks too much like social darinian Nazi proaganda for our feminized secular western self-loathing postmodern morally nihilst civilization.”
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There are only two types of people in the world: those who promote freedom and those who promote tyranny.
Your “right-wing extremist” is absolutely no different – nor any more or less dangerous – than the authoritarian Leftists or the fundamentalist Islamists. They all promote tyranny – they simply use different excuses to justify their pursuit of it.
I’m not religious in the least. That doesn’t mean that life is meaningless to me. It means that questions of life and meaning and humanity are an unfolding mystery in my view…and that it’s my responsibility to do my best to further humanity’s understanding of our existence and our advancement as a species. And in my mind, the essential prerequisite for said advancement is freedom. I have no need of religion to motivate me to defend my natural state of freedom against tyranny in all it’s forms, physical or mental.
Understand: I don’t have anything against religion. I simply don’t believe that religious belief is the only locus from which a society is capable of sustaining and defending itself.
rvastar, what I am saying is well relected in your statements. The secular forces that be are weak without unity. American secular forces are also dwindling as their birthrates drop. The problem with secularism is that there is no collective ideology that binds them together and motivates them to fight for their clan, especially the kind that give sissy talk about the unfolding mysteries and wonders of life, and who think the highest human value is “freedom.” What secular people will need if it comes to a new Gates of Vienna is either a “Christian Kingdom” to save their precious individual freedoms (what Anders Breivik said in his book), or they will need a kind of racist hate movement to unify their forces. But liberals stand in their way ready to trounce them in the public sphere, and even the Chrsitians have become feminized and individualized. Non-liberal secularists are more individualist & less voluntarily collective than even Christians! Hope is to be placed upon Islam correcting itself by falling apart/going away/having a (peaceful this time) reformation, or the Muslims being evangelized with the gospel and experiencing a Great Awakening!
When I heard Ron diss America for 9/11, my heart sank a bit. The principles of Liberty is what the Constitution of the US is about. It seems to me that Ron is not rising above the document, yet that is technically the legal basis for our Federal Head.
When we are attacked on the other hand, like 9/11, the war has come to our doorstep now. We can no longer assume the aggressors are the result of the American occupations. The battle field has been moved to our soil. Yet we would be foolish to not consider why we are in the middle east in the first place. If it is for humanitarian reasons, go to Sudan. But we are their for cheap oil. We pay off dictators for maintaining peace, but that imperial regime just fell apart. You might say we have been paying Jizya to our favorite thugs. Now that the lid has been raised, we have new problems to deal with.
Islam is islam, it cannot be reformed. It will expand as the nations allow. But do we have to help??? Multiculturalism that says all religions/cultures are benign is in willful ignorance and exposes themselves and us to great danger. Do you know anyone else like Geert Wilder who loudly declares that Judeo Christian Culture is the culture of choice? I don’t. And he is an atheist!
Ron Paul is Constitutionally correct to blame America on the short term, but limited government has limits. As men, we all must choose the god to serve. It is my hope we realize YHWH is the True God, and our clearest revelation of the true God is through His Exact representation seen in the Son. There will never be peace in this world, but a relative peace will only be known below a rod of iron, and then only under One worthy to wield it.
And Israel is our canary in the coal mine as they only represent our western values. Ron seems to ignore that truth too… If Israel falls, we WILL be next.
“Exposed: Ron Paul’s Foreign Policy Ignorance and Naivety”
Ignorance and naivety? I was reminded of that when I saw that PJM had an interview with Andy Card today. Card was the guy, you might remember, who predicted that the Iraq war would cost “$100 million – tops!”
Ron Paul has secret motives. His goal is to attract just the crowd he has, then let those people down at critical times.
Ron says all of the things necessary to keep his fans cheering, yet he always stops short of making firm promises or emphatic condemnations of his supposed opposition.
I’m sure he thinks it’s clever, but it’s purely dishonesty.
Take a couple of minutes to see this video. Perhaps you’ll learn something. http://youtu.be/Kc5E-MnDBVk
soundbites don’t make for accurate history lessons.
Hey Jasonian,
I followed the link to that site and decided to respond. Then found out that I was banned from the site by the owner of the video. You reread what I wrote and tell me if it was anything other than legitimate debating points. I’m caracoid, by the way.
So much for openness amongst Paul’s group of radicals.
And remember, I’m a libertarian.
Now more than ever do I believe that Ron Paul is an idiot who not only doesn’t believe in evolution and science, but also isn’t a friend of Israel.
This article should be amended to include the fact that Paultard voted against any and all retaliatory measures against AQ and the Taliban.
Surely you’re joking? He voted for the use of force against Al-Qaeda and to get Bin Laden. However, he voted against invading Iraq. Iraq had not attacked us, nor were they capable of launching an attack against us or any of our allies. He also does not support our nation building experimentation in Afghanistan. It’s a waste of money and lives.
Bin Laden’s dead. Get the hell out and tell them if it happens again, we’ll bomb them to pieces.
Doctor Paul is absolutely correct. All anybody has to do is look at what our government is doing to we the people. Call ing US extremist all awhile trampling all over the Constitution. Give me Liberty or give me Death. Patrick Henry!
“Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.”
George Washington
To say Ron Paul longs for a day long gone is false. Those days never existed. He’s smart enough to know it, but more than willing to offer it as a palliative to the gullible.
I’m not persuaded that it’s naivete. Or ignorance. It may be something worse.
It may be simply lying.
This issue, among other things, may reveal something else about Ron Paul – his hatred of Jews.
His ties to Neo-Nazi organizations have been well documented. It’s they that keep him as high in the polls as he has been.
When confronted with this, he steadfastly refuses to repudiate their values.
Paul normally is a very straight talker. Whether you like what he says or not, he’s not a mealymouth.
Except on this one issue. He will NOT give a straight answer when asked if he agrees with the views of the Neo-Nazis who support him.
I think that says a lot, and what it says isn’t good.
Paul is excellent on economic issues, but a complete disaster on foreign policy.
It is not America’s job to fight Islam- Gates of Vienna style. Our secularism has killed the church. Thanks to Oliver Cromwell, if the Muslims want another invasion, we really have it coming. We in the west have abandoned our Judeo-Christian morals and institutions, and a new call to arms throughout the “Chrsitian world” (Gates of Vienna Style) to fight against the Muslims would be considered just another Anders Breivik hate tantrum. Unless we turn back to religious grounds for retaliation, all we have is right-wing extremist grounds- which looks too much like social darinian Nazi proaganda for our feminized secular western self-loathing postmodern morally nihilst civilization.
(I reposted this here because I am hoping to get a good argument against my position)
Ron Paul will not be president in 2013, nor ever….He may be a good man, and i personally think he is going senile, he could NEVER win over enuff voters to win….
“Did it never occur to the congressman that al-Qaeda could be, um, lying when he regurgitates their talking points?”
Only, they’re not.
They attacked us because of things we’ve done over the years.
Only, they don’t get to do that, and now we’re going to kill as many of them as we possibly can to get vengeance for the thousands of our guys killed by them (and also to make sure that there are no Al Qaida guys left alive, which means they won’t be able to attack us again). At least that’s what I’m pushing for, and what I want and expect my government to do.
If we want to help the Israelis (or whatever it is we’re doing that pisses Islamo-scum off), we will, and if Muslim scum don’t like it, they can shove it up their asses. And, if they try to get violent about it…we’ll kill them all. If you want to say we’re to blame for pissing Al Qaida or Hezbollah, go ahead, won’t change a thing. We’re still going to kill them, no matter how America-hating leftards, or the dizzy wing of the Libertarian mobvement views things.
It’s too late to start agonizing about the results of our foreign policy moves. What’s done is done, our people have been murdered as a result, and now we go after the guys that did it, and wipe them off the face of the earth.
this great article is going viral on facebook as we speak. 642 recommendations already. and paultards that means each reader only gets one vote, unlike the internet polls you spam. LOL
and dont forget ron ”the nutjob” paul ran in the republican presidential primary in 2008. he got 5% of the vote. that means 95% of the voters wisely rejected this loser!!!!
Yeah. They gave us Obama. They have so much wisdom.
Ron Paul’s so called “realist / non interventionist” view may be admired by some mostly because it is easier for the ignorant masses to stay uninformed and in short stay out of trouble. A mindset so utterly unrealistic in itself. Guess what Ron Paul and your die hard ignorant supporters? We are not living in a cocoon and will never be self reliant in this homogenized world. Ron Paul is as unrealistic as naive and ignorant. That is why he will never be taken seriously. The man is as ignorant as Carter ever was and he is a nobody with an army of followers like sheep in a remote farm!!!!
Nobody in the right frame of mind takes this ignorant guy seriously. I would think in every election there is a troll or a clown you may say as the subject of laughter. Well we have Ron Paul in this election cycle. I just wish he would stop talking. Listening to him is seriously painful!!! My 12 year old nephew knows more of the world history than this guy does.
Here is one of the Ron Paul’s latest show of brilliance:
http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/ron-paul-iran-bomb/2011/08/11/id/407043?s=al&promo_code=CD2C-1
I think the guy has some serious mental disorder honestly!
Ron Paul: Let Iran Have the Bomb
Why I am not a Republican (see comments above.)
Paul’s positions are nuanced and not easily given in soundbites. While I agree that the Muzz present a threatto Western Civilization, I also agree with Earl that a Gates of Vienna-style existential war is not in our job description, and not even necessary. Everyone knows secular leftardism – “R” or “D” style – will surely win the hearts and minds of the Muzz.
Mere repetition of the Jew-hating and neo-Nazism calumnies do not make them so – they were debunked last cycle.
While I do not agree with everything Dr No has to say, I support him over the other candidates unreservedly. That said, he likely won’t win the nomination and you Repugnicons are left with picking from a host of other unqualified and/or otherwise unnacceptable candidates. I’m still guessing I’ll be voting 3rd party given the two most likely choices.
You can always vote Ron Paul, as a write in. This is what I’m gonna do. No voting for the lesser evil anymore.
If the Repubgnicons think they can beat Obama alone, let them do it. I just want to see that.
This all just sounds like typical conservative griping against anyone who doesn’t want us meddling in the affairs of everyone else on earth and maintaining our military industrial complex supported empire, which as Ron Paul points out, we can no longer afford, because we’re BROKE!
Would you prefer Hillary?
“Mrs. Clinton knows about as much about the middle east as my chair does. What she knows is what she believes in, which is kind of a Marxist-Leninist approach to imposing democracy – secular democracy, on anybody who doesn’t have it at the moment. She’s advancing us, along with Obama and Senator McCain, toward a war of..a clash of civilizations. They’re the engines of what’s going on.” – Dr. Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA’s “Bin Laden Unit”.
— Pajamas’s argument against Ron Paul is nonsense. It’s terrible nonsense to say that a presidential candidate should not speak the truth, just because some people say it’s “dangerous.” How many other reasons would Pajamas come up with to censor honesty, in how many other cases? The only constructive process would be to establish whether or not Ron Paul was correct in his assertion.
— And it’s certainly not naivety to remind Americans of what has been said, by those accused, regarding the reasons for attacks against the US. When those reasons are absolutely sound, and pertain to truths we all know, and when those truths are, in themselves, excellent reasons to attack the US – when such truths would surely make attacks inevitable in any case – it is pure infantile, pedantic GRASPING to say that Ron Paul was “naive” for believing them.
— When Ron Paul is one of only two American politicians willing to speak any sense at all about our war-climate – when all the other politicians are openly-declared Zionists – thus violent racists – who does Pajamas suggest as a better choice? No one is a saint, and no saint is going to appear to protect us. But the details, of which Pajamas makes such a big fuss, are TINY compared to the openly-declared forced creation of an officially “Jewish” state in Palestine – a campaign that no antiwar movement has decently opposed. Why do I get this sneaking suspicion that Pajamas too has never taken a decent stand against the popular violent racism of our time and place?
No, it’s not naivete to SAY it, but it IS naivete to BELIEVE them when they say it.
Hello? Lying is expressly permitted in their religion. They have much to gain by lying. They have a track record of lying. They REJOICE in lying.
With 7 centuries of history to tell us that they are now lying, why would you,or Ron Paul, believe them?
Maybe because of ignorance of history? Or maybe because it suits your purpose?
Certainly not for any intelligent or sane or honest reason.
Of course, it’s not intelligent or sane or honest to refer to these degenerates as “accused”, either.
Truther, much?
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The actions the writer states are unchristian and the majority of the world disagrees with it.
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Which is why the BBC has a poll stating the the US is the biggest threat to world peace.
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Why is it that the same America cheered to bomb a christian nation like Serbia to bring more Muslims, then blame Muslims? You know how u can say sorry to the Serbs? Just stop invading.
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War causes more debt and US will not have money to defend itself later. Do you think Mexico or Canada will defend US against China, Russia, Turkey, etc if it comes to power?
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20th Century Conservatives were against wars
http://www.ronpaul2012.com/2011/09/12/russell-kirk-ron-paul-and-911/
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The views on PJM represent fake conservatives.
Again
As I just said
FAKE CONSERVATIVES
If you want a real conservative see Jack Hunter
http://www.youtube.com/user/southernavenger#p/u/1/NjwaExW6-Fg
Ron Reagan would be against the views of this site
First of all: Ron Paul is the only RINO running. Mitt Romney, whom I do not support, is not. Mitt participates in GOP primaries etc and then supports the winner even when it is not himself. Paul runs in GOP primaries and after losing urges his followers to vote for non-Republican candidates. A civilized political system cannot exist if the Paul ethics ever get in the majority. Ideology can never overcome this basic fact of life.
Secondly: The purpose of foreign policy is or should be “to maintain and perpetuate the United States of America as a free and independent federal republic”. To intervene or non-intervene in the pursuit of that goal is a choice of tactics, not a matter of principled ethics.
Thirdly: The pursuit of the above goal requires that the rest of the world be divided into two camps: “assets” and “liabilities”. Be nice to the assets. Be nasty to the liabilities. However, to the Paul camp assets are immoral and are to be shunned if not condemned. Liabilities on the other hand verbalize against what the Paulistas verbalize against, so liabilities are, willy-nilly,nurtured to the maximum extent politically practical. Only way Paulistas are able to act given their inverted view of reality.
Fourthly: The Armed Forces are hired to reduce enemy capabilities and render them harmless. To accomplish that, they must be stationed and deployed where they can best get at said capabilities. To arbitrarily confine them to certain areas is a breach of contract on part of the employer. And if others happen to benefit from proper deployments, that is a bonus to our side and not comething to complain about. Also, propriety is determined by conduct, not by geographical whereabouts. Period.
All of which explains the inanities, and possible insanities, Mr Ibrahim mentioned. Paul supporters should face up to this and refrain from imitating General Pope who was said to “keep his headquarters where he should keep his hindquarters”.
On a personal note, highly personal in fact: The Congressman has noted our current somewhat warm relations with Vietnam and has attributed this to free trade. The trade does provide benefecial logistics. However the trade is enabled because Vietnamese have developed a realistically favorable view of America and Americans. WHO GAVE THEM THAT VIEW CONGRESSMAN? Hint: It was not you or Jane Fonda either. It was my comrades and I that accomplished that little chore and who have cheerfully paid the price for having done so.
And were it not for the current crop of our military descendants in 130 different countries, the USA would have far more difficulties than it does.
Listen and learn.
How many flights has been done from airbases in Turkey during OIF?
How much does it cost to maintain airbases in Turkey?
How many combat operations has the 70.000 troops in Europe been involved in for the last 60 years? Have they ever been used for anything other that driving in Jeeps from one end of the base to the other?
Paul’s ‘blowback’ thesis, generalized from Chalmers Johnson, has been falsified by history. If it were true, then more US troops abroad would correlate with increasing violence in the world. The facts contradict it, in general.
It is best to look at the quantitative data. On the one hand, plot the decadal expansion of US troops overseas as related by Thomas P. M. Barnett: doubled from the 70s to the 80s, quadrupled in the ’90s, etc. Then overlay the independent assessment of war-related violence by the UNs Report on Human Security, 2005 for the same period.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Security_Report_2005
The first has rapidly grown over the past 40 years, while the second has shrunk, especially since the Fall of Communism. Thus, Paul’s claim is shown to be false. In fact, he relationship between US troops abroad and mass violence is inverse – the opposite of what his thesis predicts. Therefore, Ron Paul is wrong.
The only reason we’re not experiencing more blowback from the rest of the world is that we’re only meddling in the affairs of countries in the Middle East now. The blowback of our meddling post-WWI was the rise of Hitler and World War II.
Blowback is alive and well, but only in the areas of the world where our presence is the most unwanted and our interventions are most felt.
Europe’s happy to have us there on their land. Why? Because they don’t have to pay for their defense anymore. Anyone attacks them, and our military’s there to respond. They can instead spend all their money on their expansive welfare state instead of defending themselves.
Ron Paul was and is not a serious candidate for GOP. His ideas are too narrow and his vision of this great nation is too microscopic. He was in the 5% all the time in 2008 primaries and this time also he is in the single digit. I do not know why a good physician Ron throws away his and contributors money to try soething that is not achievable for him. He and others like Bachman,Santorum,Cain, Huntsman and Gingrich should not waste any more money and be gracious to withdraw and support a strong candidate and that is Rick Perry. Romney will realise soon that he is not the choice this time also. Only people like Jimmy Carter will supprt him. I strongly feel that we have a definite winner in Rick Perry.
Jimmy Carter support Mitt Romney.
A month later and Cain is leading Perry.
Paul Wolfowitz Agrees with Ron Paul
“There are a lot of things that are different now, and one that has gone by almost unnoticed–but it’s huge–is that by complete mutual agreement between the U.S. and the Saudi government we can now remove almost all of our forces from Saudi Arabia. Their presence there over the last 12 years has been a source of enormous difficulty for a friendly government. It’s been a huge recruiting device for al Qaeda. In fact if you look at bin Laden, one of his principle grievances was the presence of so-called crusader forces on the holy land, Mecca and Medina.” – Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, May 2003
‘After Paul explained how he was “tired of all the militarism that we are involved in,” and his plan on cutting back, he said, “But we’re under great threat, because we occupy so many countries. … The purpose of al-Qaeda was to attack us, invite us over there, where they can target us … but we’re there occupying their land. And if we think that we can do that and not have retaliation, we’re kidding ourselves.”’
No doubt if we’d had a non-interventionist foreign policy, like Switzerland, we wouldn’t have fought all the wars we’ve fought over the last century, including the campaigns that we’re fighting now against guys like the Baathists (who we completely destroyed) and Al Qaida.
Unfortunately, it’s too late to bring that up, because thousands of our people have ALREADY been killed in terror attack after terror attack. Our citizens have been kidnapped and murdered, our embassies blown up, airliners full of inncocent people crashed into the sides of buildings. So, now we fight. It’s too late to be neutral Switzerland.
Maybe cowards like Ron Paul are willing to turn their backs and forget about all the attacks on America and Americans, but I’m not.
I’m an isolationist to the bone, but nobody attacks America and gets away with it. No one murders innocent Americans and survives to brag about it. Smashing enbemies that have already attacked us is simply more important than being an isolationist.
Paul’s analysis is not only right, he’s obviously right, and the people that are arguuing about it sound like complete nitwits. It’s Paul’s solutions to the problem that are completely unacceptable, not his correct observation that we’re bumping heads with Muslim terrorists because they don’t like our policies.
It’s a cheap shot to misquote Ron Paul and attack the misquote, all the cheaper coming from such a highly qualified specialist. For all your great work translating Jihadist papers, you’ve exposed your own willingness to unjustly say that what Santorum said is what Representative Ron Paul said.
“If you’re not with me you’re against me” neoconservative Santorum purposely smeared Ron Paul with Santorum’s own sadistic joke. Congressman Paul is rarely given debate time to complete a thought before being halted mid-point. Dr. Paul never said that Jihadists aren’t dangerous fanatics who, like Iran’s Ahmadinejad, see America as the “great satan”.
Perhaps Dave Surls’ critique best states Paul’s problem with public perception. “It’s Paul’s solutions to the [foreign wars] problem that are completely unacceptable, not his correct observation that we’re bumping heads with Muslim terrorists because they don’t like our policies.”
Btw, I noted in this campaign season’s GOP potus debates that the other candidates try on Ron Paul’s platform planks to test drive for public response. Except for Rick Santorum, at the first debate every other candidate spoke of bringing our troops home from Afghanistan (and Iraq) because indeed “nation building and winning hearts and minds of the enemy” and COIN have proven utter failures at massive expense particularly of American blood spent for naught, our troops committed to remain “forever” or at least the next 30 years according to the Joint Chiefs and Sec. Gates, telling us to accept their version of what must be, in blind trust, despite the horrible waste of this past decade. Since Rumsfeld and with Robert Gates, these recent administrations have determined to only supply our military to be able to fight on two simultaneous fronts at once. Given that policy, we are spread out too far, with or without NATO — as if NATO isn’t comprised mostly of American Military and Treasury at the beck and call of foreign interests, allied or not.
There needs to be a meditative moment to reflect on which aspects of whose platforms would best serve our nation in terms of US Constitutional Governance that can not survive without a strong economy and valuable Dollar. I’ve always supported the platform of constitutional usage aka conservancy as what is best for America.
Btw, I was very sorry this 10th commemoration of 9/11/01 to find how many Republicans have turned that occasion into a hate-fest tormenting “truthers” rather than directing their anger at the cause, Islamofascist Jihad in America and abroad. Meanwhile, the Commission’s Archive that was due to be released Jan.2, 2009 has been (permanently) sealed though the 9/11 Commission Chairman said again that the archive should be opened for public review.
How exactly does Mr Ibrahim “misquote” Paul?? Paul is the one who made a fool of himself by quoting Al Qai’da’s words as “proof” of their motivation, even though, as Ibrahim shows, Al Qai’da itself says that the hostility for the West is based on Islam.
Sorry, but Paul is ignorant, doesn’t know the totality of Al Qai’da’s thinking, and definitely naive for taking their words at face value.
Warren,
When considering the next POTUS, many Americans are wary of a governor whose 10 year record is rife with abuses of power. We’re already suffering from a president who disregards constitutional limits of his official role and authority. Should Perry win the presidency, it proves that people don’t vote to reaffirm faith in the US Constitution.
1. NAFTA Trans Continental Corridor would not only leave the border completely open and American completely vulnerable to sabotage, Perry attempted to coerce its passage by abusing eminent domain, topping that all with a kickback scheme from contracting with a construction corporation from Spain.
2. Gardasil executive order vs. legislature to mandate vaccination in order for girls in puberty to attend public school. At the time, public schools were not being directed by the State Board of Education regarding the availability of any voluntary opt-out during mass registration of children for school. Admitting a mistake, Perry promised he’d do it again in order to err on the side for the children’s health, despite debilitating neurological side effects causing constant pain that victims of the vaccine do suffer. Think clearly since Merck isn’t simply Gardasil when determining how seriously this capital cronyism permeates Perry’s administrative record.
3. Gov. Perry refused to grant a meeting with parents whose entire community of children were forcibly removed by the Texas State Troopers on behalf of CPS responding to a false charge from a known habitual liar with her own criminal record. The State of Texas did not have available facilities to house and to care for the hundreds of children under the age of 21 who flooded the CPS system and were denied contact with siblings and with parents for over a year. Finally the Texas Supreme Court ruled that the constitutional rights of parents in this community had been breached under Governor Perry’s administration. That he wouldn’t even listen to the parents’ petition speaks volumes regarding Perry’s antipathy for unpopular, politically incorrect people. As their governor, he disregarded their civil rights.
Rep. Ron Paul Rips FEMA as Flawed Bureaucracy Sunday, 28 Aug 2011 10:35 AM By Caroline Rawls
http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/Ron-Paul-FEMA-hurricane/2011/08/28/id/408879?s=al&promo_code=CEEA-1
Statistically speaking Ron Paul is right. He is so right infact, that denying the motives of the terrorist is like denying that smoking causes lung cancer.
85% of lung cancer patients were smokers
95% of suicide terrorists come from regions with Western Military Presence (and over 50% are secular groups).
So smoke away fools.
Wow the misquoting and lying about Dr. Paul will never end? And this by a respected writer on Islam? Stick to translating sir, you’re obviously incapable of transcribing.
By the way, PJ Media is really doing a horrible job editing all the anti-Paul articles. I’m starting to seriously lose faith in this outlet :/ So is my wife. And so are a couple co-workers whom I talked to about this the other day. Oh, and my neighbor, who turned me on to your site a few years back has already stopped coming here. Might be time start re-reading your Taft and Eisenhower and revisiting Mr. Reagan’s points on militarism in the middle east? maybe? Maybe us Reagan conservatives have had enough of the warmongering, nation-building, spreading democracy garbage? Ya think?
How exactly does Mr Ibrahim “misquote” Paul?? Paul is the one who made a fool of himself by quoting Al Qai’da’s words as “proof” of their motivation, even though, as Ibrahim shows, Al Qai’da itself says that the hostility for the West is based on Islam.
Sorry, but Paul is ignorant, doesn’t know the totality of Al Qai’da’s thinking, and definitely naive for taking their words at face value.
To all those readers who support Paul and are angry regarding this article, keep in mind that Paul is the one who made a fool of himself by quoting Al Qai’da’s words as “proof” of their motivation, even though, as Ibrahim shows, Al Qai’da itself says that the hostility for the West is based on Islam.
Paul is ignorant and doesn’t know the totality of Al Qai’da’s thinking, and he’s definitely naive for taking their words at face value.
Also, Ibrahim’s point is dead on – if US military presence IS the problem, why haven’t any of those 130 countries that have a US presence retaliated?
Anyway, lots of folks must agree as this article has gone viral and already has over 1,000 facebook likes.
Ron Paul isn’t ignorant nor naive. We need a president who will bring capitalism and a real commitment towards peace back to the forefronts of our society.
Interesting article. I have a question regarding dar al-Islam versus dar al-Harb and whether or not this concept can include the physical, not just the spiritual aspects of Islam. Particularly, can the occupation of Muslim lands, by non-Muslims, be justification for warfare? Qur’an 2:39 and 4:76 seem to authorize this, and were quoted by Osama bin Laden in his Letter to America. What say you?
“a good presidential candidate must be knowledgeable and able to think outside the box; equally important, he must not be naive or gullible — certainly not swallow everything the enemy says hook, line, and sinker.”
I don’t even know where to begin on this absolutely astonishing hit-piece. The constant release of these pieces PROVE that the establishment is scared, and wants to nip this thing in the bud now!
What the author needs to do is not buy every piece of US govt/Pentagon PROPAGANDA hook, line, and sinker! It is the American people who are under total psychological operations to accept an illegitimate corporate government. If you think that Islamic terrorism is the greatest threat to America today, you haven’t been following the news! We are bankrupt, and on the very of a world government power-grab! All the technocrats know it, they just want Americans to continue on like everything is fine. PJTV, you should be ashamed of publishing this CFR/Pentagon hit-piece!
The only thing being exposed is the rampant ignorance and abject denial of the facts by the author of this clap trap piece of hackery you call an article. And until we recognize the consequences of our foreign policy we will continue to be the target of attacks. Of course there are muslim extremists and of course Al Qaeda is dangerous. No one, not Paul, not anyone else, is really denying that. What is in question is the foreign policy of pre-emptive war and occupation which has corrupted our government in the extreme, put our civil liberties under assault here at home, and bankrupted our treasury.
Paul believes in the “Just War” doctrine. When we are attacked, we defend, we crush our enemies, and we come home. 9/11 was the perfectctly predictable result of an inteventionist foreign policy that has resulted in millions of casualties, hundreds of thousands killed, a massive destruction of middle eastern society and on and on. You expect those people to be happy about that?? If that crap happened here, we wouldn’t be called Al Qaeda, we would be in the mountains screaming WOLVERINES with Charlie Sheen and the ghost of Swayze.
Speaking of contradictions: First you chastise Ron Paul for, in your opinion, swallowing everything the enemy says hook line and sinker… But turn the page and you go and present something else that the enemy said in its entirety as the real main reason. Hadn’t it occurred to you that they may have LIED? lol, this is easy
The reality is that he is not ONLY taking what the enemy said into account. He is mostly relaying information and analysis out of out own intelligence community, including those in both the pentagon and the CIA. Google Michael Scheuer, the 20+ year CIA veteran and former head of the CIA’s Bin Laden unit, and you’ll see that he completely agrees with Ron Paul (or rather, Ron Paul agrees with him). This is FAR from some kooky idea that was hatched in Ron Paul’s basement. I’m sorry, but I will believe our intelligence community over any of Rick Santorum’s attempts to frame divisive issues in an anti-American light in an effort to further his political campaign. Look at the last man who attempted to blindly challenge Ron Paul on this, Rudy Giuliani. His campaign fell like a stone when Ron Paul assigned him his summer reading homework. Thing is, Santorum, if he were a stone, is already sitting on the floor. Not much more falling can be done.
You would do well to perform further research in to this. US policies in the Mid-East, our support of dictators and our support of Israel ARE the reasons given by Osama Bin Laden for his hatred of the US. He stated these reasons and his followers acted upon them repeatedly long before 9/11.
Do you remember 1979? Do you think that the Iranians overran our embassy and took hostages because they were pursuing a global Islamic state or because they ‘envied our freedom’? No. They did it because we had supported a brutal dictator until his demise at the hands of his people.
It is not only Bin Laden that has given these reasons, but our own CIA. Read the book ‘Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire”. The term ‘blowback’ itself was originally coined internally at the CIA to describe this very thing – unintended consequences of an operation.
Watch the original 9/11 commission broadcasts from June 16th, 2004. When asked ‘what motivated them’, FBI agent James Fitzgerald answered, “They identify with the Palestinian people, they identify with people who oppose oppressive regimes, and I believe they tend to focus their anger on the United States…”
These are our own experts that are saying these things, yet you think Ron Paul is a whack job for pointing them out? I myself am glad to see an honest politician of any type.
You state, “Ironically, Paul even contradicted himself: minutes earlier, when discussing the need to cut back on the military, he complained that we had a military presence in 130 countries — bringing to mind the question: why haven’t these countries lashed out?”
There are countries lashing out, albeit not with bombs and airplanes. Of course, Iran wasn’t flying planes into buildings in 1979 either. Here are just a few from over the past decade.
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2010 – Thousands protest in Tokyo against U.S. military presence
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1247281/Thousands-protest-Tokyo-U-S-military-presence-Japan.html#ixzz1YLsmaVWo
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2011 – S.Korea police break up protest against navy base
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jxj9LJbYelQ_R1WuxOLh0T6pDWYQ?docId=CNG.756bc07be4ef23a7b6689afbd24756ee.461
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2011- Philippines Anti-Bases Movement: Time to Assert National Sovereignty Once Again
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/09/16/18690536.php
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2000 – Okinawa protests against US troops
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/842518.stm
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Sept, 2011 – Haitian Protesters Demand Ouster of UN Troops
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/americas/Haitian-Protesters-Demand-UN-Withdrawal-129877398.html
*(which country do you think has the most “UN Troops” in Haiti???)
As you can see, countries ARE protesting our troops. They do NOT want us there.
What really bothers me though is not the way the other countries feel about us as it is these two things.
The fact that we are spending billions of tax dollars that we can not afford to keep these troops in all of these countries. In many cases, we pay these countries to allow us to have troops. These troops spend their paychecks in those countries. These troops do not protect our country – they are protecting those countries and our corporate interests in those countries.
I for one, am tired of paying to protect both foreign countries and mega-corporations.
Secondly, it is not constitutional to build a military empire. We ourselves are allowing the erosion of our liberties by allowing our leaders to pursue this globalist agenda. We would be wise to follow the words of Thomas Jefferson who said, “If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.”
Defense, yes. Militarism, never.
We CAN have one without the other.
I’ll play along. Lets pretend that the CIA overthrowing the government in Iran in 1953 and in Iraq in 1964 has had absolutely no consequences. Lets pretend there have not been credible studies saying the blowback is part of the cause of terrorism. Lets just say for argument, that in every country we have a military base, they like our presence there.
So what is the purpose of being in these countries? I’ve heard a number of people say, we have to be there to pre-emptively strike against these forces of evil. When did that become a value that we support as a free, civilized society? Do we execute people because we think they might commit murder? To do so would be very barbaric and cruel.
Also, is it moral to go into another county and kill tens of thousand of civilians? Those civilians have nothing to do with what their goverment decides to do. We accuse these people of being animals because they come over and kill 3000 by flying planes into a building. What does it make us to kill many, many more?
We have lost a lot of liberties as a result of this undefinable war on terror. How is this justified? Why are you not bothered American citizens being detained without due process as part of this war? Does it not seem wrong that the war on terror has killed more Americans than the original attack on 9/11?
We cannot spread goodness at the point of a gun. We cannot act like savages and claim to be civilized. Maybe our occupation is not the sole reason for the few terrorist attacks we have had, but there is no way you can honestly say it did not play a role. It would seem that we should respect the rights “endowed by their Creator” and give liberty a chance to thrive.
Ron Paul is the only man up there willing to tell the people how it is and what to do about it. Everyone else wants to keep the war machine going while we continue to imprison our own on their own streets and in their own homes. What I find comical is that it is the left and has been primarily since the days of the hippies who have been running this thing, and it is now them who are against the very thing/passion that caused them to get involved over 40 years ago. They have literally turned into the very thing they fought against in their youth. What that tells me is that their motive isnt whats right, just what keeps them fed. Ron Paul on the other hand is willing to stop the presses which will undoubtedly make things difficult for a lot of people, but if this thing doesn’t get stopped we are all going over the edge of the cliff with it. If I voted I would vote for integrity and honor, and he is the only one that has not spent his adult life in politics flip flopping and learning on the job. He has stood true to his beliefs and no one can sling mud on him. They wont even ask the good doctor a medical question. The media is bias and its going down too. And for the numb-nuts who thinks everyone in this country votes, you forgot the other 200 million that grew up a long time ago and stopped playing this childish game. But today, you will see, those 200 million come out to play and all of you will be taking your little toys and going home. I know its been while since you visited your closet but you should re-familiarize yourself with it.
You know, lots are the people sharing their opinion on this article; and lots seem to disagree. But there is one interesting fact: this article already has over 2000 facebook likes, an immensely high number, which means lots of Americans agree with it. That’s just a simple fact that speaks for itself.
It’s naivete.
Orwell had it right. Last year we were at war with al queda, this year we help them take Lybia and give them a seat in the UN. Ron is right on the money! It saddens me to see the ignorance of this country bowing to the government sponsered MSM when we saw it coming. Got to go ‘Dancing with the Stars’ is on.
CCBallew – The Imam had you on the list for a beheading in the near future. You have redeemed yourself for now. But we expect you to be a martyr and blow yourself up soon.
Wow. It is good to know that Michael Scheuer and Robert Pape are incorrect regarding terror. I mean, who are they besides INCREDIBLY RELIABLE SOURCES of information (Scheuer is the former CIA Bin Laden chief and Pape is a world renound terror researcher).
Also, Paul did not contradict himself. We are allies with many of the 130 odd countries. We have bases there and to them it is not considered occupation. We do not need to spend money for S.Korea, Japan, Germany, England, etc. They can take care of themselves.
When we DO occupy countries (Prince Sultan Air Base KSA, even though they are technically an ally ,and IRAQ), these occupations have caused an unknown number of terrorists.
What an incredibly terribly written article.
Paul bashers…..
Name just two countries whose governments we have overthrown with the result being BAD for the United States (actually, MUCH worse than if we would have left it as is).
I HIGHLY doubt Paul bashers know as much about foreign policy as they think they do.
Books to read… Dying To Win – The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism by Robert Pape
Overthrow – America’s Century of Regime Change – by Stephen Kinzer
Everybody thinks America spreads democracy and freedom. Well, not really. Our foreign policy is in need of a serious fix but when you have “My country, right or wrong” type thinking then we will get more of the same. Because of you we will either keep Obama or elect a neoconservative Republican who will continue our unnecessary wars. It is insanity and you are brainwashed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HTaOCvduoTo&mid=50
Good video showing internet support for Ron Paul during 2008 elections.
“Ron Paul for President http://www.RonPaul2012.com/ – Chairman of the Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy, Representative of the 14th District of Texas, and champion of the Constitution.
556,690
like this”
Someone posted a comment that ther were 2000 facebook likes for this article. My pasted qoute above shows one of Ron Paul’s facebook pages, with 556,690 “likes”. 2000 vs 556,690. Guess it’s not even close.
The problem for neoconservative critics of Ron Paul’s foreign policy is that even if and when you might be closer to the mark than he on some small issue you use for a “gotcha’,” from the use of water boarding on proven terrorists to the use of SWAT teams to take our tyrants, is that the rest of your track record and policy prescriptions are far more heinous than anything Ron Paul says.
Which is precisely why you need to change the topic back to his supposed gaffes.
Your nation building and DoD welfare statism and unchecked government bureaucracy growth is what most threatens American freedom, prosperity and security by selling us into indentured servitude to foreign states that buy our debt.
And you are the ones creating a surveillance state and expanding executive privilege and delivering it all up to Obama to use as he wishes.