I figured I might throw out an expert opinion on things: Michael Scheuer, the former head analyst at the CIA’s bin Laden unit said the following:
That's rich. I guess I could break into your house, kick over all the furniture, appoint a "nephew" of yours as the new leader of the household, and then say I'm staying because the leader of the household has given me permission to stay for security purposes - after all, there could be additional home invaders out there.
That's a good question to ask and I believe if you really wanted an intellectually honest answer that it is out there for you. Paul isn't saying that terrorists have the right to kill US citizens, but there is a lot of merit in honestly trying to understand the mindset of your enemies. It is easy to say they are all crazy, but you have to know that isn't intellectually honest. There is obviously more to it than that. Dehumanizing your enemies may make them easier to kill and hate, it may make it easier to drum up support among uninformed voters, but it isn't effective in honestly working toward peace. That is the ideal goal. It may not seem realizable, but as a civilized Christian nation that has to be the goal we are working toward. No one is denying there are radical Muslims that need to be stopped. But declaring a war on terrorism is an idea that is not achievable - we could be at war forever. We may later want to go to war with evil, the chaos in Africa, and to those who would harm kittens. It is not reasonable to go to war with small groups of rebels with no home, they are too flexible for an army to square off with in the battlefield. Paul supported action against Al-Queda after 9/11/2001. Can anyone deny that a more focused police action would have been more effective than meddling in the political affairs of two foreign nations? Can you deny that we would have less dead soldiers, less dead Iraqi civilians, or that more around the world would have higher opinions of the US? Our reaction to 9/11 has been hijacked and turned into very entangling foreign alliances with Iraq and Afghanistan and I think really the bottom line is we can't afford it; it is costing us domestically. It goes against Christian values to start preemptive wars. Christianity has accepted that some wars are just, but preemptive wars do not fall in that category. There are other avenues we can take. We didn't go to war with the Soviets and were eventually able to overcome that threat. There are a number of countries that have the potential to wreak havoc on the world, why single out Iran, a Muslim country that is relatively accepting of western society? I'm more worried about terrorists getting harmful materials from our friends in northern and southeastern Asia, Russia and Pakistan, respectively, for example. We should use other methods in countering rogue groups and nations - there are plenty at our disposal. Paul understands everything that you're saying. Paul does not deny that terrorists exist. What he disagrees with is how we are dealing with the problem of terrorism. It is lazy and dishonest to say Paul wants to take our marching orders from terrorists. There are many reasons why Paul wants the US to get away from foreign interventionism (different than isolationism) and our role in creating terrorists, however large or small it may be, is only one of the reasons. Our activities in Iraq are seen as unjust across the world, not just in Muslim countries, and an intellectually honest person has to ask is the benefit worth the cost? The cost of tens of thousands (possibly hundreds of thousands) of Iraqi lives, the cost of the lives of our brave soldiers, the financial cost of political entanglements with foreign countries, the cost the loss of respect has on US standing across the world, the cost of flaming the fan of extremism in the middle east. If the benefit is stability in the middle east, how many more years before we see the fruit in Iraq? Will we need to topple a much more powerful Iran, who has ties to more powerful countries that won't want to see us succeed. How much more would that cost and considering that we are already financially strained, could we afford it? Our actions in Iraq have probably caused more than a 100% increase in extremism among Muslims. How many innocent families have we damaged over there? You don't bake a cake without breaking a few eggs, but what cake are we baking? As much as Saddam was a pain in the world's ass, committing to a long term and costly demolition and rebuilding of Iraq has taken away resources that could have helped to find Bin Laden and Al-Queda. The people of Iran, extreme to moderate, feel threatened by our presence in Iraq. Those that are more inclined to embrace western culture are being painted into a corner to support the threat we pose to their own way of life. They are human and many don't (or didn't) hate the US, but can't you see how our actions in a country on their border would push them away from the US? There are more reasons to not go to war with Iran than there are reasons extend our commitments in the middle east; at this time it is not wise to declare WAR with Iran.
So with your detailed knowledge of the situation you've come to the conclusion that the former head analyst at the CIA’s bin Laden unit is talking out of his ass? I imagine the guy has some intelligent things to say on the matter. Are you really willing to fully dismiss this expert's opinion? This really throws into question your dedication to the truth, IMO.
You make it sound like our problems started when we went into Iraq. They attacked the WTC in 1993 and many other attacks on us during the 90s, leading up to the 9/11 attacks. You have to go all the way back to the late 80s when Saudi allowed a U.S. military base and the first gulf war to understand this issue. What would Paul have done when Iraq invaded Kuwait? Would he allow Saddam to take them over, then Saudi? It seems to me that Paul claims our foreign policy during that period were responsible for many of the attacks. What would he have done differently that would have led to fewer attacks against us?
I'm not real sure what RP would say to that and it is a very good question that should be posed to him and I'll try and dig around to see what I can come up with. In the meantime wasn't it the US that aided Saddam into power giving him money and weapons before any of that started as well?
Yep. The one thing you'll find throughout our history is that we are friend/foe based on what's best for us at that moment in time. Bin Laden wasn't an enemy when he was helping Afghan fend off the Soviet Union in the 80s. And we sided with Iraq in the Iraq-Iran conflict. We had a pretty nasty war with the Brits a couple of hundred years ago and now are friends. Same with Japan. I don't think that is uncommon for countries to do.
There is a documentary called Why We Fight talking about our involvement with the middle east starting in the 50s when we helped overthrow the leader of Iran. Don't worry, it isn't a Michael Moore type film. It does ask a lot of questions and is unable to resolve all of them, but it is thought provoking and informative. So our intervention started much earlier than the 80s. I reiterate that Paul approved going after Al-Queda after September 11, 2001. Unfortunately, instead of dedicating ourselves to serving retribution to Al-Queda, we decided to commit ourselves to a different project. I don't have a complete answer, but I do know that Paul believes that it is congress that should declare war, not the president. If congress were to approve a strike against Iraq, I feel pretty confident he would have lead an efficient, quick strike against Iraq to make our point clear. Paul believes in a strong military but he also believes that we shouldn't police the world and prop everyone up. Other nations need to take personal responsibility for themselves, just like every US citizen should take responsibility for themselves, rather than relying on the federal government to prop them up. As a side note, isn't Kuwait a rich country? Couldn't they hire a private army for defense? Our military shouldn't be used for economic favors, it should be used to defend our nation and our interests, if need be. Did you know that during the cold war the US government was sending humanitarian aid to the USSR? This relieved some of the USSR's responsibility for their people so they could play war with us. Also, far too often US citizens end up funding both sides of skirmishes around the world. Our money can be spent better domestically. Our government shouldn't be getting into entangling alliances in the first place, funding this or that or promising this or that to foreign countries. It gets us into trouble and has led to some real foul ups in the middle east. We are a powerful enough and important enough country that we don't need to bribe other nations into wanting to do business with us and have a positive relationship with us. Ron Paul has drawn many people to the republican party, myself included. I was independent before this but Paul has really affected my point of view. I've changed to the Republican party and will support Paul until his movement has run its course. I have a lot of faith in the guy and he is opening a lot of eyes to true conservative values.
Don't be naive. We invaded, sacked and deposed the governments of those countries, occupied them, and installed friendly governments that "permit" us to remain. Yet the people of those countries hate us, want us out and have worked diligently to kill out soldiers, disrupt our plans, and humilitate us at every opportunity. Correct. Israel/palestine is the root of all evil in the Middle east, complicated by the oil situtation. Iran is not a legitimate threat to attack the US or US forces in the middle east with a nuclear weapon, even if they had one, which they don't. To do so would be national suicide. Even President Hillary would reduce Iran to cinders if they did that. Just like deterence worked on the Soviets, it will work on Iran. They may be radical, but they are not insane or stupid. Neither are they likely to give an fantastically expensive nuclear weapon with their return address on it to to unstable terrorists. Al Qaida and Iran have never gotten along and even Hezbollah (an Iranian puppet) would just use it against Israel which would result in Israel flattening Iran with about 200 nuclear exposions. Iran wants nuclear weapons for one reason. To remain a significant power and establish some deterrence of their own in a region where Israel, Pakistan, and India already have nuclear weapons and Saudi Arabia may be developing them, too. One must be careful to distinguish Iranian rhetoric from Iranian actions. They don't want a war with the US, they would certainly lose it. They just want to appear big and important to posture in their own volatile region. We should not play into their hands. Iran should mostly just be ignored and treated with contempt like any other hostile third world country. There is no military action needed. Did Iraq teach us nothing about the limits of military power in dealing with a political situation? We deal with Iran by lining up our friends an allies against them and undermining their political influence in the region and world. Cheap and effective. The country has a large unhappy midle class and is ripe for another revolution soon. We should let it happen and even encourage it, not waste American lives and treasure on ill-considered, ill-fated military crusades. Our fine military must be saved for real threats and wars that are in our national interests.
