Posted on 10/17/2011 12:09:28 PM PDT by Bokababe
It just increases the Muslim hatred for Jews? How much more room for hate is there than them already wanting all Jews dead and their country gone? I am not someone who has studied the end of the world prophecies. But I do recognize what is inevitable if Iran possesses a nuclear weapon that they can deliver on a missile. Ron Paul does not recognize that problem. Apparently, Barack Hussein Obama does not recognize it. I want neither of them as the commander in chief.
Very well, well I appreciate your tone, it is somewhat rare to have a ‘respectful disagreement’ on FR, as you are no doubt aware
Wanting it so, and working to make it so, are two different things.
I know a fair amount about ethnic and religious hatred from my knowledge of Kosovo and the Balkans.
Serb Christians and Muslim Albanians pretty much always were a threat to each other -- at various times someone from one side or the other made loud noises about wiping the other out -- but it really took NATO's one-sided intervention on behalf of the Muslim Albanians to turn those negative feelings into blood-boiling rage and hatred. By the time the humiliating propaganda and Christian bloodletting was done, even I hated Albanians -- me, who was born & raised here in the US, who knew only a handful of Albanians (Albanian American) and almost married one.
What I am saying is that until Israel and her Arab neighbors figure out how to work out some relationships on their own, Israel will never be safe and there will never be peace. And if US policy continues on the path that we've been on in the ME, WE are going to sow the seeds of Israel's destruction -- not Iran.
Virtually every US Presidential Administration for the last 20 years has called for a Palestinian State, including the Bush Administration. Virtually all of the proposals that have been made for that Palestinian State include a return of the land won in the 6 Day war -- The West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and half of Jerusalem. Any "Palestinian State" that include these territories, makes Israel completely indefensible -- dead meat. Israel's acceptance of it, even at political gunpoint by us, is the equivalent of swallowing a cyanide capsule.
If we continue leading Israel down this path -- under the guise of "protecting her" -- a nuclear Iran is going to be the least of her worries.
Only a “nut” like Ron Paul can propose a meaningful change.
Pox on all those wannabePOTUSES houses!
We can have the debate about Israel’s ability to defend itself or if there will ever be a Palestinian state that would allow a Jewish state. In my opinion, the Palestinians would sign any kind of deal and the next day make plans to destroy Israel. How convenient to be able to move Iranian weapons freely to their brother state and ally, Palestine.
For me, any potential support of Ron Paul ended that day he told me he would do nothing to stop a N. Korean ship with nukes headed for Iran. As I said earlier, I know what Ronald Reagan would do.
My life experience tells me that it's the loudmouths who are all bluster & no substance --- when it comes to making a bold & risky move, they go weak in the knees. It's the quiet, unassuming ones that you have to look out for -- because when the chips are down, they'll stun you with a courageous and insightful move that make the loudmouths look like babies sucking their thumbs.
I am curious, Doug, what do you think that Ronald Reagan would have done under those circumstances? Seriously. I'm curious.
You know what Democrat John Kennedy did in Cuba, right? A naval blockade. Reagan would not allow that ship to reach Iran with a nuclear cargo. Would it be to board and seize? To sink if there was resistance? I don’t know the method, but Reagan would not tell America, as did Ron Paul, that it was none of our business. None of our business is open invitation to radical Muslims. It would be their dream scenario.
I appreciate much of that for which Ron Paul stands. I wish he understood the threat we face by radical Islam. Sadly, he does not.
I am not sure how old you are, Doug, but I was a child when the Cuban missile crisis happened and an adult when Ronald Reagan was in office. As a matter of fact (as I've mentioned on a few previous threads), my boss at United Technologies was Alexander Haig, who left our company to become Ronald Reagan's first Secretary of State. So, you have to understand the context of these times and where people's head were at back then.
From the day I was born, the Cold War was going on --mutually assured destruction of the entire earth, if the Soviets, China or we blinked, or made a wrong move. As a child, not only did we say the Pledge of Allegiance everyday at school, but we were taught to hide under our desks in case of nuclear attack. People had bomb shelters in their yards to endure a potential nuclear winter. I, like most of those who grew up when I did, grew up scared to death that some leader was going to put their finger on that red button and blow up the world. And this feeling endured until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Because of these conditions, the US and the Soviets avoided direct confrontations, while still trying to play the world as a chessboard to expand their spheres of influence. So instead of fighting directly, they used surrogates to challenge us for spheres of influence.
The Cuban Missile Crisis happened when the Soviets tried to put nuclear missiles in our backyard, the Western Hemisphere, that could hit the US within minutes. It was an imminent threat to America. JFK did not have any real choice as president other than to do what he did to challenge it -- the imminent safety and security of the US and the American people were directly at stake.
The Cuban Missile Crisis non-comparable to a regime on the other side of the earth potentially getting a nuke -- as many unfriendly regimes around the world already do, including several in Iran's backyard.
Because the Cold War was still going on when Ronald Reagan was president, that also guided his actions. People seem to want to remember Ronald Reagan as some sort of hard-nosed cowboy who kicked butt everywhere -- but he wasn't that at all. He talked with a lot strength and bravado, but when it came to actual military confrontations, he avoided them at virtually all costs -- preferring instead to negotiate and make deals. What do you think the Iran/Contra affair was about? Trading arms for our Iranian hostages! Even Newt owned up to that in last night's debate when Ron Paul brought it up, although others tried to deny it.
So given that context, what do I think that Ronald Reagan would do?
Ronald Reagan would be negotiating with Iran. He'd have envoys to Iran to reassure them that we were not going to invade them. He would be on the phone to China to get the N. Koreans to stop the sale. He'd be on the phone to Russia to get them to pressure Iran not to buy those nukes. All the players in that region, including China and Russia, have a much greater stake in preventing Iran from getting a nuke than we do. Ronald Reagan would use every mutual friend or enemy in Iran's neighborhood to discourage Iran from even trying to get that nuke and make it be in their best interest if they didn't -- right down to bribing Iran if he had to. He'd be removing bases around Iran that threatened them.
But only if all of that didn't work would Ronald Reagan even think about an ultimate blockade -- and then, he'd use his brain, weigh the costs to US interests, the risks and the potential benefits -- and there's still a very good chance that he might have done nothing -- or maybe he would have. You seem much more confident that you know what Ronald Reagan would do than I am -- and I know several people who knew RR personally
Just do the military body count on Ronald Reagan's presidency -- a total of about 200 US soldiers lost in 8 years -- and they were lost in one fell swoop when we allowed ourselves to get drug into the confrontation between Israel and the Palestinians in Lebanon, and Muslim forces decided to suicide bomb a barracks full of American soldiers in Beirut --196 US soldiers dead. It was one of Reagan's biggest regrets, as he said in his memoirs, that he should have known better and that ME politics were too irrational to get involved in.
That was THE REAL RONALD REAGAN, not the mythic neocon that people want to remember. The real Ronald Reagan used his brains and realized that war is a failure of diplomacy -- that war makes us vulnerable and weakens us -- economically and socially. The threat of force is far greater than the actual use of it -- but even then threats are nearly a last line of defense, not a first line.
The US style today, everywhere, is confrontation, not negotiations --sanctions, threats and then military action. We dictate, intimidate and don't negotiate -- and that is our weakness, not our strength. We've surrounded Iran with military bases, infiltrated them, sanctioned and threatened them, which is the main reason that they want a nuke to begin with.
We teach our children that their "actions have consequences", yet when it comes to our foreign policy, we seem to forget that. There is a price for everything -- including behaving like we can order around the world, threaten them, bomb them, take over their countries and bend them to our will.
Point is that Iran wanting a nuke is a result of our threat and failed confrontational policies. Ronald Reagan would have already known that, and I believe that he would have adjusted US behavior accordingly, rather than immediately jumping to confrontation. Ron Paul knows that, too.
A very thoughtful post. I was in 8th grade during the crisis. The crisis happened, historians would say, because the Soviets thought Kennedy was weak. That is the problem I see with Ron Paul. I don’t know what he would do to protect our interests, but I know that the radical Muslims would see him as weak. That is dangerous.
We will continue to respectfully disagree. These times are very different than the Reagan times and the cold war. We have never fought an enemy like this who does not care if their children die as long as they kill Jews in the process. I don’t believe Ron Paul understands the threat we face as Islam is outbirthing the nations of Europe. It is truly frightening. I believe them when they say they want us to convert or die.
But this is all an exercise in mental gymnastics. Surely you know that Ron Paul has no chance of being nominated. The only thing he can do is run as a third party candidate and, in the process, help Barack Hussein Obama spend another four years destroying this nation.
This doesn't sound like a man who is "weak" to me Doug, but rather someone who sees a very different paradigm for the situation in Iran and for our actions. If Ron Paul were "weak" he would have been converted the corruption and the pack mentality that is Washington a very long time ago -- but after 30 years there, he wasn't.
We have never fought an enemy like this who does not care if their children die as long as they kill Jews in the process. I don’t believe Ron Paul understands the threat we face as Islam is outbirthing the nations of Europe. It is truly frightening. I believe them when they say they want us to convert or die.
I've been to the ME twice. My ancestors spent 500 years fighting Islam -- and along with Jewish names, Serbian last names like mine were the only other names that were identified by the US military as not ones an American soldier would want to have to wear on his chest while fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan. That should tell you something.
I also have several friends who are paid experts on Islam -- one of them is the foreign policy editor over at Chronicles who also wrote the books, Sword of the Prophet and Defeating Jihad. The general agreement on Islam among those experts is that we need to demystify Islam -- otherwise it produces irrational fears that get exploited. And that we need to treat Islam the same way that we treated communism ,since Islamic Sharia is also a political system. The things that we don't want to do is mutter falsehoods like "Islam means peace", or give Islam credence and credibility with positions of power -- yet that's precisely what we have done since 9/11 -- it's absolutely insane.
Communism was also a political system that "killed children" and anyone in its way. Communism too was a dangerous threat to our security and there were homegrown communists here. Want communist stories to raise the hair on you head? Think of the millions of Ukrainians that Stalin murdered. In terms of fighting communism, we were experts at it and the comparison in terms of defeating it are parallel to Islam in virtually every way, as they are both erroneous belief systems.
Surely you know that Ron Paul has no chance of being nominated. The only thing he can do is run as a third party candidate and, in the process, help Barack Hussein Obama spend another four years destroying this nation.
I know no such thing which is why I and many others have contributed significantly to his campaign -- he's at $2.5M in less than two days from ordinary people, not from major corporations or banks. I keep wondering why this "Ron Paul can't win" gets continually repeated as some sort of mantra, unless it's supposed to mean "Ron Paul must not win" and it's being produced by the banksters and corporatists who just don't want the scam that is being run on the American people to be over.
No worries over Ron Paul running third Party -- it's not going to happen.
And as for why Ron Paul? What are the other choices? Romney the corporate shill? Cain the bankster shill? Perry, the open-borders "you don't have a heart if you don't support free tuition for illegals"? Give me one other believable candidate who believes in the Constitution and Liberty, who has the economic and foreign policy foresight that Ron Paul has, and who isn't owned by anyone other than the American people, and I'm all in. Supporting a 76 yr old who isn't a soundbite king, isn't easy and wouldn't be my first choice if I thought that there was a better alternative -- but he's the best and only one we've got this election and I really believe that we are at such a crossroads that if we don't make that turn back toward Liberty & the Constitution now, we are not going to have another chance. This is what is called "the kairos" in Greek -- the moment of opportunity -- and I don't think that the USA, as we know it, is going to get another one.
I appreciate your point of view and extended answers. Unfortunately, I work 7 days a week to survive the Obamaconomy and just don’t have any more time to devote to this.
It’s OK, we’re good. It’s just nice talking to someone sane and logical for a change.
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