Republican Presidential Candidate Debate #2 - Columbia, SC 05/15/07 - Official Discussion Thread

May 15, 2007

[patriciaruth]

name me the Iraqi 9/11 hi-jackers.

They weren't that stupid.

They trained their al Qaida errand boys on their airplane, helped finance them, and in my opinion gave them the anthrax love note to leave behind.

Iraqi Intelligence was involved in 1993 bombing of WTC and also involved in 9/11.

jveritas, tell me if I am wrong.

[patriciaruth]

I'd agree with your first and last assertions, but not the middle one.

Sometimes it is nice to be wrong. I'd enjoy it very much if Fred Thompson has also done the kind of organization and fund raising that the top tier has done already.

We'll see if your statement is truth or wishful thinking.

[patriciaruth]

That’s Jimmy Carter thinking, that led to Iran being our blood-enemy.

Jimmy Carter didn't bomb Iran. Or help the Shah bomb the Ayatola Kohmeine's followers (Soviet fellow travellers).

It was NOT bombing that let an already sworn blood-enemy take over control of Iran.

[cva66snipe]

About a dozen were Saudi. Any doubt that Saudi money didn't fund them? Lebanese? Hum. Egypt? well likely the least linked to national sponsored support. UAE? Others unknown. Maybe Pali's? Any M.E. nation friend or foe thanks to our virtually non existent immigration and border policy could have gathered intelligence to act against us. Ones such as Bin Laden has ties in virtually all M.E. nations not just Iraq. Military wise Iraq had the least to offer in assistance to them.

If Saddam was dealing with the 9/11 terrorist then he should have been taken out. My disagreement is in method. A war vs what could have and should have been a paid hit. Look we got into this mess in large part because one POTUS giving foreign heads of state protected status taking assassinations off the board. Not in line with what the Constitution spells out. Congress can order a price on an enemies head.

You can not deal with such threats through diplomacy. You can't go around strutting like a Banty Rooster in a hen house saying were coming to get you Saddam and expect any success of a covert operation.

I was not against taking out Saddam as such. However I think poor judgment has been used in what was never intended to be a actual war as in take the nation {Iraq} to it's knees. Bush planned a nation building project for Iraq BEFORE the first shots were even fired and the first two nights mission targets prove it.

Our money and military resources could have been better utilized securing our borders and our energies should have been focused on making certain we know who enters the nation and for how long rather than placing the burden on the backs of citizens so political correctness can be observed by not profiling actual probable risk.

Our military has been on the never ending deployment since 1991 and not Bush Sr, Clinton, nor GW Bush has done one thing to even raise troop strengths. Not one request to congress to raise End Troop Strengths beyond token increases.

We abandoned a lot of our military readiness posture leading up to 9/11. That came as a direct result of the policies of the two previous presidents and congress who gutted the military to ridiculous levels. When Iran 1979 happened two carriers were on station in the MED SEA 24/7 before it happened. Another WEST PAC was likely within a couple days steaming. Had the Ford/Rummy and Carter/Brown policies not put the military into a readiness crisis before this? We may have had a different outcome.

It seems strange to me as well people will curse the Carter foreign anfd military policies and rightfully so but give Ford/Rummy a pass on the mess they left Carter and it indeed was a mess. There's quite a few ex-service in the 1975-77 era walking around with General DC's from where they took 31 day walks and a got their ticket out with less than honorable discharge. Fords EO on prohitition of taking out leaders gave state sponsored terrorism a huge boost. That likely did far more long term damage to us than Carter's mis-handling of Iran.

Iraq was/is just one of many nations in the M.E. whom either attacked us or assisted others. There's Lebanon, Lybia, Somalia, Yemen, Iran, likely Syria, Cyprus, as well. Saudi Arabia also has factions within it that are the primary funding source for terrorist operations. I just mentioned the mid and lower MED Basin nations. I think 9/11 or not we were headed to Iraq no matter what. It's also obvious we had some rather bad intel in the early stages. Some of it bad intel and some just plain sloppy communications. The worse mistake made was involving the State Department. No good ever comes from their involvement in dealing with terrorist as they are too sympathetic to the terrorist cause. Just like they protect Israels enemies and try to prevent Israel from doing the world a favor.

Odd isn't it that Israel in just a few hours destroyed Saddams nuclear weapons program and was done with it. Maybe we need to try and micro manage events in the M.E. less and look at what worked instead. On the other hand we could take some lessons from Israel on military expedience of getting in and out before they even know what hit them.

[jveritas]

You are exactly right Patricia except that we do not have credible evidence yet about the anthrax issue.

[guido911]

“Here’s the point for the slow witted...”

No, slow witted is using an extreme position such as comparing Hannity to Mussolini to prove a point. Here’s an idea for those who apparently are “fast witted”, try hard not to name call or label people. Doing so makes you look both desperate and, frankly, ignorant.

Oh, and I guess the only thing the now “liberal” Hannity (because he happens to support Rudy—OMG!!!)has done is raise millions of dollars for the children of fallen soldiers. I did not realize that “conservative” Antoninus had done more.

[juliej]

I hope that Ron Paul’s inane answer is the end of the “libertarian” movement. They are not libertarians - they are socialist nanny state libs! In addition to being isolationists. The guy actually mentioned Senator Taft!

[calcowgirl]

Oh, and I guess the only thing the now “liberal” Hannity...

Don't be ridiculous and re-write the posting record. No one called Hannity a liberal. He was called an "empty-minded shill" and a "political pimp" for trying to shove the liberal Giuliani down the throats of conservatives. He did the same thing with liberal Schwarzenegger and California is paying dearly for it.

[calcowgirl]

Does anyone have the minute by minute breakdown for how much time each speaker received? It just seemed to me like Duncan Hunter received way less time than the others.

I know a couple sites did some clock-watch statistics for the last debate but I couldn't find any this time. (Although, last time, the two analyses differed wildly). Based on analysis of the prior debate, I used their method to come up with the following for this debate. Hunter wins for brevity, although, in a debate and a contest for face-time, I'm not sure that's a good time.

              Number of   # of Words   Words per
Candidate     Questions   to Respond   Response

Mccain            8+         1444        181
Romney            7          1603        229
Giuliani          6+         1382        230
Huckabee          6          1185        198
Gilmore           5          1212        242
Brownback         5          1008        202
Tancredo          5          1171        234
Hunter            5           838        168
Paul              4+         1208        302
Thompson          4           822        206

+Considerable follow-up questions/dialogue -- counted as single question and response.

[patriciaruth]

Saudi Arabia also has factions within it that are the primary funding source for terrorist operations.

This part I agree is true now. Saddam was a major source of funds before we took him out.

However, the "official" government of Saudi Arabia was not the "official" source of funds. Sometimes you have to keep your friends close and your enemies closer till you are in a position to solve a problem permanently.

But there are truly a lot of governments, including especially the nonMiddle Eastern country of Russia, that are running ops against us.

Past mistakes, past unrecognized enemies, are not an excuse for shirking reality today. The only way out of the Middle East is through development of a reliable source of alternate energy. Any plan short of that is just cutting our economic and military throat, and inviting the vultures home to feed on our undefended corpse.

Beyond that we have to understand that the genie is already out of the bottle. Even if we packed up and went home today, the forces there that hate us will get a nuke and take us out at home if we don't keep them on the run on their home turf. We will need footholds in the Middle East for a long time to come, or we will pay the consequence. But bombing indiscriminantly will not solve the problem.

Under Clinton we had a 50% cut in our forces in the Pacific, and we are still struggling back from that nadir. Griping about it won't solve the problem. Working to elect Representatives, Senators and a President who will continue to correct that is the only way to go. Third party voting is a knife in the heart of our armed forces.

[CounterCounterCulture]

Thanks. Was there a transcript for this debate published somewhere?

[calcowgirl]

The Federal News Service published it (subscription required.)
The only place else I have seen it is the NYT:

http://www.fednews.com/transcript.htm?id=20070515t2027

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/15/us/politics/16repubs-text.html?pagewanted=all

[Eroteme]

I concur with your observations and am, in fact, very optimistic.

By definition, leaders don’t follow the pack. A CEO doesn’t line up in the HR waiting room with 10 other potential candidates for the job, just for the chance to fill in the blanks on the standard job application. If he can’t distinguish himself by his initiative and vision at that juncture, why would a company think he’d be any different later? If an aspirant to the seat of greatest power on this planet cannot orchestrate advantage at the same, simple level, how’s he going to handle N. Korea or Iran?

Yep, I’m with you. I like what I’m seeing here with Thompson.

[cva66snipe]

Under Clinton we had a 50% cut in our forces in the Pacific, and we are still struggling back from that nadir. Griping about it won't solve the problem. Working to elect Representatives, Senators and a President who will continue to correct that is the only way to go. Working to elect Representatives, Senators and a President who will continue to correct that is the only way to go

Continue? They never started it to begin with. Bush is still in the downsizing mode. Cheney as Sec of Def was as bad as Rummy. Someone who did not need to be in that position. He was no Cap neither was Rummy. Bush and congress messed up Big Time immediately after 9/11 by not calling for and raising troop levels. Had these simpletons did as much deployments would be shorter and fewer for current troops. We can not continue on our present military course without great harm coming.

Gulf War One and the carrier deployment and post deployment maintenance mismanagement that came with it cost us a carrier. Not an oldie but one approaching mid service life. Actually it was the newest of the Kitty Hawk Class. I know it for a fact because it was ran three deployments in three years then at the end of the third when back at the base had a major boiler room explosion. God help us if they think they can do nukes this way and get by with it. No a nuke can't take such abuse either. They can not deploy indefinitely or actually any longer than a conventional. The reactor is not the issue the axillary and support equipment is. Both have 1200 PSI steam systems that run the screws and generators etc.

The Kennedy and Kitty Hawk fiasco that came later was another example. I think that was a first for any carrier to fail INSURV. There is no excuse for the military shortfalls and the GOP after 1994 is to blame for it remaining that way. They had the houses and ones like Warner sat on their chairs and did absolutely nothing.

If Bush and congress doesn't start addressing manpower issues the Bush legacy will be much like the mess created Post Nam by Ford/Rummy and Carter/ Brown.. People will walk away. I served in that one and saw it happen. I did some of my four years under Ford and most of it under Carter. I got out in time to vote for Reagan at home.

[guido911]

Oh yes, that sort of name-calling is acceptble. buh bye...

[patriciaruth]

We have to campaign for people who will correct these serious defense problems. We can’t walk away from the political process in disgust. We have to keep at it.

[cva66snipe]

Agree’d. Only a few of the current GOP with their names in the hat would take us there. Paul, Hunter, Huckabee, & Tancredo, would be the most likely to address these issues. Just as important in preventing terrorist attacks they would be the ones most likely to deal with securing our borders in a firm manner. Rudy, McCain, Romney, Fred if he runs, or Newt, would give us more of the same IMO. In the senate to ever have positive change for our military ones such as Warner in the GOP need to be put out to pasture politically. The GOP is running out of time as a party. If they don’t start producing results soon they will become as the party they replaced.

[omnivore]

I doubt Paul will be the end of libertarians. First, they're only a "movement" in the sense that Brownian Motion is "movement." I don't know about socialism, but an awful lot of them are lawyers, which can be an honorable profession for honorable people (and crazies too), but it is entirely dependent on a fully functioning government and social structure, for legal decisions and the rule of law to be useful in any way. I'm not sure they really understand the depth of government and societal infrastructure that is nowadays taken for granted. I'm not in favor of big regulations, but government in general is essential.

The isolationism thing is what drove me away from them. They have a naive and idealistic view of their fellow man, especially in other cultures, which does not comport with reality. There are billions of people in the world who are not "economic rational actors," not even barely rational in any sense we in the US would recognize. Sit down at a bargaining table and negotiate with people who enthusiastically implement Sharia law in their own country and everywhere they can force it outside their own borders as well? No rational person would do that, and yet the libertarians claim to want to. I doubt they're serious. For them the only thing that matters is their words, not reality.

But it's tough to generalize, because libertarians are very heterogeneous, each one basically an ideology unto himself. Most of them have good hearts, it's just that they tend to get too wrapped up in ideological beliefs based on theoretical considerations unleavened by enough practical knowledge.

One example is they're now quoting OBL's fatwa to "prove" that what Ron Paul said was correct, about OBL's motives. But OBL is a murderous sociopath. You can't take anything he says about his motives seriously. By comparison, many Holocaust scholars have read everything Hitler ever wrote and said, and there is still disagreement about why he really was anti-Semitic, why he believed what he believed and said. It's like the part in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, where Seuss lists the possible reasons why the Grinch is so mean. These things are undecidable and unprovable, and one of the most foolish things you can do is take the words of the murderous sociopath at face value, treat them as if they're normal people telling the truth. So on that count, Ron Paul and his minions just come off as so gullible that they're pathetic.

[jmc813]

Anyone notice that Ron Paul looks a lot like the guy who ran the Heaven’s Gate cult? Only compared to Paul, THEY were at least half sane. It seems to me that all Paul did was string together a bunch of slogans and talking points from the more wacko fringes of talk radio and the Internet and strung them togther as his “Agenda” He is good at the foaming at the mouth rage at everyone and everything but cannot answer even the simplest question of HOW he would DO anything.

Why do you need to post the same exact rant to seven different threads? Be original.

[Jim W N]

(Late response)

I think the Dept of Homeland Security is a useless bureaucratic, big-government front for what is supposed to pass as, "Now we're getting serious" about things like intelligence and security at home and abroad. The problem was (and still is) that we weren't/aren't properly and purposefully using the resources already allocated for those functions (CIA, FBI, etc.), because since Reagan the RINO's and liberals have de-fanged our security agencies. Putting up a phony front is more dangerous than nothing at all because it fools people into thinking something is being done when the real problems are still intact.