I think Ron Paul is a pacifist and he uses facetious moral equivalence arguments against our current offensive policy. Having said that, I don't believe in a foregone conclusion that his election would result in decapitating defeat for us against the Islamists. Our current policy includes socialistic nation building, the cost of which is advancing us toward bankruptcy. Can't we crush our enemies without imposing socialism on them at our expense? If, by some stretch of the imagination, the terrorists could invade our nation, our own armed citizenry would hang them and their sympathizers from the street lamps (after waterboarding them).
Like a victim of a bee sting, suffering from anaphylactic shock, we sometimes seem to be our own worst enemies, witness the Department of Homeland Security boondoggle.
If our nation is a war with God, then wars against other enemies or their methods cannot ultimately succeed.
People forget this as they play at politics.