Posted on 05/20/2007 6:19:09 PM PDT by Captain Kirk
You must have missed the recent post here showing him fourth in the polling.
So, you're resorting to getting into the muck and mire by pursuing the Al Sharpton strategy. Like you, he screasms racist against all his opponents. Say hello to your pal Al next time you see him.
I agree with all your corrections. Bay of Pigs was a classic case of how liberals are incapable of fighting wars right.
For JFK, image trumped substance and he was willing to let the freedom fighters die on the beach rather than give the wrong impression of US might. Either call it all off or support it, but dont let them go based on a plan you wont execute.
we could also add a heap of Reagan interventions and point out that both of them, Ike and Reagan, were in the TR mold of “speak softly and carry a big stick”.
Which makes the Ron Paul attempt to claim these two interventionists as aligned with his isolationism more bizarre. Ron should have instead looking to warren Harding as the role model ... or maybe Jimmy Carter, LOL.
I just wouldn’t be touting opposition to World War II as something to be proud of.
Paul would probably claim Washington. Avoid entangling alliances, don’t get involved in the old world’s wars.
But there is a difference in getting involved in our own hemisphere and trying to remake an ancient Islamic culture into a liberal domocracy. And Ike and Reagan’s interventions were in the context of the Cold War, they weren’t utopian attempts to remake societies.
I haven’t followed the Paul controversy as closely as I should but I think some of the attacks on him are way out of line.
Remember, the Ottoman Empire fell and all this oil rich real estate was there for the taking.
Refreshing, although I think the Times misunderstands isolationism, the same as most 'conservatives'. Non-intervention is not isolationist. It can be. But it's not in the case of Rep. Paul
Paul would claim Jefferson too,
while ignoring the irony that in response to Muslim predations, Jefferson sent our marines over to Tripoli to topple a Government who was supporting piracy (the terrorism of the era) against us.
Of course that all misses the point that a few things have changed in the world since 1805.
“And Ike and Reagan’s interventions were in the context of the Cold War, they weren’t utopian attempts to remake societies.”
Our current efforts in the world are not utopian they are part and parcel of the global war on terror. When people miscast our efforts in iraq and afghanistan as not related to GWOT, they strike me as clueless or disingenuous.
“I haven’t followed the Paul controversy as closely as I should but I think some of the attacks on him are way out of line.”
I think Ron Paul’s and his defenders’ distortions of history to back up their points are out of line. It’s apPAULling how ignorant of history even those on our own side are.
When people miscast our efforts in iraq and afghanistan as not related to GWOT, they strike me as clueless or disingenuous.
Then you best take that up with Dubya, who when pressed said the administration didn't claim a link between Iraq and al Qaeda. A number of Bush's inner circle were spoiling for a fight with Saddam while Clinton was still in office. They weren't shy about it, you can still see their position on Iraq at PNAC.
“Carve up what? The Middle East had been carved up at the conclusion of WWI, 20 years earlier!”
At the end of WWI the infant USSR was not a great power. In WWII it was, and England could not have easily repulsed a Soviet push into Iraq. They had to negotiate with the Soviets and they did.
Not to mention that FDR showed far more deference to ‘Uncle Joe’ than he did to Churchill, which England also had to consider.
One thing I do know is that Western morals offend devout Muslims. Gay rights, rampant pornography, revealing clothing, etc. I also know that Somalis, Indians, Thais, and all the other people that are currently being attacked by radical Muslims did not have troops in Saudi Arabia or necessarily support Israel. In addition to being offended by us, they are extremely envious of America,
So, yes I do think they would try to create terror against us regardless of where our troops are stationed.
Why do you leave out all the relevent facts?
Saddam support multiple terrorist organizations, in Iran, Algeria, Palestinians, Abu Nidal, etc.
Saddam’s IIS did help Al Qaeda and offered Bin laden safe haven in Iraq in 1998. Saddam had nuclear amditions albeit dormant program.
I don’t want to argue this, it’s off-topic, but this pleading that Saddam was disconnected from terrorism is exactly the “clueless or disingenuous” stuff I am talking about. Even if you or others have been buffaloed by the leftwing whitewash on this.
I guess that explains why Bush won’t claim a Saddam- al Qaeda connection. It must be all the leftwing brainwashing.
Well, if Bush is 100% authority on everything, why don’t you just follow his policies 100%?
If you dont even realize that Saddam’s IIS had multiple contacts with Al Qaeda, helped set up Zarqawi’s Ansar al-Islam in northern Iraq and offered Bin laden safe haven in 1998, and will just discount the facts for some bumpersticker-level view of saddam ... well, then, the brainwashers got to you, for sure.
Considering that Abu Nidal was killed by Saddam in 2002, I'm not sure how he helps your case. Moreover Nidal was a secular leftist, not an Islamic crazy. And Saddam aiding terrorism against the Islamic revolutionary gov't of Iran isn't helping your cause either. You aren't going to find much sympathy for the Ayatollahs.
What will we find when we examine your Palestinian and Algerian groups? Islamic terrorists of the al Qaeda variety? Or more secular Arab terrorists of the sort the world was full of in the 80s?
Bush’s admission is known as an ‘argument against interest’.
I don’t have to endorse all that he says in order to demonstrate that he acknowledges a claim that runs counter to his own benefit.
Moreover Bush’s admission runs counter to your claim that there was a connection between Saddam and al Qaeda. Your claim is that only the brainwashed believe it isn’t so, which by logic dumps Bush in my camp.
I suspect if there were evidence he would be the first to endorse it, not to say that none exists. Maybe Dubya needs to contact you and get the conclusive evidence that so far he says doesn’t exist.
1) Fact: Abu Nidal was given safe haven for many years by saddam.
2) The fact that he was killed show clearly that saddam would take out terrorists when he wanted to. It turns out Abu Nidal refused to help him in something related to training Fedayeen. That and post 9/11 inconvenience of harboring a man who killed americans in a terrorist incidence made him a liability ... and YET ... Zarqawi *wasnt* killed. Back in 2002 Zarqawi was planning ricin attacks on Europe. And later Zarqawi just happens to be the point-man in Iraq for AQ and the suicide-bombers.
This was a part of saddam’s plan from the get-go.
3) The idea that baathists cant cooperate with islamic Iran is so horribly disproven by recent history its hilarious you even bring it up.
Did you not notice how islamicist-shiite hezbollah in lebanon is sponsored by *both* baathist syria *and* shiite theocratic Iran? Or that Iran is helping the baathist-insurgents, which in turn have links to al qaeda.
These are happening now, today, and they were happening before we invaded under saddam.
“What will we find when we examine your Palestinian and Algerian groups? Islamic terrorists of the al Qaeda variety?”
You will (a) find both and (b) find that Saddam supported all kinds of terrorist groups. Algerian were islamicist. Saddam’s aid in 1995, training Al Qaeda in bomb-making, what category is that? Does it matter?
“Or more secular Arab terrorists of the sort the world was full of in the 80s?”
Again, with this myth that they are so far apart. These multiple terrorist groups have different agendas but a COMMON ENEMY ... which is us.
You really think Fatah and Hamas are that much different? When Arafat was using Islamic propaganda the whole time? When Fatah uses leftist/radical ideology as well? When their political agenda is pretty much the same? They are about as different as Howard Dean vs John Kerry.
That you buy into this ‘secular v islamic’ BS shows
how little you understand. Saddam himself put an islamic insignia on his flag after the gulf war. He sponsored very anti-american mullahs in his country, who after our liberation of Iraq became the “Association of Muslim Scholars” - you can read IraqTheModel for the particulars on that saddam-friendly muslim cleric group - they are friends of the terrorist insurgents.
Saddam had his agenda, but sponsored anti-Western terrorists as a part of his ongoing war against both Israel and the west. He supported all sorts of terrorists including islamicist ones, and including Al Qaeda.
Bush didn’t “make an admission” that said no links at all, you mistate what he has said, and your use of Bush is a logical fallacy. Argument of an authority you don’t even agree with!
Any statements of the ‘no connection’ have been in context of ‘operation linkage’ and 9/11. Why? Because to claim that there was no link at all is disproven by multiple examples of links! Did Bush ever say “No, saddam didn’t actually help Al qaeda with weapons training in 1995”. I’ve never seen that quote. But if you read the 9/11 commision report, that fact is in there, so even if a politician made a statement it would contradict that report. And it is also in other reports.
There are facts out there. If you aren’t willing to acknowledge those facts, there is not a discussion. You don’t seem interested in the truth, just making a bogus point.
DID YOU KNOW THIS? ...
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/011/990ieqmb.asp
“SADDAM HUSSEIN’S REGIME PROVIDED FINANCIAL support to Abu Sayyaf, the al Qaeda-linked jihadist group founded by Osama bin Laden’s brother-in-law in the Philippines in the late 1990s, according to documents captured in postwar Iraq. An eight-page fax dated June 6, 2001, and sent from the Iraqi ambassador in Manila to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Baghdad, provides an update on Abu Sayyaf kidnappings and indicates that the Iraqi regime was providing the group with money to purchase weapons. The Iraqi regime suspended its support—temporarily, it seems—after high-profile kidnappings, including of Americans, focused international attention on the terrorist group.
The fax comes from the vast collection of documents recovered in postwar Afghanistan and Iraq. Up to this point, those materials have been kept from the American public. “
There are connections. The truth will set you free...
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/152lndzv.asp
http://www.amazon.com/Connection-Collaboration-Hussein-Endangered-America/dp/0060746734
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=13903
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/006934.php
US Govt document stated:
“In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq.”
Then it should be easy for you to locate Bush establishing such a link. Pointing out an admission counter to interest isn't invalid.
If you think it is a logical fallacy you better dig out a copy of Copi's Logic and read the section on argumentum ad verecundiam, as you evidently think any appeal to authority is a fallacy. Bush is certainly an authority on his own interest and qualified to be quoted.
"The idea that baathists cant cooperate with islamic Iran is so horribly disproven by recent history its hilarious you even bring it up."
I reread my post because I couldn't recall making any such claim. I didn't. Please keep your hilarity confined to comments I actually make. It's more work to engage strawman arguments.
Did you not notice how islamicist-shiite hezbollah in lebanon is sponsored by *both* baathist syria *and* shiite theocratic Iran?
And Saddam and Iraq are where in all this? Not there, but it looks good to suggest there is a connection.
Again, with this myth that they are so far apart. These multiple terrorist groups have different agendas but a COMMON ENEMY ... which is us.
Yes, and Nazis and Soviets had a common enemy and cooperated before they slaughtered each other on the Eastern Front. Somehow having a common enemy isn't quite the same as having common interests.
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