Ron Paul Vs GOP Warmongers: Congressman Romps To Victory In Iowa Debate

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Gotholic

Well-Known Member
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Paul is the only candidate who will end ceaseless foreign invasions

Steve Watson
Infowars.com
Aug 12, 2011

Ron Paul emerged the clear winner of last night’s FOX News GOP debate according to a poll of Fox viewers and even according to analysis in the Washington Post, as the congressman cemented the fact that he is the only hope America has of ending its involvement in multiple costly and damaging wars across the globe.

Paul was in his element at the Iowa debate and delivered the most comprehensible and impassioned performance seen at any of the debates thus far.

Every other candidate in attendance attempted to scramble over their rivals to lead the charge for the military industrial complex, while Paul stuck firmly to his anti-war principles, demanding that US troops be brought home with immediate effect.

During a heated back and forth with Rick Santorum regarding a potential conflict with Iran, Paul showed true statesman qualities, arguing that merely slapping sanctions on the country and refusing to even entertain the idea of negotiating with the Iranian leadership would lead directly to conflict further down the line.

“They have no evidence that they are working on a weapon,” Paul said. “At least our leaders and Reagan talked to the Soviets. What is so terribly bad about this? Countries you put sanctions on, you are more likely to fight them. I say a policy of peace is free trade, stay out of their internal business. Do not get involved in these wars and bring our troops home.” The Congressman added.

When Santorum insisted that Iran had “killed more American men and women in uniform in Iraq and Afghanistan than the Iraqis and Afghans have,” Paul urged the American people to see through such examples of war propaganda.

When Santorum added that Iran had been “at war with us since 1979″, Paul countered that it was the meddling of the CIA in Iran in the 1950s that had directly caused such “blowback”.

“The senator is wrong on his history,” Paul urged. “We’ve been at war in Iran for a lot longer than ’79. We started it in 1953 when we sent in a coup, installed the Shah. The reaction, the blow-back came in 1979, it’s been going on and on because we just plain don’t mind our own business. That’s our problem!” The Congressman asserted as the crowd in attendance erupted into riotous applause and cheering.

“Iran is a threat because they have some militants there, but believe me they are all around the world, and they are not a whole lot different than others.” The Congressman added. “Iran does not have an air force that can come here, they can’t even make enough gasoline for themselves.” Paul said as he fended off constant attempts by Santorum to interrupt him with authority.

“They are building up this case just like we did in Iraq, build up the war propaganda. There was no Al Qaeda in Iraq, and ‘they had nuclear weapons and we had to go in’, I’m sure you supported that war as well,” said Paul, directing his words toward the former Senator.

In the stand out moment of the entire evening, a clearly emotional Ron Paul almost burst out of the screen as he boomed into the microphone “It’s time we quit this. IT’S TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS WE’RE SPENDING ON THESE WARS!”

In other particular highlight, Paul schooled phony tea party wannabe candidate Michele Bachmann on the rule of law after Bachmann defended the gulags at Guantanamo Bay and insisted that accused “terrorists” have no rights whatsoever under the American justice system.

“I thought our courts recognized that you have to be tried,” Paul responded.

“This administration has already accepted the position that when you assume someone is a terrorist, they can be targeted for assassination – even American citizens, that affects all of us eventually, you don’t want to translate our rule of law into mob rule.” Paul hit back.

Watch all of Paul’s answers and exchanges below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1mUtnB3M8s part 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wItY1cDOqd4 part 2

As the accompanying screenshot illustrates, Fox viewers watching online overwhelmingly declared Paul the winner of the debate.

Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post concurred, noting “Amid whispers that Paul could perform better than expected in the Ames Straw Poll on Saturday, he was at the center of the conversation for the entire second hour of the debate.”

“…he had the best chance he has ever enjoyed to air his views.” Cillizza concluded.

Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic succinctly explains why Paul’s performance last night resonated with the American people and had the establishment reacting as if they were sucking on lemons:

“To me, the most off-putting moment perpetrated by the moderators was when Ron Paul was shouting about wanting to end foreign wars. Chris Wallace and Bret Baier mugged for the camera, as if to signal their mutual embarrassment that a candidate would get earnestly upset and passionate. That unhinged Ron Paul, getting all angry and losing his cool again. And in the game of national politics, it is unusual for pols to show normal human emotion. But for someone like Paul, who doesn’t regard our foreign wars as part of “politics as game” — who very earnestly believes that they’re resulting in needless death, destruction, and trillions of dollars squandered — it isn’t at all bizarre to get a bit passionate talking about war of all subjects.

Note too that we’re talking about a presidential primary debate, where grown men and women say the most absurd things in the course of pandering to voters. It is damning indeed that someone passionately staking out an unpopular position against foreign wars is all but laughed at for doing so, whereas the moderators react to all manner of political theater with straight faces. It’s almost as if the implications of Paul’s critique is too awful for Wallace and Baier to take seriously, so they dismiss it as a mental defense mechanism. No wonder we keep entering wars.”
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Ron Paul is GW in reverse. Outstanding domestic policy but a complete horror on international policy. Isolationism is worse than limited domestic trangressions.
 
2minkey said:
Yep it was our meddling that caused Iran to become a dicksore.

Blame the US first!

:nono:
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We should give credit where credit is due.

Rick Santorum Targets Iran
by Anthony Gregory, August 13, 2011

In his heated exchange with Ron Paul at the Republican debate in Iowa, Rick Santorum defended his sponsorship of sanctions against Iran as well as general U.S. belligerence toward that country.

This devoutly anti-freedom politician made a number of claims against Iran that are very misleading or just flat out wrong. Ron had only 30 seconds to respond, and did a great job, but there is more to say.

First, Santorum says Iran has been at war with the United States since 1979. Ron points out that the bad blood between Americans and Iranians began in 1953, when a CIA coup installed the Shah. Indeed, we should remember that before 1953, the Iranians tended to look very warmly upon the Americans, who, unlike the British, had left the Iranians alone. Their democratically elected leader Mohammad Mosaddegh, partly for his popularity due to his resistance to British corporate imperialism, was even Time Magazine‘s Man of the Year in 1951.

Not only did the U.S. install the Shah two years later; the CIA taught his secret police force, Savak, how to torture. Savak went on to imprison and torture tens of thousands of political prisoners, adopting such practices of nearly unfathomable brutality as using broken glass and boiling water on subjects’ rectums, mutilating women’s breasts, and cooking victims alive.

After years of being ruled by this U.S.-backed regime, the Iranians overthrew the Shah and the Islamic Revolution of 1979 swept the nation. But, despite what the propagandists say, Iranians still did not hate Americans for our freedom — only for our government’s foreign policy. All the attempts to get Iranians angry at Americans for our culture or modernity failed, Michael Scheuer, former CIA counterterrorism expert, points out.

In the 1980s, the Reagan administration illegally, in direct defiance of Congress, sold weapons to the same Iranian extremists that we are now supposed to think have always been America’s #1 enemy. Meanwhile, the same U.S. administration supported Saddam Hussein’s aggressive invasion of Iran. Iran has never conducted an outright invasion of another nation in over 200 years. It is a much more peaceful nation internationally than the United States. Its one major war in recent years was defensive, against an America-backed invasion by a regime whose atrocities in that very war were later used as partial justification for America’s aggressive invasion of Iraq in 2003.

And that war, the one with Iraq that has gone on for over eight years, greatly empowered the theocratic Iranian state as has nothing else in recent memory. The Iranians were given a huge boost in influence over the new Shiite government in Baghdad, put in place by this supposed American war for democracy. Brutal shariah law resembling that of Iran became imposed. Then, despite the freedom dominoes that were supposed to fall thanks to the Iraq war, Ahmadinejad won the presidency in 2005. Nothing has advanced the interests of the Iranian extremists more than the United States of America. Even so, Ahmadinejad has since been demonized, his bizarre rants taken out of context, and implied to have far more power over Iranian military policy than he actually does.

Second, Santorum claims that Iran has killed more Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan than have the people of those countries. This accusation of significant Iranian guilt behind the insurgent resistance to the U.S. presence has been a constant theme of U.S. propaganda throughout the occupation of Iraq, but has never been demonstrated convincingly. It is even more difficult to believe now. As Jason Ditz explains, the allegations “don’t appear to make a lot of sense at this point, with the Iraqi coalition government firmly in the control of Shi’ite religious factions and the nation on good terms with Iran. There seems little to gain from destablizing the situation.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. has been meddling in Iran, likely including the support of some unsavory terrorists and suicide bombers intent on destabilizing the nation.

Third, Santorum argues that Iran is an existential threat to Israel. This is simply laughable. Iran has no nuclear weapons, as far as anyone can tell, and according to the International Atomic Energy Agency as well as the U.S. intelligence community, Iran hasn’t been seeking such weapons for at least eight years.

Ron Paul is correct that American belligerence toward Iran is a major concern as it could easily be a precursor to war. He is also correct, and bold to say it, when he argues that these conservatives supporting sanctions against countries like Iran (or Cuba) are fake free-traders. In fact, the very worst trade restrictions are those waged in a militarist manner or with coercive diplomacy as the goal. U.S. sanctions on Iraq in the 1990s killed hundreds of thousands, an atrocity that contributed to the hatred that led to 9/11. Blockades greatly exacerbated civilian deaths in World War I and helped bring about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. If goods don’t cross borders, warned Bastiat, soldiers will. Those playing with sanctions are playing with fire.

The mainstream Republicans’ belligerence toward Iran should frighten anyone who is hoping for some electoral reprieve from the Obama administration but remembers the horrors of the Bush years, and what was promised by prospective future Republican presidents. John McCain infamously sang “Bomb, bomb, bomb; bomb, bomb Iran,” in the rhythm of the classic Beach Boys tune, forever marking himself as someone who simply couldn’t be trusted with the nuclear launch codes. If there was one reason for any reasonable American — including conservatives — to prefer Obama in 2008, despite his promises for domestic socialism and his own weaknesses on foreign policy, it was the neocons’ obsessive hatred toward Iran that persisted and grew more feverish by the day during the Bush years. Many of them sought to destroy that country, and they seem to still want to do so. Obama has been, as Ron Paul indicates, far too belligerent, such as in his saber rattling at Iran after the non-event concerning the peaceful nuclear facility at Qom, which Iran declared according to its responsibilities under international law, despite the president’s claims that the nation was caught red-handed doing something illicit.
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Gonz said:
Ron Paul is GW in reverse. Outstanding domestic policy but a complete horror on international policy. Isolationism is worse than limited domestic trangressions.
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Come on now, Gonz. You really think you should straighten out other peoples houses when your own house is a mess? - And you think it is only limited? Maybe by a thread limited.

You get Ron Paul in there, straighten out the U.S. domestically. Let him stay for 8 years doing the job. Then you elect a guy to worry about foreign policy (Paul's foreign policy is not inherently bad, I would think, according to you).

You won't find a perfect president, Gonz, and while I do like Paul's foreign policy much more than you, I think fixing things at home should be priority number one, Although, Paul may not be well balanced as I see you like his domestic policy but not his foreign policy, do you really think we can afford not to concentrate heavily domestically than on foreign affairs?

The U.S. is rotting from within, not without.
 
Gonz said:
Tell me, what do 6 million Jews think? Should we stay at home?
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I don't think Paul would have the U.S. stay home. Here is a transcript of a speech in which McCain made a similar argument against Ron Paul:

“McCain: . . . I just want to also say that Congressman Paul, I’ve heard him now in many debates talk about bringing our troops home, and about the war in Iraq and how it’s failed.

(Applause)

And I want to tell you that that kind of isolationism, sir, is what caused World War II. We allowed…

(Applause)

We allowed …

(Audience booing)

Cooper: Allow him his answer. Allow him his answer, please.

McCain: We allowed — we allowed Hitler to come to power with that kind of attitude of isolationism and appeasement.

(Audience booing)

And I want to tell you something, sir. I just finished having Thanksgiving with the troops, and their message to you is — the message of these brave men and women who are serving over there is, “Let us win. Let us…

(Applause)

Cooper: We will — please. We will get to Iraq…

(Applause)

All right. Let me just remind everyone that these people did take a lot of time to ask these questions, and so we do want direct questions to — the answers. We will get to Iraq later, but I do have to allow Congressman Paul 30 seconds to respond.

Paul: Absolutely. The real question you have to ask is why do I get the most money from active duty officers and military personnel?

(Applause)

What John is saying is just totally distorted.

(Protester shouts off-mike)

Paul: He doesn’t even understand the difference between non- intervention and isolationism. I’m not an isolationism, (shakes head) em, isolationist. I want to trade with people, talk with people, travel. But I don’t want to send troops overseas using force to tell them how to live. We would object to it here and they’re going to object to us over there.

(Applause)”

The rest is here. This is what Ron Paul said about Iraq:

“Paul: The best commitment we can make to the Iraqi people is to give them their country back. That’s the most important thing that we can do.

(Applause)

Already, part of their country has been taken back. In the south, they claim the surge has worked, but the surge really hasn’t worked. There’s less violence, but al-Sadr has essentially won in the south.

The British are leaving. The brigade of Al Sadr now is in charge, so they are getting their country back. They’re in charge up north — the Shia — the people in the north are in charge, as well, and there’s no violence up there or nearly as much.

So, let the people have their country back again. Just think of the cleaning up of the mess after we left Vietnam. Vietnam now is a friend of ours — we trade with them, the president comes here.

What we achieved in peace was unachievable in 20 years of the French and the Americans being in Vietnam.

So it’s time for us to take care of America first.

(Applause) “
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All of our overseas states should be taxed. That'll allow this empire to continue.
 
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