ron paul on iran and foreign policy, your thoughts?
 

from the debates last night:

Ron Paul on Iranian sanctions: "That makes it much worse. Why would that be so strange if the Soviets and the Chinese had nuclear weapons, we tolerated the Soviets. We didn't attack them. And they were a much greater danger. They were the greatest danger to us in our whole history. But you don't go to war with them."

Paul also asked the audience to consider the nuclear issue from the perspective of the Iranian people:

"Just think of how many nuclear weapons surround Iran. The Chinese are there. The Indians are there. The Pakistanis are there. The Israelis are there. The United States is there. All these countries ... why wouldn't it be natural if they might want a weapon?"

I agree...

IMO we must bare with imperfections until they manifest into crimes. This isn't Minority Report... We don't have the right to tell other countries what they can and can not do based on what they might do... We can (errr should) only respond to any action taken against us directly.

The US needs to stop worrying about other countries and spending trillions of dollars overseas indirectly funding our own opposition in a perpetual "war" and start worrying about our own damn selves...

If a country openly attacked the United States we'd have the support of nearly the entire planet. THEN it's time to strike. Until then... we shouldn't push our own agenda on anyone else.

That's my opinion anyway...

And that is what we have turned into: "Minority Report"

From what we are doing in other countries...right down to the way the authorities deal with us civilians right here in the U.S.

From invading other countries to arresting people for traveling with large amounts of cash (because it MIGHT be used to buy drugs) our country IS just like "Minority Report"

Good post BestXXXPorn.

i see what you are saying and don't disagree, however, i am not sure allowing more and more countries to have nukes is the answer. aren't we supposed to be reducing nuclear stockpiles? wouldn't perhaps a better angle be to address our nuclear inventory and dollars spent as opposed to advocating other countries join in on the nuclear play toys?

most analyists agree the soviet "threat" was hype.

is that the current thinking? i am not familiar with this. they didn't have the capacity to push the button?

Allowing? Are you saying that we are an absolute authority over other countries? Because I would vehemently disagree. We have no authority over anyone other than our own country. And we aren't advocating they arm themselves... We can advocate that they shouldn't... We can say, "hey you shouldn't have nuclear arms" but then... we have them so... that's pretty hypocritical.

If the US wants other countries to disarm we're going to have to do the same through treaties. Willful agreement from both parties, that's the right way to get shit done.

But how can we "allow" another country to do anything? I mean, apparently we CAN by bullying them and then invading them or bombing them if they don't do what we say.

But it sure does feel like the USA is becoming everything that I was taught as a child that we were AGAINST as a country.

Personal Freedom: Less than ever.

Citizens Imprisoned: The U.S. imprisons more of it's citizens than any country on earth.

The Berlin Wall: We want to build a "Mexican Wall"

Invading Sovereign Nations: We occupy over 80 countries around the world. Germany didn't have shit on us when it comes to that.

Hell I even remember reading how the people of Germany were "brainwashed" into "informing" on each other to the govt. And yet, that's what we do in this day and age.

I don't know...I was taught in school that we were the good guys and that we were the land of the free. I am no longer sure of either of those things.

the funny thing is that the whole stockpile reduction is bullshit..

the weapons are so much more powerful now that it takes less nukes to destroy the whole planet...



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you do realize that the US has always idolized a lot of the Nazi German principles..




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come on. don't be so obtuse and get side-tracked arguing the semantics of the word *allow*.

certainly you 2 can get the gist of my post- more nuclear proliferation is better? right.

back to the topic-

ron paul disagrees with economic sanctions as foreign policy and instead thinks iran and any other country for that matter, can proceed and join the nuclear arsenal club.

what about the part where Iran states they intend to wipe everyone off the earth that doesn't follow their religion exactly as Iran thinks they should, starting with Israel?? hummmm...?

pretty sure Chine, Russia, Isreal, the US as never put that one out there

links pulled and I'm telling obama what you wrote here :1orglaugh

I know you didn't mean it like that...but I think that the majority of people in this country AND our govt. DO think we have the right to tell other countries what to do.

I remember a couple of years ago when Iran possibly building nukes was THE ONLY NEWS IN THE WORLD for a week...and the lead stories on t.v. news and newspapers was: "Iran Defies U.S. On Nukes"

How the hell did we become their "daddy" and they are "defying" us if they ignore our dumb asses?

I'm not saying that I hope Iran gets nukes...but for us here in the United States (the ONLY country to ever bomb TWO civilian cities killing hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children with atomic bombs) to preach to other countries is hypocritical at best.

WE are the crazy fucks that the rest of the world is scared of. WE are the ones who actually used these weapons on civilians. And we are going to tell other countries they can't have them because they are crazy? :error

this sums it up, right? look, i agree we've shot our mouth off way too much around the globe as leader of the free world. and we are the only ones to ever use nukes.

however.

nukes are a historical anomaly. they should of never happened; moreover, 60+ years ago in the height of ww2, dropping those bombs should be taken in context. but in 2011, i am not so sure standing by and letting/allowing/concede/sanction anyone and everyone to develop nukes is wise.

So they arm themselves, they launch a nuke into the air... it's shot down and then we turn their country into a gravel parking lot for a new Disney Land; problem solved ;) Why drag it out?

I'm over simplifying here and adding a bit of humor but I think you get what I'm saying :)

I agree, they are an anomaly but still no matter what word you use, "letting/allowing/concede/sanction", it's none of them. We don't have a right to tell any other country anything about what they can or can not do. We can recommend, we can advise, but we can't demand or give ultimatums; that makes US the bad guy. And I'm certainly not saying we should recommend or advise that they DO arm themselves with nukes.

Honestly though, do you think any country is crazy enough to use a nuke in this day and age? Every country on the planet would turn against them immediately. They would be destroyed overnight.

Well... he's got a point. We left Japan alone while they were on a murderous rampage though Asia and eventually attacked and invaded US. We left Germany alone while they armed themselves and prepared to take over the world, eventually leading to the deaths of 50-ish million people. We let them continue to break their agreements and treaties as they armed themselves for war/attack. Everyone should have more and more nuclear weapons. No problems there. Seriously. All 3rd world shitholes and unstable governments need the ability to kill millions with the push of a button, even if on accident.

We should just leave all the psycho, rogue nations alone. After all, nothing can possibly go wrong. History has taught us that.

There's a big difference between leaving them alone when they aren't doing anything and leaving them alone while they invade countries and slaughter innocent people.

Additionally, we can now respond to threats in different parts of the country MUCH quicker than we could all those years ago. Not to mention it would be the world responding should they attempt to launch a nuclear warhead.

seriously.. the real 'big difference' is are we, i.e. big business, making off them...

link? don't think they ever said that.

The difference is Iran to "destroy" another country and has said they "will not rest" until it is done.

I understand it's kind of pointless. Any country that launches a nuke on any country at this point will face massive retaliation......

Huh..?

We were leaving them alone while they were building up their military power against any and all treaties and agreements that were in place at the time. Eventually, that led to the death of 10's of millions of people... so there is a cause and effect relationship that you seem to be missing.

And.... they are doing something. Iran is doing something right now. Just as N Korea is doing. Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons, doing so outside the UN/Treaties/Agreements/IAEC and lying about it every single step of the way.

Their having nuclear weapons serves only three basic and potential purposes, 1) defensive use 2) offensive use 3) nuclear blackmail

Guess which 2 of those 3 Iran will most likely be using to their benefit?

In what fucking sort of insane world do we live in where all the rogue nations of the planet are supposed to have nuclear weapons.

Fucking liberal pussies "if we leave them alone, they'll leave us alone" - guess what?? That's not how it works. You leave them alone until they are strong enough to attack you, undermine your interests, shift the balance of economic, political power in ways that can't be predicted, collapse economies, thrust nations into war etc

here's the thing, there will be nukes fired again. on a long enough time line and all that.

in light of that, i don't see how a hand's off policy and an laissez-faire international diplomacy is the right way. more peeps with nukes just shortens the timeline.

maybe that's a good thing...........

TheSquealer...it's not supposed to be our place to "leave them alone" anyway. That was my point.

We would declare war if another country tried to tell US what to do and tell US that we only had so much time to destroy our nuclear stockpiles or they would bomb them with the UN.

That's what I'm talking about. How did we suddenly become the country that orders everybody in the world around? Doesn't that make us the "bad guys"?

I know everyone will say "no" that we are the "good guys". But the German people believed THEY were the "good guys". And the Japanese thought THEY were the "good guys".

Reality is...the winners of the war are the "good guys" in the history books short term (say a few hundred years). And I'm not sure how the U.S. global military occupations are going to be seen in history books 500 years from now.

What's frustrating people on both sides with Ron Paul is that he is neither of those groups and is not a moderate in the middle.

As crazy as he sounds some times, he actually makes a lot of common sense and his focus on what's important now, is refreshing. Seems to me he's more interested in tackling the relevant issue that need attention today while not so interested in someone across the worlds problems.

America is not currently in a position to pay for everyone else's wars and the foreign aid. We should, as we have historically been the worlds peace keeper but at present, we have more pressing issues to worry about which, at the top of the list, is our destroying the worlds economies with our careless manipulation of the global currency standard.

LMAO, right, I call BullShit

wait a few days, and ron paul will flip flop and decide that sanctions are absolutely the best thing. he just gets behind whatever looks popular on a given day.

ron paul will be president in 2012

It was total hype. If you don't agree... you were never in the Soviet Union and never in post Soviet Russia.

I guess you weren't paying attention during August 1991 when there was a coup in Moscow at the White House and they called in the elite Tamanskaya infantry division, the bulk of which couldn't make it to the area because of broken down trucks, tanks, vbtr's etc.

The Soviet Union was little more than a pile of painted rust and broken down factories.

http://geopolitics.blog.lemonde.fr/f...1290965057.jpg

Ron Paul does NOT get behind what's popular on a given day. That's what's so great about him. In all his years in congress he's never flip flopped; not even when the vast majority of congress (and the American people) have been calling him a loon. Most people are just now starting to understand that he's been making sense all along ;)

He has also outlined his beliefs in both economic and social issues in multiple books. Can't really renig on what you've published in print.

If Iran ever got even a few nukes, they still couldn't use them. Their major cities would be wiped off the map in a matter of hours, and they know it. Their defensive only.

And did Ron Paul seriously suggest that situations have multiple points of view?? Politicians rarely ask you to see things from any angle that's not their own.

please.

ron paul is a career politician who has figured out exactly what to say and when to say it so he will continue to get re-elected into the same dysfunctional system he points his finger at.

i grew up in ron paul's district in texas, i can't point to anything substantive he has EVER contributed to the u.s. not to mention he is statistically in the lowest 10% of congressman based on his voting record alone.

Well first, you can say the same thing about any individual member of congress.

Second, it's hard to accomplish much when the vast majority of congress stands against you.

Third, he's known for saying NO to increasing government spending and federal government power. That's what he does and that's what he stands for.

Fourth, he's tried to push through bills and legislation in order to make the government (and lately the Fed) more transparent. Just because it doesn't actually go through doesn't mean he isn't trying or isn't doing anything.

Here's a few from back in 2007 http://politicaleducation-jachocotea...ngressman.html

I didn't know this. I'm still not completely sold, but that's pretty crazy if it's the case.

ohh, i am quite familiar with ron paul's record. and that's the issue. i've tried to become a ron paul supporter- again. but fact is, it makes zero sense to think 1 guy who is a career politician with an abysmal voting record would change the system he has been a part of that got us to the bloated level of government we are now dealing with.

that's nonsensical.

The problem is even without the vast majority of congress standing in his way, he is still a career politician. Any time those asshats want to push through bills to make government more transparent and more accountable, all it seems to do is end up creating more government jobs and move levels of bureaucracy to wade through to get 'the truth' out of them, not what they claimed the bill was going to do in the first place.

The system is currently broken, and he is part of the system.

I guess all the nuclear submarines and surface ships that I identified as a sonar tech were all Bull Shit?

Major part of my job was analyzing soviet ships, I knew more about their Navy than I knew about ours. Basing the soviet threat on the end of the cold war, which was in 91 is just showing how limited your comment is

You don't have a clue as to the history of how the USSR was bankrupted trying to keep up with the US spending on arms and then the bottom falling out of oil prices.

Maybe you thought all those nukes were fake, I moved some of ours around, they were very real.

I guess the bay of pigs was all faked too, you know, having nukes right off our shoreline?

Where do you get your news from, Cracker Jacks boxes?

Ron Paul may be "part of the system" but he's one of the few good parts standing up for what needs to be said and what needs to be done. He's not going to suddenly change if he's able to take the Presidential office.

@dyna mo His record isn't all that abysmal at all in relation to every other member of congress. In fact, of the three congressmen running for President, he has the highest voting record...

I also fail to see your automatic negative connotation of career politician. That's just a logical fallacy. While many career politicians stay in office by flip flopping on issues and don't really propose anything to congress, etc... That simply isn't the case with Ron Paul and his track record proves it.

In every other industry being a career XXXX is a good thing. If anything, he knows the game better than anyone else with less experience and as long as he doesn't start changing his mind on issues and sticks to his guns I see absolutely no problem with being a career politician in this case.