Ron Paul is not pro choice on abortion.

[Aggrad02]

If the states pass a Constitutional amendment there is no choice for the President but to conform.

True. But he does not have to be -glad- about it.

Ba'al Chatzaf

When does the mood of the president matter. Lol

[Aggrad02]

I received this from a friend earlier today:

Ron Paul Warns of Staged Terrorist Attack

Republican presidential candidate, Rep. Ron Paul, said the country is in "great danger" of the U.S. government staging a terrorist attack or a Gulf of Tonkin style provocation, as the war in Iraq continues to deteriorate.

The Texas congressman offered no specifics nor mentioned President Bush by name, but he clearly insinuated that the administration would not be above staging an incident to revive flagging support.

"We're in danger in many ways," Paul said on the Alex Jones radio show. "The attack on our civil liberties here at home, the foreign policy that's in shambles and our obligations overseas and commitment which endangers our troops and our national defense."

Paul was asked to respond to comments by anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan that the U.S. is in danger of a staged terror attack or a provocation of an enemy similar to the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964 before the Vietnam War.

During the radio interview, Paul said the government was conducting "an orchestrated effort to blame the Iranians for everything that has gone wrong in Iraq."

The comments come as several prominent terrorism experts have warned the U.S. is facing an increased risk of attack this summer. Earlier this week, in an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said he had a "gut feeling" the U.S. would be attacked again.

The remark angered some Democrats, who criticized Chertoff for being too vague. And some pundits seized on his remarks, saying the vague warnings were meant only to revive flagging support for the war in Iraq and Bush’s larger war against terrorism.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is my response:

Unless Ron Paul can provide powerful evidence for his statement -- which no doubt he would have done if he had any such evidence -- I think this is a disgrace. I'm truly appalled at his irresponsibility. I would not have voted for him anyway -- I see no value in having low taxes but leaving the world to the Islamo-fascists -- but after this I wouldn't vote for him for dog catcher.

If there is another terrorist attack in America, the effect of his words, if taken seriously, could be terrible, leaving us morally disarmed and fearful of retaliating -- meaning, fearful of defending ourselves.

Barbara

The National Review blast Politico.com article (Here)

Robbing Paul of the Truth

Outing a misleading headline.

By David Freddoso

Think what you will of libertarian Texas congressman Ron Paul, but I’m crying foul over this post to the Politico’s “Crypt” blog: “Ron Paul warns of staged terror attack.” Paul simply did not say that the government is planning a fake terror attack, and to say otherwise is journalistic malpractice.

My first reaction to the Politico headline — most people’s reaction, I’m sure — was that Paul should not be elected or defeated, but institutionalized. Then I read what is actually posted there, and I saw no quote from Paul about a “staged terrorist attack.” I did see a summary by Politico blogger Dan Reilly that says Paul “clearly insinuated that the administration would not be above staging an incident to revive flagging support.”

So I listened to the interview, trying to find what Reilly describes. And I listened to it again. And again. And I heard nothing of the sort.

What I did hear was an unhinged radio host ask Paul a wide-ranging, minute-long, wacky question about terrorism, Bush the “dictator,” and neo-cons that ended with “How much danger are we in of some new Gulf of Tonkin provocation?” Paul begins his answer with, ”Well, I think we’re in great danger of it — we’re in danger in many ways.” But as he continues, Paul says nothing about a staged terror attack or the Gulf of Tonkin. Rather, he goes into his usual schtick, complaining about the “great danger” involved in the loss of “civil liberties” and the evils of U.S. Iraq policy. Then he speaks to the likelihood of a real terrorist attack — not a staged attack:

“I would say that we’re in much greater danger than we’ve been, even four or five years ago, whether it’s overseas or even by terrorists here at home, because I just think the policies are seriously flawed.”

So he’s talking about Iraq as possibly making us more vulnerable to terrorism. Call him wrong or even crazy, but this is just standard Ron Paul. It is nothing like a black-helicopter accusation that the government is planning a phony terror attack. If you actually listen to the exchange, the closest Paul comes to saying anything like what’s in the Politico summary comes when he faults the administration’s Iran policy:

“Right now there is an orchestrated effort to blame the Iranians for everything that’s gone wrong in Iraq. And we’re quite concerned, many of us, that the attack will be on Iran and that will confuse things and jeopardize so many more of our troops.”

Call Ron Paul nutty if you like — and certainly this media appearance gives reasons for doing so (he almost predicts an economic collapse later in the interview). But when he says he sees the Bush administration trying to justify war with Iran (which is itself worthy of a headline), that’s just not the same thing as saying that the government plans to stage a terrorist attack to boost its flagging approval ratings. It’s not even close.

Paul is a barely relevant figure who has no chance in the election anyway, but you don’t need to like him to see the danger of this kind of sloppy headline-writing and summarizing. Careless reporters caused riots in the Middle East when they did a similar number on Pope Benedict XVI and his citation of Emperor Paleologus. The pope had actually given a very thoughtful and academic speech about Islamic-Christian relations, but thanks to the journalists, all hell broke loose. Other examples of this dangerous silliness abound.

The media has other problems besides its liberal bias, such as the need for quick sound-bites, inaccurate summaries, and headlines that often come at the expense of getting things right.

[Barbara Branden]

Dustan, I did listen to the interview -- which I should have done earlier, but I didn't realize it was available -- and you are quite right that Ron Paul did not specifically say the words, "There will be a US Government staged terrorist attack." However, what he did say was surely the equivalent. When the interviewer asked him, "How much danger are we in of some new Gulf of Tonkin provocation?” -- Paul responded, ”Well, I think we’re in great danger of it "

And in a talk he gave --

-- Paul said, "I am concerned that a Gulf of Tonkin type incident may well occur to gain public support for an atack on Iran."

What can this mean but that the US government will stage something -- and what else but a terrorist attack -- to justify war with Iran?

Barbara

[BaalChatzaf]

If the states pass a Constitutional amendment there is no choice for the President but to conform.

True. But he does not have to be -glad- about it.

Ba'al Chatzaf

When does the mood of the president matter. Lol

A President can be zealous about enforcing a law or indifferent, which makes a difference. The President can get the (so-called) Justice Department to energetically enforce the law or he can allocate funds so that the law is not really enforced at all and there is nothing Congress can do about except bring a Bill of Impeachment.

Attitude matters.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Wolf DeVoon]

If there is another terrorist attack in America, the effect of [Ron Paul's] words, if taken seriously, could be terrible, leaving us morally disarmed and fearful of retaliating...

If the United States is attacked by Saudi and Egyptian commandos again, like 9/11, who should the US retaliate against?

W.

That's an easy question. If the US is attacked by Saudi and Egyptian commandos, we should retaliate by attacking Iraq and Iran, neither of which had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks and both of which are bitter enemies of Al Qaeda. Haven't you studied any logic?

Martin

Republican logic, from the Redding CA local newspaper:

John P. Walters, President Bush's drug czar, said the people who plant and tend marijuana gardens are terrorists who wouldn't hesitate to help other terrorists get into the country with the aim of causing mass casualties.

Jeez, who knew? Retaliate against antiwar hippies!

[Aggrad02]

Dustan, I did listen to the interview -- which I should have done earlier, but I didn't realize it was available -- and you are quite right that Ron Paul did not specifically say the words, "There will be a US Government staged terrorist attack." However, what he did say was surely the equivalent. When the interviewer asked him, "How much danger are we in of some new Gulf of Tonkin provocation?” -- Paul responded, ”Well, I think we’re in great danger of it "

And in a talk he gave --

-- Paul said, "I am concerned that a Gulf of Tonkin type incident may well occur to gain public support for an atack on Iran."

What can this mean but that the US government will stage something -- and what else but a terrorist attack -- to justify war with Iran?

Barbara

Barbara,

Thank you for listening to the audio.

I interpreted Rep. Paul as believing that the way that the current administration is handling the conflict with Iran will cause friction that will ignite into a war. I believe he feels the current administration is taking this approach so that the result will be war, i.e. he believes the current administration wants to go to war with Iran but wants to pick a fight first. I didn't take it to mean stagging a terrorist attack here, but more something along the lines of starting a border skirmish with Iran along the Iraq/Iran border. On the other hand we all know that Iran is sending and supporting, either indirectly or directly, insurgents in Iraq. Ron Paul seems to want to open diplomatic relations with Iran rather than provoke them, and engage them in dialog before starting hostilities. Also, he doesn't think that Iran is a direct threat to our national security. Iran however is and has stated that it is a direct threat to Israel, Rep. Paul doesn't think we help Israel too much by dictating their foreign policy as a condition of aid. He believes that if Israel was left alone they could solve most of their problems rather quickly and efficiently.

-Dustan

[Aggrad02]

When does the mood of the president matter. Lol

Attitude matters.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Attitude is a hypothetical construct that represents an individual's like or dislike for an item. Attitudes are positive, negative or neutral views of an "attitude object": i.e. a person, behaviour or event. People can also be "ambivalent" towards a target, meaning that they simultaneously possess a positive and a negative bias towards the attitude in question.

A mood is a relatively lasting emotional or affective state. Moods differ from emotions in that they are less specific, often less intense, less likely to be triggered by a particular stimulus or event, and longer lasting.[1] Moods generally have either a positive or negative Valence effect. In other words, people often speak of being in a good or bad mood. Unlike acute, emotional feelings like fear and surprise, moods generally last for hours or days. Mood also differs from temperament or personality traits which are even more general and long lasting. However, personality traits (e.g. Optimism, Neuroticism) tend to predispose certain types of moods. Mood is an internal, subjective state, but it often can be inferred from posture and other observable behaviors.

From Wikipedia

--Dustan

[Barbara Branden]

I didn't take it to mean stagging a terrorist attack here, but more something along the lines of starting a border skirmish with Iran along the Iraq/Iran border.-Dustan

Dustan, the Gulf of Tonkin incident has long been taken to mean an event staged by the American government and interpreted by that government as an act of aggression by a foreign power. It matters little whether the "act of aggression" occurs within our borders or without.

Barbara

[Aggrad02]

I didn't take it to mean stagging a terrorist attack here, but more something along the lines of starting a border skirmish with Iran along the Iraq/Iran border.-Dustan

Dustan, the Gulf of Tonkin incident has long been taken to mean an event staged by the American government and interpreted by that government as an act of aggression by a foreign power. It matters little whether the "act of aggression" occurs within our borders or without.

Barbara

Thank you for that information. I was not alive then and I should have looked it up, I thought I understood it through context but apparently did not.

I just went and looked up the incident on wikipedia. I am curious if Bush's reasoning (WMD's) for invading Iraq and the incident of the doctored report about Sadam attempting to buy "yellow cake" from Africa qualify? or does it not because Bush probably really believed Sadam had the weapons?

Also I would have to say, especially with the reference from the youtube video, that I do not agree with him that the current administration would do such a thing. I could see them trying to pick a fight with Iran, but not intentionally misleading the populace. I see the reasoning behind the Iraq war more as ineptitude than deceit.

But I still do fully support Ron Paul.

--Dustan

Edited July 17, 2007 by Aggrad02

[Martin Radwin]

Regarding Ron Paul's suggestion that the US government may be setting up Iran via a Gulf of Tonkin type incident, this is more of a prediction and a warning rather than an allegation, since it refers to a hypothetical event which has not yet happened. It seems obvious to me that the Bush administration is doing everything it can to provoke Iran into launching some kind of attack against the US, and I would certainly not put it past these scummy lying bastards to fake an Iranian attack in order to provide justification for the US going to war with Iran, as the faked Gulf of Tonkin incident provided the US with an excuse to escalate the Vietnam War. But there is no way to prove that the Bush administration intends to do this, short of obtaining leaked administration documents affirming such a plan.

Martin

Just because it is alleged that Ron Paul said something doesn't mean that he did! Here is some copy from the link supplied by Dustan.

>>>"The Politico’s Brazen Lies About Ron Paul

Saturday, July 14th, 2007 in News by Justin Raimondo|

The Republican smear machine is revving up its motors, getting ready to launch a typically vicious campaign against Ron Paul, the only real threat to their death-grip on the GOP. Since the first assault, a piece by Ryan Sager in the New York Sun, failed — the charges of “racism” were based on tenuous documentation and fall apart when examined up close — the second wave has been launched: a piece in The Politico, headlined: “Ron Paul Warns of Staged Terror Attack.” It links to a clip of a radio interview with Ron, conducted by Alex Jones, and hosted on the Breitbart.com site – part of the neocon-Drudge propaganda network.

If you listen to the interview, one thing is clear: Paul said no such thing. Jones asked him a 5-minute-long question that melded together all sorts of disparate elements, including the possibility of a staged US government-sponsored terrorist attack and a US military attack on Iran. Ron focused exclusively on the latter, and said that the great danger comes from a “Gulf of Tonkin“-type incident involving Iran. No mention is made by Paul of a staged terrorist attack on US soil.

Ron spends the rest of the interview talking about what a disaster an attack on Iran would turn out to be, and then launches into his favorite subject: the economic consequences of our spendthrift ways, and the impossibility of maintaining our empire of debt.

The Politico is telling a lie: their headline is a lie. What’s amazing about this particular smear is that it is so transparently obvious: after all, in this day and age, we don’t need intermediaries and “gate-keepers” telling us what Paul said, we can refer directly to it by linking to it. And anyone who listens to what Ron says in this interview cannot come away thinking that he said the US government is going to stage a terrorist attack on its own people on American soil or anywhere else."<<<

Ron Paul still has my vote if I have to join the Republican Party just long enough to cast it in the Primary and then change back to unenrolled.

galt

Well, as Barbara pointed out in post #28 on this thread, Paul has pretty strongly suggested that the US government is trying to provoke Iran into launching an attack and might just stage a phony Gulf of Tonkin type incident in order to justify going to war against Iran, something that the Bush administration clearly wants very badly to do. I agree absolutely with Paul about this and think that it is an eminently reasonable conjecture. In an earlier post, Barbara condemned Paul for this and insisted that he provide convincing evidence for this allegation. The point I was trying to make above is that asking for proof of a hypothetical event that has not yet occurred is rather difficult; short of leaked documents or testimony from Bush administration officials, how could one prove what the Bush administration was going to do in the future?

Martin

[Martin Radwin]

If the United States is attacked by Saudi and Egyptian commandos again, like 9/11, who should the US retaliate against?

Wolf,

My view of this is that just because the Bush administration made a gross misuse of the USA intelligence institutions, that does not invalidate them. That only invalidates his misuse of them.

I believe the proper answer to your question is to retaliate against those identified by the USA's intelligence and military advisers to the President. That is their job.

Even with all the mishandling, mistakes and political football playing, the USA intelligence organizations and the USA military are the best there is in the world. The inclusion of checks and balances within the system is one of the reasons for its reliability. The President should make good use of the USA's military and intelligence capacity instead of trying to override the information he receives from them.

On the Ron Paul issue, I am not sure where he would stand with this. I haven't followed too closely, but I haven't seen any candidate really come out and say he/she trusts the information our specialized institutions provide and will use it above his/her own personal biases. If such a candidate stated that (and meant it), that is the candidate who would receive my vote.

Michael

Intelligence is almost never used by the executive branch in the manner you have described. Almost invariably, the president has already made a decision about what foreign policy to follow, generally for reasons that are far more irrational than those that motivate domestic policy decisions. The intelligence is then fixed around the already chosen policy. The intelligence is typically either fabricated, cherry picked, or ignored by the president in order to justify a decision he has already made. This is certainly the case with the Iraq War. Bush was looking for an excuse to attack Iraq long before the 9/11 attacks ever took place; 9/11 simply gave Bush the excuse to do what he wanted to do all along, not to mention an excuse to viciously attack the civil liberties of all Americans via a series of abominable pieces of legislation passed by a Congress that never even bothered to read them.

Martin

[Martin Radwin]

My only defense of Paul is that his integrity and belief in limited, constitutional government is such an incredible contrast to almost all of the human scum who now inhabit both the executive branch and congress, that I am willing to forgive him his anti-libertarian stance on abortion.

You are much too forgiving. Congressman Paul is at home with the idea of making women of childbearing age into brood-mares. Nifty! He won't tax a female Unconstitutionally, but he will compel her to give birth if the political outcome should be that. If thirty seven states pass a "right to life" amendment he will -gladly- conform. It is his gladness that I find unforgivable.

If he is elected I will invest in companies that make wire clothes-hangers.

Ba'al Chatzaf

I must say, Ba'al, that I find some of your beliefs to be so bizarrely contradictory that I'm amazed that you could simultaneously hold them all.

On the one hand, you stand passionately in defense of the absolute right of women to have an absolute right of liberty over their own bodies. You are morally offended at the idea of conscripting women as unwilling wombs and equate this to their enslavement at the hands of government. I agree with you unreservedly about this. Here, you are arguing as a hard-core libertarian, in the tradition of the great early libertarian feminists.

On the other hand, you shown a callous disregard for the lives and liberties of anyone living outside the United States. You have argued that the US government is justified is slaughtering millions of innocent foreigners if there is any even remotely plausible possibility that the country in which they live might be even the slightest threat to the US, thereby granting to the US government a moral blank check to go to war with anyone at any time for any reason and to murder with abandon. You have argued that, in response to Iran's taking of not quite seventy hostages at the American embassy, the US government should have nuked Tehran, killing millions of innocent Iranians and horribly sickening millions more. You have stated repeatedly that you wish the executive branch of our government to be inhabited by a bunch of merciless killers, disregarding both the disgusting immorality of such a stance and the very real possibility that these merciless killers might just end up turning their guns on you and your friends and family. Our merciless killer government, whom you have entrusted with the power of life or death over all foreigners, now has the power to declare martial law at any time, thereby having the power of life or death over all of us too.

Martin

[BaalChatzaf]

feminists.

On the other hand, you shown a callous disregard for the lives and liberties of anyone living outside the United States. You have argued that the US government is justified is slaughtering millions of innocent foreigners if there is any even remotely plausible possibility that the country in which they live might be even

Not so. I am out to kill enemies of the United States. For those living outside of North America I prefer nuclear destruction. For those living in North America where we have control we will need less destructive and more subtle means, such as rounding up and deportation to a killing zone. For straightforward criminal matters, as opposed to war situations (and we are in a war, by the way) then normal constitutional means will suffice. We are currently in a war for our survival. The end (survival) justifies the means used to secure it.

I also do not give fuck-all about collateral damage which puts me on the same page as War Heroes such as Bomber Harris and Curtis LeMay. These Warriors made it possible for us to even have this discussion. Bomber Harris said if for me. Our enemies have sown the wind, now they shall reap the whirlwind.

My principles are very simple and even simple minded:

1. Protect and cherish your friends.

2. Kill your enemies

3. Treat neutrals with courtesy unless doing so interferes with 1 and 2 above.

Think of these rules as a transmogrification of Asimov's Three Rules of Robotics.

If you can find a contradiction in these rules, please do let me know. A correction would be useful to me.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Wolf DeVoon]

For those living in North America where we have control we will need less destructive and more subtle means, such as rounding up and deportation to a killing zone.

:frantics:

I sat here for the longest time, pondering what to say about this. I don't think he's a fearful old man, Mike. It's just plain rottenness. The insistence on machine logic, dissing concepts, lets him characterize life as a game. Please pull the plug on Mr. Meat Cleaver.

W.

[BaalChatzaf]

For those living in North America where we have control we will need less destructive and more subtle means, such as rounding up and deportation to a killing zone.

:frantics:

I sat here for the longest time, pondering what to say about this. I don't think he's a fearful old man, Mike. It's just plain rottenness. The insistence on machine logic, dissing concepts, lets him characterize life as a game. Please pull the plug on Mr. Meat Cleaver.

W.

You want to "pull the plug" on me because I speak the truth? This hardly comes as a surprise. Most people do not want to hear the truth especially if it is unpleasant or disquieting. You are displeased because I am bloody minded. I am bloody minded because I live on Earth, which currently is a "rough neighborhood". You want to reason with out enemies. I want to kill them. There is the difference.

You still don't understand that we are at War, do you? In a war, you protect your friends and kill your enemies. It is as simple as that. And wars always involve collateral damage and friendly fire. That is the way war is.

Life is neither a game nor a rehearsal. It is all we have. So let us protect our lives and god damn the collateral damage.

You can always spot the pioneers. They are the ones with arrows in their backs.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Wolf DeVoon]

You want to reason with our enemies.

Quit lying. I never said or implied anything of the sort.

You still don't understand that we are at War, do you?

The United States is not at war. The Cheney government and you are playing at war, dreaming about war, concocting fantasies about how wonderful war is, how much better life will be after you round up and kill anybody and everybody who disagrees.

Another forum shot, just like hpo.

[studiodekadent]

You are much too forgiving. Congressman Paul is at home with the idea of making women of childbearing age into brood-mares. Nifty! He won't tax a female Unconstitutionally, but he will compel her to give birth if the political outcome should be that. If thirty seven states pass a "right to life" amendment he will -gladly- conform. It is his gladness that I find unforgivable.

If he is elected I will invest in companies that make wire clothes-hangers.

I agree entirely that the right to terminate a pregnancy is valid, at the very least in the first trimester and probably in the second (I believe there is a case for bringing in legal protections at the end of the second, where the fetus is almost certainly viable and a rational faculty is almost certainly present). Women after all own their uteruses. Indeed, at times I have wished I were a woman so I could get pregnant just so I could walk into planned parenthood and proudly state "I...(dramatic pause)...want an abortion!" (Note, this is a joke, but it would be fun to annoy the Jesus Nazis by doing this).

But I do agree with Martin that Ba'al's foreign policy is under no circumstances one I would agree with. Hunting down and demolishing Al Quaeda is one thing (and one thing I support). Going after Iraq, Iran, etc. etc. etc is on the other hand unjustifiable (as of now, this may change) and using weapons of mass destruction to do it is absolutely awful. "God damn the collateral damage" is just a monstrous policy. Not all Iranians are Jihadis! Indeed there is a very strong anti-theocratic student movement in Iran. Islam qua Islam is demented (indeed all religions from Asatru to Zoroastrianism are) but Islam and Muslims are very different entities.

And also, the whole "round them up and deport them to a killing zone" argument.... oh my fucking god (metaphor), Ba'al, as you have stated before you are Jewish. Do you not notice a specific similarity here between your plan and a certain other (and monstrously evil) plan? In addition, In another thread, you stated that you agree there can be no such thing as a thoughtcrime. Apply this to Muslims. If there can be no such thing as a thoughtcrime, being a Muslim cannot be considered wrong (legally). Admittedly, if someone decides to consistently practice every tenet of Islam (and I mean every) then they ARE dangerous, but the same applies to the Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, etc that do as well (maybe not Buddhists).

Edited July 17, 2007 by studiodekadent

[BaalChatzaf]

But I do agree with Martin that Ba'al's foreign policy is under no circumstances one I would agree with. Hunting down and demolishing Al Quaeda is one thing (and one thing I support). Going after Iraq, Iran, etc. etc. etc is on the other hand unjustifiable (as of now, this may change) and using weapons of mass destruction to do it is absolutely awful. "God damn the collateral damage" is just a monstrous policy. Not all Iranians are Jihadis! Indeed there is a very strong anti-theocratic student movement in Iran. Islam qua Islam is demented (indeed all religions from Asatru to Zoroastrianism are) but Islam and Muslims are very different entities.

What do you call 400 B-29's loaded to the gunnels with incendiary bombs? In 1945 Curtis LeMay ordered a fire-raid on the Shimadah District of Tokyo with incendiaries. Sixteen square miles were burned to the ground, with 125,000 dead (all turned into charcoal briquettes). 1.5 million rendered homeless. That was the work of one night! More were killed in the 1945 Tokyo raid than in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.

And also, the whole "round them up and deport them to a killing zone" argument.... oh my fucking god (metaphor), Ba'al, as you have stated before you are Jewish. Do you not notice a specific similarity here between your plan and a certain other (and monstrously evil) plan? In addition, In another thread, you stated that you agree there can be no such thing as a thoughtcrime. Apply this to Muslims. If there can be no such thing as a thoughtcrime, being a Muslim cannot be considered wrong (legally). Admittedly, if someone decides to consistently practice every tenet of Islam (and I mean every) then they ARE dangerous, but the same applies to the Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, etc that do as well (maybe not Buddhists).

Big difference. The Muslims are enemies or accessories to our destruction. The Jews of Europe were NOT enemies. The majority were Orthodox living in Shtettles. The Jews of Germany were mostly assemilated and as German as Saurkraut.

You do not realized that Islam implants the memes of Jihad and Martyrdom in youngsters making them potential fanatics just waiting for the right Imam to activate them. The Muslim population is a fifth column and a ticking bomb in our midst. Of late it has been the -converts- that have been most eager to blow themselves and the kaffirs to kingdom come. Do you remember John Reid (a Brit), the shoe bomber. He was an Islamic convert. Islam is the Devil's own religion designed to transform otherwise normal human beings into killers. Have you been listened to the news from England? That can happen here too.

Have you wondered where the Million American Muslim March Against Terrorism took place? Answer: nowhere. The typical reaction of American Muslims was something like "Yes, terrorism is terrible ... but ..". It is the -but- that marks the enablers of acts like the WTC attack. When I hear the "but" I want to reach for my Uzi. These quiet folks support Mosques where suicide bombers and saboteurs are recruited. Just keep that in mind.

The 1993 attack against the WTC was cooked up in a Mosque in Newark, New Jersey. Keep that in mind.

Now, as to collateral damage. The real active nasty Muslims live in big cities where they cannot be readily separated from the others. If you want to kill the bad guys, you have to blow up the cities. It is as simple as that. There is NO PRACTICAL WAY to precisely target our active enemies. So god damn the collateral damage. Just like Curtis LeMay and Bomber Harris. They did not give a fig for collateral damage. They were out to destroy their enemies and too bad for the women and children.

Now I have said what I have to say. You do not realize that we are at War. I do. I will wait for the next big attack on the U.S. at home (it is coming as sure as shit flows downhill). When it happens you will either change your tune or you will say we brought it on ourselves.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited July 17, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[Aggrad02]

If the United States is attacked by Saudi and Egyptian commandos again, like 9/11, who should the US retaliate against?

Wolf,

My view of this is that just because the Bush administration made a gross misuse of the USA intelligence institutions, that does not invalidate them. That only invalidates his misuse of them.

I believe the proper answer to your question is to retaliate against those identified by the USA's intelligence and military advisers to the President. That is their job.

Even with all the mishandling, mistakes and political football playing, the USA intelligence organizations and the USA military are the best there is in the world. The inclusion of checks and balances within the system is one of the reasons for its reliability. The President should make good use of the USA's military and intelligence capacity instead of trying to override the information he receives from them.

On the Ron Paul issue, I am not sure where he would stand with this. I haven't followed too closely, but I haven't seen any candidate really come out and say he/she trusts the information our specialized institutions provide and will use it above his/her own personal biases. If such a candidate stated that (and meant it), that is the candidate who would receive my vote.

Michael

Intelligence is almost never used by the executive branch in the manner you have described. Almost invariably, the president has already made a decision about what foreign policy to follow, generally for reasons that are far more irrational than those that motivate domestic policy decisions. The intelligence is then fixed around the already chosen policy. The intelligence is typically either fabricated, cherry picked, or ignored by the president in order to justify a decision he has already made. This is certainly the case with the Iraq War. Bush was looking for an excuse to attack Iraq long before the 9/11 attacks ever took place; 9/11 simply gave Bush the excuse to do what he wanted to do all along, not to mention an excuse to viciously attack the civil liberties of all Americans via a series of abominable pieces of legislation passed by a Congress that never even bothered to read them.

Martin

Martin,

I am currently reading the 911 Commission report, and that is not the picture that is painted concerning intelligence. Clinton and Bush may have underestimated Bin Laden, but they were open to the intelligence. If it wasn't for Clark, we would be in much worse shape than we were in.

--Dustan

[Aggrad02]

For those living in North America where we have control we will need less destructive and more subtle means, such as rounding up and deportation to a killing zone.

:frantics:

Please pull the plug on Mr. Meat Cleaver.

W.

I have to vehemently disagree. While I think Bob is crazy sometimes, we all should have freedom of speech.

-Dustan

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Wolf,

Bob kind of tickles me. He wants killing zones? Hitler had 'em and he still couldn't get rid of all his enemies. Stalin had 'em and he couldn't either. Pol Pot came close.

Pinochet did that in Chile and there is an undercurrent there of hatred that will take centuries to abate, if it ever does, and it transformed Víctor Jara (also see here and here) into a martyr extolling the virtues of communism. Ironically, the killing zone where he was shot was a stadium that now bears his name, the Victor Jara Stadium. See the details of his death here (which discusses a character Bob would probably like, El Loco Dimter, the one allegedly responsible for torturing and killing the singer).

Now what tickles me about Bob is that in his killing fantasies, he is always on the side of those in power. Having lived around real totalitarian conditions, I can testify that nobody is immune to persecution when the killing and torturing starts. One who is in power today is being shot tomorrow. A simple perusal of newspaper headlines about China is more than enough evidence of that. (Bob talks about reality, but this is one part he kinda blanks out. In his fantasy, this reality doesn't exist because it... because it... well, just because. Everyone just knows who the enemy is supposed to be.)

So I see a different fantasy. I see Bob being rounded up one day because of whatever and taken to his own killing zone, then El Loco Dimter later saying to his widow, "Oops."

Incidentally, I briefly knew a man in Brazil, a journalist, Antonio Carlos Fon, who wrote a book called Torture: History of the Political Repression in Brazil, which I read in Portuguese: Tortura. A Historia da Represăo Politica no Brasil (he had given me an autographed copy, but it has since been lost). In it, he mentioned a man who went out drinking with a buddy who was a Sargent at DOI CODI in São Paulo. They went on a bender and he woke up as a prisoner in the basement of the DOI CODI office on Rua Tutoia (which was a torture chamber during the military regime) with no memory of how he got there. It was obviously due to a spat where there was typical drunken bragging and threats. Despite being a personal friend of the Sargent and supporter of the military government, they brutally tortured him for a month for him to tell "the truth" about why he had been imprisoned.

Do you see Bob anywhere in this story?

Michael

[Wolf DeVoon]

Bob kind of tickles me.

Twenty years ago in correspondence with Milton Friedman, I expressed concern that US public and private debt as a percentage of money supply had risen to WWII levels. Friedman assured me that the rate of growth was reasonable and not to worry.

Ten years ago, I warned that US government outlays (federal + state + local) as a percent of GDP would top WWII spending by 2015 during peacetime. No one expected war.

Today, all bets are off. After the tech wreck and 9/11, Greenspan flooded the market with paper. The dollar lost 1/3 of its value. Food and fuel doubled in price. War costs have been hidden and fudged, because we're drawing down inventory and postponing medical care.

I don't mind so much the incessant jingoism of right wing talk radio, nor Kolker's lunatic plan for genocide abroad and martial law at home. What I think has happened in Iraq is much worse than that. American forces are trapped, unable to disengage or retreat. Israel is pressing us to attack Syria and Iran. Russia is energy rich, but China and Japan are not. They are holding $2 trillion in weakening dollars. At some point, the US adventure in the Gulf will trigger real war.

Americans have no real war experience. When I was a child, we believed we could survive nuclear war with Russia. It would be bad, but not fatal for most Americans, especially in rural and suburban communities well stocked with Civil Defense water barrels, canned fruit, and fallout shelters. Korea and Vietnam were incapable of threatening us. There was no possibility of nuclear attack by water buffalo or empty Chinese rice bowls.

Today, the situation is dramatically changed. Roughly 8 million American soldiers, sailors, security contractors, diplomats, and civilian expats are strewn around the globe. Our borders are impossible to defend. Disruption of Gulf oil traffic will crash the world economy. I'm not sure whether America can feed itself any longer, and I'm certain that our military cannot function on US domestic oil alone.

The way out of this trap is to repudiate Kolker, Hannity, Michael Savage, etc. Whether Ron Paul can win or not, the time remaining must be used to reshape Objectivist thinking and step up public debate. The old guard strategy of infiltrating academia failed, and in any case we don't have leisure to daydream about the distant future of American education. What must be done requires urgent action, before Tonkin II or 9/11/07 closes all the exits.

Me and mine will be okay, no matter what, because I live in the jungle. We have a pile of cash and zero debt, a larder, a water well and power plant. What happens in New Jersey has no bearing on our fate, except as grieving bystanders on a secure, sparsely populated mountaintop.

For the past ten days, I considered going back to the US, in particular to NYC for the purpose of launching an FM radio network. I thought it was worth a shot to rally university and college students for peace. There's a business plan sitting on my desk ready to go. The market operation in fairly straightforward and programming is a cakewalk.

But I need to see a chink of light at the end of the tunnel. In particular, what happens to Kolker on this forum is a litmus test, a harbinger. Either-or, genocide or peace. Peace means dumping Israel, withdrawing all US forces from the Middle East, and opening domestic oil production onshore and offshore in California and Florida. It has to be done quickly and it begins here and now, repudiating retaliation and 'regime change' as foreign policy.

Objectivists have intellectual ammunition. We need to use it.

W.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Wolf,

I am going to give you an extended reply tomorrow. I think your idea of a radio network aimed at college students is a wonderful idea.

About Bob Kolker, briefly, I am surprised you are using him as a litmus test. Couldn't you find anything better? I'm serious. I have two questions:

1. Do you think anyone really takes him seriously as persuasion? I see people stand up to him all the time or dismiss him. Very rarely do do they agree with him. (I am talking about his oddball meat-cleaver ruminations, not his scientific thoughts.)

2. Do you think he represents—or is the figurehead of—some kind of movement, or is his performance simply the weird grouching of one old man?

About paper money, my own view of money was clarified with the video below.

I have seen Money as Debt twice now and I cannot recommend it highly enough. It blew me away. It is simple and entertaining, all 47 minutes of it. And it is free.

The problem with paper money is that there is not even any paper for most of the money in the market. There is also a component of the spoils of the different wars and government policies that are constantly being laundered. I wish it were as simple as printing paper money. Then it would be easy to stop.

More tomorrow.

Michael

[Martin Radwin]

If the United States is attacked by Saudi and Egyptian commandos again, like 9/11, who should the US retaliate against?

Wolf,

My view of this is that just because the Bush administration made a gross misuse of the USA intelligence institutions, that does not invalidate them. That only invalidates his misuse of them.

I believe the proper answer to your question is to retaliate against those identified by the USA's intelligence and military advisers to the President. That is their job.

Even with all the mishandling, mistakes and political football playing, the USA intelligence organizations and the USA military are the best there is in the world. The inclusion of checks and balances within the system is one of the reasons for its reliability. The President should make good use of the USA's military and intelligence capacity instead of trying to override the information he receives from them.

On the Ron Paul issue, I am not sure where he would stand with this. I haven't followed too closely, but I haven't seen any candidate really come out and say he/she trusts the information our specialized institutions provide and will use it above his/her own personal biases. If such a candidate stated that (and meant it), that is the candidate who would receive my vote.

Michael

Intelligence is almost never used by the executive branch in the manner you have described. Almost invariably, the president has already made a decision about what foreign policy to follow, generally for reasons that are far more irrational than those that motivate domestic policy decisions. The intelligence is then fixed around the already chosen policy. The intelligence is typically either fabricated, cherry picked, or ignored by the president in order to justify a decision he has already made. This is certainly the case with the Iraq War. Bush was looking for an excuse to attack Iraq long before the 9/11 attacks ever took place; 9/11 simply gave Bush the excuse to do what he wanted to do all along, not to mention an excuse to viciously attack the civil liberties of all Americans via a series of abominable pieces of legislation passed by a Congress that never even bothered to read them.

Martin

Martin,

I am currently reading the 911 Commission report, and that is not the picture that is painted concerning intelligence. Clinton and Bush may have underestimated Bin Laden, but they were open to the intelligence. If it wasn't for Clark, we would be in much worse shape than we were in.

--Dustan

Dustan,

I definitely don't have time to read the 911 Commission report, so I'll certainly be interested in reading your analysis of it, but keep in mind that this report was created by the government itself, and the Bush administration did everything it could to obstruct the investigation of facts for the report. And anything deemed either a threat to national security or simply embarassing to the government (these are often the same thing) was undoubtedly not included in the report. So take it with a grain of salt.

Regarding 9/11, everything I've read about it suggests gross incompetence and malfeasance on the part of US security agencies. There were repeated warnings about a potential attack on the US homeland, warnings about Muslim foreign nationals attending flight school and learning only how to fly the jets, not how to take off and land, etc. Good police work should have been able to stop these attacks before they ever happened. If I were more of a conspiracy theorist, I just might think that the government deliberately let the 9/11 attacks happen, since it has greatly benefitted from them, using them as an excuse to trash the civil liberties of the American people with barely a whimper of protest from anyone. But I don't think the evidence exists to support such a conclusion, so I chalk it all up to plain incompetence. The point is, whatever intelligence was gathered concerning the 9/11 attacks was subsequently ignored, leading up to the tragedy of 9/11.

The Iraq war was a perfect example of intelligence being ignored by the executive branch, because the intelligence conflicted with the desire of the Bush administration to go to war against Iraq no matter what. So the Bush administration cherry picked the intelligence provided by the CIA, demanding that the CIA provide an excuse for launching an invasion of Iraq. A bogus link was created between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, even though it was well known that these two were enemies and that no operational relationship existed. As a result of this executive branch propoganda, by the start of the Iraq war, a majority of Americans falsely believed that Saddam had a connection to 9/11, and many believed that Saddam was actually responsible for 9/11. The Bush administration also spread the lie about Iraq's attempt to buy yellowcake from Niger, based on a document that was well known to be a forgery. When this lie was exposed by Joe Wilson, who was sent to investigate, the Bush administration decided to out Wilson's wife Valerie Plame, who was working as an undercover CIA agent. The Bush administration also spread lies about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, even though it was pretty well known that these WMDs had been destroyed several years earlier (it was also never mentioned that the US was one of the countries that had originally supplied the WMDs to Saddam, whom we supported during the Iran-Iraq war). The bottom line is, the US didn't go to war with Iraq because of the intelligence; rather, the intelligence was cherry picked and fabricated in order to justify a decision to go to war that Bush had already made.

Martin

[Kevin Haggerty]

About Bob Kolker, briefly, I am surprised you are using him as a litmus test. Couldn't you find anything better? I'm serious. I have two questions:

1. Do you think anyone really takes him seriously as persuasion? I see people stand up to him all the time or dismiss him. Very rarely do do they agree with him. (I am talking about his oddball meat-cleaver ruminations, not his scientific thoughts.)

2. Do you think he represents—or is the figurehead of—some kind of movement, or is his performance simply the weird grouching of one old man?

Hey Michael,

I can't (and would never try to) speak for Wolf, of course, but I wanted to speak to this myself.

First of all, have you had the chance to read Reading Lolita in Tehran? It's a very powerful and insightful memoir by an Iranian woman college professor of literature, mostly covering the years of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Iran/Iraq war. The reason I ask is because there's an important and deeply disturbing debate held in her classroom between progressive western values and Islamic fundamentalism. In the debate, the student speaking for western values absolutely talks circles around the reactionary student, making the reactionary student's argument seem ridiculous at every turn--repetitive, absurd, morbid, without merit or credibility. Within a few short weeks of this debate, the revolution happens and all the absurd mumbo-jumbo of the fundamentalist student's argument is suddenly the Law of the Land. It's profoundly chilling to read and I cannot recommend it highly enough at this moment in history.

So, Bob's relative persuasiveness is really neither here nor there to my mind. Bob's point of view is, full stop. And his is not an isolated case, from where I sit. Sure we heard more of this kind of "glass parking lot" style rhetoric when the war in Iraq began, but what amazes and disturbs me immensely is that it hasn't disappeared. It's there, in Bob and in a whole lot of folks as strong and hateful as ever. Bob's not a stupid man, he's not an uneducated man, nor even an uninformed or incurious man.

Orwell's idea of a permanent war is made possible when enough people have accepted permanent hate. For such folks it is a race of people or an entire ideology that must be wiped from the earth before their hatred will come to an end.

But the hate, the bigotry--it comes from inside. Most of us try to deal with our hate directly as a personal problem to lessen the toll it takes on our lives and the lives of those we love. But some folks cling to their hate, nurture it and enshrine it.

You know, we see what this kind of hatred can do in other parts of the world--Rwanda, Chechnya, etc. What I want to know is how someone who thinks this way now in our country thought before 9/11. I get the feeling that most of the genocidal "bomb Mecca" types were relatively normal, peaceful people before. Then 9/11 happens and they find they have a bottomless capacity for hate and rage that just doesn't go away, but instead becomes the central premise of their "post-9/11" world view. I don't know. I can't be sure, because folks like Bob don't really share the process by which they develop their ideas, they present their ideas as self-evident. They give examples of their hated enemy's acts and tactics, but they don't personally account for the hate. What I've been able to gather from such folks is that for them hating Islam is not a choice, it is a definition.

-Kevin

Edited July 19, 2007 by Kevin Haggerty