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jam070406
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Bingo.
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Aelred_Minor
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I wouldn’t have pegged Ron Paul as one to make that mistake. They were hanged.
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kubark
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I was unaware that we have a defense treaty with Israel. Could you provide the relevant reference?
Maybe we declared war on them in 1953 when we overthrew their democratically appointed president and installed the Shah.
You seem to have missed the point. Terrorism is a tactic, war by other means. As Sir Peter Ustinow reminds us, “Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich.” “Terrorism” was first used in 1795, during the so-called Reign of Terror, when British commentators labled the legitimate government of France as “terrorist” (from the French terroriste). The objective here was to delegitimize the French Republic by describing its behavoir as unciviilized and therefore no better than criminal. This is not to say that Robespierre was a model political leader, but simply to show how the word terrorism was first used as it is still used today, to place the enemy “beyond the pale.”
Crucial to defeating any terrorist movement is the way a government responds. An overreaction can be fatal. Terrorists are picadors and matadors. They prick the bull until it bleeds and is blinded by rage, then they snap the red cape of bloody terror in its face. The bull charges again and again until, exhausted, it can charge no more. Then the matador, though smaller and weaker, drives the sword into the soft spot between the shoulder blades of the bull. For the bull has failed to understand that the snapping cape was but a provocation to goad it into attacking and exhausting itself for the kill. To defeat and crush Al Qaeda, U.S. strategy should have been to narrow the conflict and isolate them. Instead, listening to neoconservatives, Bush invaded Iraq, united the Arab world against us, and fullfilled to the letter bin Laden’s prophecy as to what we were about. Since 9/11, Al Qaeda and its allies continue to grow in numbers and military capability because their motivation is based on the foreign policies that our political leaders argue have nothing to do with the war the Islamists are waging at us. Since 9/11, Al Qaeda is actually CLOSER to operational victory. One of Bin Laden’s most important operational goals was to draw us into a wider guerilla conflict in that region - a conflict that would eventually bleed and bankrupt us into permanent withdrawal. The Iraq War was the first step in that direction and we played charged right into the red cape of the matador Bin Laden. There are two other operational goals of Al Qaeda that are CLOSER to being accomplished since our foreign policy blunders following 9/11. One of those goals is the destruction of U.S. and Western-supported Muslim tyrannies. The other goal is the destruction of Israel. The so called Arab Spring is making bringing these two goals CLOSER to fruition.
No one tries to “delegitimize” the powers in that region? I guess you didn’t know that we intentionally overthrew the legitimate government of Iran in 1953. I guess you didn’t realize that we have been propping-up dictators and choosing sides in relgious wars in that region for decades. I guess you never heard of the Arab Spring.
Also, in ousting the Taliban, America was supported by IRAN, Sudan, and Libya. That State Department had listed all three as state sponsors of terror. The Northern Alliance that provided most of the invading forces that overran Kabul was led by warlords steeped in blood. In the Gulf War, American WELCOMED the Syrian troops of HAFEZ AL ASSAD (who we are now trying to overthrow), who had massacred perhaps 20,000 rebel Moslems in Hama.
Perhaps the greatest single act of Allied war terror was the fire bombing of Dresden, an undefended city of 630,000, in February of 1945. Dresden was packed with hundreds of thousands of despereate refugees fleeing the Red Army. Before leaving for Yalta, Churchill ordered Operation Thunderclap, the use of Allied air power to “de-house” German civilians to make them refugees so they would clog the roads over which German soldiers had to move to stop the winter offensive of the Red Army. And then there was the fire-bombing of Tokyo. What is the moral difference between burning alive 87,000 people with incindiary bombs from five miles up - and burning alive 187 Czechs in a barn in Lidice? While we must condemn Islamic revolutionary terror, the point is that terrorism will be used again and again, for it often triumphs and continues until its root causes are addressed. Hiroshima and Nagasaki convinced the emporer that unconditional surrender was prefereable to the alternative. The IRA, Irgun, the Stern Gang all used terror and all prevailed.
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oletommyboy
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Thank you!
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Scott_Lafrance
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But our foreign policy has no influence on terrorism.
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kubark
Guest
Well said. In light of the current world crisis, I found the Holy Father’s recent prayer during the homily of Christmas Eve Mass most relevant. In part, the Holy Father prayed that: "“At this hour when the world is continually threatened by violence in so many places and in so many different ways, when over and over again there are oppressors’ rods and bloodstained cloaks, we cry out to the Lord: O mighty God, you have appeared as a child and you have revealed yourself to us as the One who loves us, the One through whom love will triumph. And you have shown us that we must be peacemakers with you…We love your childish estate, your powerlessness, but we suffer from the continuing presence of violence in the world, and so we also ask you: manifest your power, O God. In this time of ours, in this world of ours, cause the oppressors’ rods, the cloaks rolled in blood and the footgear of battle to be burned, so that your peace may triumph in this world of ours.”
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Scott_Lafrance
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I find it amuzing that the Nobel Peace President, who won the award after…doing…NOTHING, uses remote drones to kill people. Maybe those loons in Olso will wait for the next person to actually accomplish something before doling out their awards.
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Bob_Crowley
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With all due respect, Paul should use his head. The Nazi war criminals were in a defeated enemy state, with no widespread terrorist network to forcibly protect them, other than a few inefficient cadres of former SS members. They were in a country overwhelmingly occupied by allied troops.
Adolf EIchmann was captured in South America, and had again little or no support from anything like the Taliban or Al Quaeda. If however, he’d been in the middle of a hostile terrorist camp, protected by guards and all the rest, then it would have been a different story.
I’d be far more concerned about “collateral” damage eg. 100,000 Iraqis who died in the wake of Bush’s invasion, than one American rogue. He lived by the sword, and he died by it. So what?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
Amidst all the hoopla by Mr. Paul about one American rogue citizen, where’s his concern for these people? His stance is sheer hypocrisy.
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Cascadian
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I’m glad you show concern for the civilian deaths, but I think that it’s reasonable to say that Dr. Paul as well has justifiably been horrified by the amount of civilian casualties in Iraq, he was one of only 7 Republican Congressmen who voted against the Iraq Resolution, he’s been against the war from the start.
He was against the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki on a matter of principle, we haven’t declared war, and he received no due process. I don’t think he’s a hypocrite for his stances.
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Monte_RCMS
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Non-interventionism didn’t work for the United States in 1805 or in 1812, when the Muslim radicals of North Africa seized our ships and took Americans as slaves … just as they had been doing to Europeans ever since the Moors were run out of Spain in the late 1400’s … and in 1812, the Brits hijacked our ships and eventually burned Washington, DC to the ground.
You can do your best to avoid getting sucked into foreign entanglements, but every once in a while, you as head of state, have to take action.
If you didn’t HAVE the United States Marines, you would have to invent them … as we did in 1805, … from the Shores of Tripoli.
Not that many years ago, some Communist radicals seized the government of the little island of Grenada. There were some serious “issues” … the previous president “died” according to CBS News … well, YEAH, he died of “lead poisoning” from an AK-47. So, the prime ministers and presidents of the nearby islands begged President Reagan to do something. So he sent in the 82nd Airborne and some Navy SEALS and a few others. Among other things they rescued U.S. Citizens who happened to be attending a local medical school on Grenada and who were being held hostage … when the students finally reached JFK Airport in New York, the news media were there to greet them … and the newsies were so crestfallen when they didn’t denounce the Marines and Airborne Troopers. What the rescued medical students said was, “THANK GOD!!”.
Here, read this:
mackinac.org/5903
and this:
psywarrior.com/GrenadaHerb.html
One of the lessons we learned was that if you don’t keep up your military with training and equipment and reconnaissance, then you will lose … as we nearly did in Grenada. And as we did in Desert One.
President Jimmy Carter spent almost his whole entire presidency cutting the military. And as a result we paid the price of his incompetence.
Military enlistments are only for a very few years, so we have to rebuilt it constantly. And that isn’t cheap and it isn’t easy … and playing catch-up is excruciatingly difficult. Using leftover stuff from WWII or Vietnam won’t cut it. And you don’t have to like it; it’s just one of the facts of life.
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Scott_Lafrance
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We invented the Marines on November 10, 1775.
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Monte_RCMS
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Scott_Lafrance
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Apparently, killing a certain number of innocent civilians is considered an acceptable loss if you get the bad guy.
I wonder how many people here would think the same way if China destroyed their neighbor’s house with a remote drone to killa political enemy and killed their wife and kids at the same time. I guess some here would say, “At least they got the bad guy, I can get a new wife and makes some new kids.”
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Scott_Lafrance
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I know, I was a Hospital Corpsman for 15 years and have been going to the Marine Corps Ball every year for nearly 20 years.
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Pat_the_elder
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Hi View from over the pond. I know this thread’s main point is about US isolationist policy but isolationism shouldn’t go as far as to ignore hiostorical fact from the rest of the planet. Spain, Portugal and Britain ALL had marine forces well before the US was founded
on a more personal note: sorry to hear about your Mum, Scott. I’ll pray for her at Mass tomorrow.
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sedonaman
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Good info. thx
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sedonaman
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What about Jefferson’s war against the Barbary Pirates? One would think Jefferson knew a thing or two about the constitution.
And we already tried non-intervention by ignoring Japan prior to WW-II. It turned out to be another form of appeasement, which, by now it should be clear, doesn’t work.
You just can’t ignore aggression.
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Monte_RCMS
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3 miles
12 miles
It’s the range of a shore battery cannon! That’s all it is.
As cannon technology improved, the territorial waters increased … from 3 miles to 12 miles.
During WWII, the shore battery cannons were actually 12" or larger battleship cannons.
[These shore batteries had 15" guns: Historic California Posts: Lime Point Military Reservation and Fort Baker ]
They could really reach out and touch someone!
More recently, some countries have increased it to 200 miles.
[A lot of countries, by the way, claim “neutrality” … but neutrality MUST be defended. Switzerland has a huge army. Laos and Cambodia claimed neutrality, but they allowed North Vietnam to range freely and only the United States got criticized when they tried to interdict the Ho Chi Minh trail, WHICH they denied even existed.]
Please note [N.B, a little Latin lingo ] … even in the olden days, shore batteries were fabulously expensive … in the TENS of millions of dollars back then … huge concrete installations. For cannons. AND fleets of ships that maintained off-shore MINE FIELDS!
Not cheap.
Sucked up a LOT of manpower.
fortmiles.org/firepower/batteries/batt2226.html
They had anti-ship and anti-aircraft cannons.
And then expanded that to anti-aircraft guided missiles. The U.S. Army had Nike Ajax, and Nike Hercules missiles emplaced all over the place. Then a war broke out … with the Air Force.
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Monte_RCMS
Guest
AND for 8 LONG years, President Bill Clinton IGNORED one attack after another … the U.S. S. Cole sinking, the blowing up of two or our embassies … [all embassies are considered to be sovereign territory of the home country, by the way] … and HE SAVED MONEY by cutting our military by 50% … and claimed a peace dividend … and recycling military personnel to use as waiters at White House parties.
And what did that get us? It got us 9/11.
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Monte_RCMS
Guest
Everybody wanted to get into the act.
When there were really long range defenses … the ground-launched anti-aircraft missiles out to 200 miles became Air Force property … the IM-99 BOMARC.
There were “Texas Towers” … oil rigs way out to sea with radars.
And radar picket planes … the EC-121.
And air defense block houses … with Army guys inside. And Air Force. And Navy. And some Canadians.
Look up the SAGE system.
computermuseum.li/Testpage/IBM-SAGE-computer.htm
Those computers, by the way, and the displays and the software … were fifty (50) years ahead of the FAA state of the art! No joke.
They had the DEW line, the Pine Tree line, the mid-Canada line and some other stuff.
At one point, we had 1000 interceptor planes … including the F-102 with nukes (you can look it up) … and one of the F-102 pilots was Lt. George W. Bush. No joke, he was a nuclear warrior. Excellent pilot, by the way. [And they never ever discussed their work, because of what they were packing.]
The purely defense system at one point, envisioned three U.S. interceptor bases with these YF-12 planes:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_YF-12
NOT to mention the ABM system … the anti-ballistic missile system. Which Bill Clinton canceled. Or reduced to an ongoing never-ending research project.
Nike Zeus was the Army project.
Initially, it had a small baby nuke in the nose, but the research got so good, they could actually hit a bullet with a bullet! No joke. We DO actually have one, finally, installation … and that is in Alaska … and Sarah Palin was in charge of it. [Just kidding, but the Alaska Guard runs it. And she was in charge of the Guard.]
So, if you want non-intervention(ism), you surely had better be able to defend it.
Not pacifism, for sure.
And not cheap, either.
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