The fact that Ron Paul was winning the Fox News post-debate text message poll makes one thing clear — lots of Democrats were watching and voting for the Republican most likely to make a complete fool out of himself.
There is a strain of radical Islam that desires to rule the world and make all governments conform to Islamic law. Their ideology puts them at war with us, whether Ron Paul and the Democrats know it or not. We could pull every US citizen and soldier out of the middle East and Islamic extremists would still come here and try to kill us, because our very existence threatens their ability to impose their religion on the world.
Ron Paul also won every poll after the first debates on MSNBC. I watched both debates and thought he was by far the best candidate in the first debate. In the second debate I thought he was doing great up until he started going off on America’s foreign policy. I understand what he was saying about the politics of the middle east being illogical but I have to question his ability to fight terrorists. There is no excuse for what Bin Laden and the other wackjobs have done. Anyone who attempts to rationalize it is wasting their time. The only way you stop them is to hunt them down and kill them.
I was going to vote for Ron Paul before last night. Right now I’d rather vote for Tancredo or Hunter. McCain, Gulliani and Romney really are not very impressive. Almost all of them are gun control nuts. None of them are very strong on the border, and they all just talk tough on the war on terror. I doubt any of them would truly hunt Bin Laden down (who is probably in Pakistan) and kill him.
Hillary is totaly beatable. We just need to find a REAL conservative. Not just a Democrat who calls himself a Republican.
Len I must disagree with you on several things.
You are speaking of terrorism and radical Islam as if they are the same problem. The Islamists’ goal is to recreate the Islamic caliphate in the Middle East…and our propping up of the regimes in the region and continued military presence in the ME proves to be a great obstacle for them.
Pulling out of the Middle East eliminates their strategic reason to attack us HERE. When we leave the region militarily, their terrorism will shift its focus onto the Muslim regimes in the region(Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc).
However, this is where my Reaganesque foriegn policy splits with Ron Paul’s(whom I support) more Taft-like policy.
Once we leave, while the terrorism might refocus elsewhere, the problem of radical Islam still exists. We must not let radical Islam convert millions of Muslims to its evil ideology.
But to fight an ideology, we must return to the mindset that resulted in our success in our last great ideological war(the Cold War).
We will not beat radical Islam by going into countries militarily and inacting regime change. That will only result in non-radical LEADERS in these countries and, as defeated as Al-Qaeda may be in Iraq right now, the ideology isn’t dead. Its just pushed underground.
Unless we realize that this threat, like Communism is not one that can be bombed and machine-gunned away, we will not be successful.
Ron Paul(and myself) simply disagrees on strategy to fight terror…not the result. And while I agree that he seems to not recognize the threat radical Islam presents, I also know that it makes little sense for the federal government to keep us alive in the face of Islamofascism when they insist on continuing the appeasement of collectivism that still to this day threatens to take us on that “downward spiral to the ant heap of totalitarianism” that Reagan warned us about so long ago.
We are the most powerful(military-wise and otherwise) nation on earth….we are faced with a band of determined but WEAK radicals who are bent not on our destruction, but our conversion/subjugation. They do not have the physical capabilities to defeat us like the Soviet Communists did. Their only hope is to take advantage of a fearful American people who finally decide that its better to crawl on their knees to Mecca than to die.
This nation is too proud for that to ever happen….no son of liberty will ever submit to a foriegn ruler.
However we have shown throughout our history to be much more willing to “crawl on our knees to Washington” in order to keep ourselves secure. Perhaps Osama is content to simply watch us kill ourselves in the ways so many world powers have before us:
1) Exert themselves too widespread across the world(financially and militarily).
2) Increase our dependence on our federal government to provide us with the security of the welfare state.
3) Isolate ourselves ever more from the rest of the world in a time when we face an enemy that REQUIRES a coalition of free people.
So please in the future try not to assume that because Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan and others have a different strategy or outlook on the best way to combat the problem….that we do not share in the goal.
I assume that Ron’s opposition to Iraq and his views on why terrorism(not radical islam) happens is your reason for writing this article. Looking for the killer’s motive does not in any way equal excusing the horrific nature of his crime. Nor does an opposition to the Bush administration’s policy in Iraq equal a timidity in the face of war.
I would close with a quote I’ve seen you use to describe how Ron and his followers(myself included) feel about protecting America:
“Our forbearance should never be misunderstood. Our reluctance for conflict should not be misjudged as a failure of will. When action is required to preserve our national security, we will act.”
PS….Oh and to also respond to the other person’s reply…..Ron Paul is ANGRY that we are not pursuing Bin Laden and instead detouring into nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan. He referred to the president’s policy not to follow OBL into the mountainous region of the Pakistani border after Tora Bora as “weak.”
Rep. Paul and Rep. Tancredo want to focus our efforts back where they belong….which is not nation-building and spreading democracy by US military force(Reagan never needed to do it that way) in the Middle East…..the two representatives want to get back on track and hunt down the men responsible for 9/11, kill them, and destroy their organization which, unfortunately as you may have heard, is just as strong as before 9/11 because it has evolved into more of a political movement than a terror organization. It no longer needs a state sanctioner to progress its goals.
That is why Congressmen Paul and Tancredo want to take the fight where it belongs….where the extremists are not where we can draw them to.