Libertarian Hero Ron Paul Blames US for 9/11

thinkingaboutit said:
These are Bin Laden's words...[/size]
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Who on earth cares what this lunatic has to say? Since when do we take the word of a terrorist?

Call it denial, I call it common sense. We don't listen to terrorists. Period.

thinkingaboutit said:
If the demands are reasonable then there is a way to peace.
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We should never appease terrorists, never. These guys are fundamentalists, fanatics... in other words they are not thinking straight. Their rationale to commit 9/11 was delusional.

Sure the US should rethink its foreign policy, but that's politics. Terrorism is not politics, it's murder.

Bin Laden has made peace overtures. Are you aware of that?
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Are you kidding me? You actually believe him?

His thinking is not rational, it is influenced by religious fanaticism, whatever we do is not going to be OK. And as Darth said, and as I have said three times already: OBL has no authority in the Middle East.
 
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Darth Rotor said:
If they were, it would be.

Are you aware of the veto power that the council of Mullahs have? Closer to theocracy, though with democratic trappings, when it comes to where political power is actually exercised.

DR
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Why does this remind me to the powerful Lobbies in the US who are able to overwrite public interests of American citizens? :rolleyes:
 
Oliver said:
Why does this remind me to the powerful Lobbies in the US who are able to overwrite public interests of American citizens? :rolleyes:
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They are not formally part of the government, the mullahs are formally part of the Iranian government.
Look at the picture again, Oliver.

10962464c89629bdc2.png


Why do you insist on remaing ignorant?

DR
 
Oliver said:
Isn't it ironic that IRAN actually IS a democracy? :rolleyes:
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Not so much "ironic" as "a widely-held misconception" or even "a load of crap."


Oh well, they have a fanatic, faithful, war-mongering leader, don't they? :rolleyes:
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Yes. The US and Iran are precisely the same.


While it's thoughtful of you to put the roll-eyes little graphic there so we know the proper place to do it, I assure you we'd already worked it out.
 
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Oliver said:
Where did this grahpic come from? I based my statement on this one:

[qimg]http://www.welt.de/multimedia/archive/00210/infografik_iran_sys_210898a.jpg[/qimg]
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Note, Oliver, where the unelected officials are, and what their powers are.

10962464c89629bdc2.png


The guy with the beard is unelected. The elected guy answers to him.

Do you understand?

DR
 
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thinkingaboutit said:
What must follow is Americans owning their foreign policy.
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I'm not following that. Could you rephrase it a bit or explain what you meant?

If the demands are reasonable then there is a way to peace.

Bin Laden has made peace overtures. Are you aware of that?
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Do you contend that doing what Bin Laden demands will *decrease* the number of terrorist threats and/or attacks?
 
NoZed Avenger said:
Not so much "ironic" as "a widely-held misconception" or even "a load of crap."

Yes. The US and Iran are precisely the same.

While it's thoughtful of you to put the roll-eyes little graphic there so we know the proper place to do it, I assure you we'd already worked it out.
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I didn't say the US and Iran are precisely the same.
My Point is that the US military power and political willingness is much higher than a President who is >>>THEORETICALLY<<< able to build a nuclear weapon SOME DAY.

Now listen carefully:

The Iranian nuclear programme was launched in the 1950s with the help of the United States.

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_programme_of_Iran
 
NoZed Avenger said:
I'm not following that. Could you rephrase it a bit or explain what you meant?




Do you contend that doing what Bin Laden demands will *decrease* the number of terrorist threats and/or attacks?
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What I mean be "owning" your foreign policy is learning about the facts and understanding the ramifications of those facts (your foreign policy)

For those who reject what Bin Laden says, I'll take another tack to try and show that indeed 911 was due to blowback. Imagine a foreign country bombing your water purification facilities. How would you feel? What about having a foreign army invade and occupy your country? Could you be mad enough to want to get revenge in some violent fashion? I'm not saying it's a proper reaction but it's a very human one.

There is a common sentiment across the Middle East and indeed the Muslim world that the U.S. has greatly interfered and at times committed great injustices in many countries across the region. This sentiment is based on fact. If examples are needed, let me know.

Don't go getting upset with Ron Paul though because he speaks the truth on this matter.

To your second question, the answer is yes (I'm contending that addressing the issue of America's interference in the Muslim world would satisfy Bin Laden and bring less terror) .
 
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thinkingaboutit said:
What I mean be "owning" your foreign policy is learning about the facts and understanding the ramifications of those facts (your foreign policy)

For those who reject what Bin Laden says, I'll take another tack to try and show that indeed 911 was due to blowback. Imagine a foreign country bombing your water purification facilities. How would you feel? What about having a foreign army invade and occupy your country? Could you be mad enough to want to get revenge in some violent fashion? I'm not saying it's a proper reaction but it's a very human one.

There is a common sentiment across the Middle East and indeed the Muslim world that the U.S. has greatly interfered and at times committed great injustices in many countries across the region. This sentiment is based on fact. If examples are needed, let me know.

Don't go getting upset with Ron Paul though because he speaks the truth on this matter.

To your second question, the answer is yes.
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Thank you for pointing this out from a non-Eurotrash view. :)
 
thinkingaboutit said:
What I mean be "owning" your foreign policy is learning about the facts and understanding the ramifications of those facts (your foreign policy)
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I think you are forgetting how a republic works. If the elected representatives fail, the system fails, as the structure of a republic assumes at least a modest competence among the people's representatives.

For those who reject what Bin Laden says, I'll take another tack to try and show that indeed 911 was due to blowback.
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Try Newton's Law: for every action, there is an equal, and opposite, reaction. Newton's Law of Assymetrical Warfare: for any action, there will be a reaction, different in form but with counter intent.

I am trying to understand who in this thread is not agreeing that blowback (political reaction to political actions) is a factor in world affairs. That this dynamic exists does not mean that anyone in the US does not "own" foreign policy, it means that foreign policy is in a continual action reaction dynamic. It means that geopolitics is a free form game of many versus many, and it means that for America, and pretty much anyone else, there is no guarantee of security. The "shrinking world" and a variety of tech is a root cause of that. This has been true since the first ICBM was operationally tested, by the way, and is thus not news to anyone paying attention.

I will also note that 30 million does not scale easily to 300 million in cases of collective effort.

Do you understand why I say that?

(By the way, I find myself in general agreement with Ron Paul on this, since it is an accurate reflection of realpolitik as it is, not as some wish it were.)

DR
 
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thinkingaboutit said:
To your second question, the answer is yes (I'm contending that addressing the issue of America's interference in the Muslim world would satisfy Bin Laden and bring less terror) .
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There's where we part company, then. I don't think it would curtail even Bin Laden, as he'd come up with new demands now that he established a working method of extorting what he wants. ("Peace in our time.") Even if Bin Laden were to be satisfied, there would be many other people with different agendas that would suddenly see a way of affecting countries' (not just the US's) foreign policy.

I think that it would effectively elevate the mass murder of innocents into the arena of legitimate foreign policy negotiations -- and more importantly, would encourage any religious or political fanatic with the ability to build a bomb to start making demands.

If you reward a particular behavior, expect to see more of it, not less.
 
Oliver said:
I didn't say the US and Iran are precisely the same.
My Point is that the US military power and political willingness is much higher than a President who is >>>THEORETICALLY<<< able to build a nuclear weapon SOME DAY.

Now listen carefully:

The Iranian nuclear programme was launched in the 1950s with the help of the United States.

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_programme_of_Iran
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Which has nothing to do with the erroneous -- bordering on laughable -- assertion that Iran is a democracy (Except for the continuing effort to create an equivalency between the two (although I am not sure if can even be called an equivalency, since the US is so much worse)).
 
Iran's government may suck, but it gets great gas mileage.
 

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If frustration at bad U.S. foreign policy is at the root of terrorism then why hasn’t the nations of Latin America attacked the U.S.? Certainly United States foreign policy has been more harmful to the people of those nations than it ever was in the Middle East.

Imagine for a minute that the U.S. gave into OBL's main demands: U.S. stop supporting Israel, U.S. troops out of Saudia Arabia, Iraq & Afghanistan, let Iran develop a nuclear weapon. If we did these things do you think the U.S. would be safe from the type of terrorism that occured on 9/11?
 
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