My issue with Ron Paul derives from his statements on war and foreign policy and on the Patriot Act from his website:
"The war in Iraq was sold to us with false information." Not necessarily true, as it was incorrect intelligence, supplied by the CIA, British Intelligence, the new KGB (scary thought, that), and IIRC, French intelligence. If he meant wrong or incorrect intelligence, well, yeah, he's right. But the phrasing makes him appear to say Bush lied, as well as Tony Blair and all the intelligence agents who collaborated to create the picture of Iraq's threat. Plus, there were about a dozen point besides WMDs, which few seem to remember.
"The area is more dangerous now than when we entered it." For whom? For the thousands killed by poison gas? Or perhaps the hundreds of thousands murdered by Saddam's regime and slain in combat with the Iranians and the rest for the world in two wars? The people killed by the funds provided by Saddam to terrorist grouped such us the PLO? Or perhaps the terrorists trained in Iraq, which Saddam was turning into a mecca if you will for training? From what I can see, the area has become much more stable now that we have figured out how to get the local Sunni sheiks on our side and won't deal with the Mahdi Army thugs, for a start.
"We destroyed a regime hated by our direct enemies, the jihadists, and created thousands of new recruits for them." And killed many thousands of them, partially solving that problem. many, if not the vast majority of the terrorists now are foreigners, not Iraqis. Some were Iraqis, being members of the Ba'ath party, some were Mahdi thugs, and some were Sunnis. Operative word there is were.
"This war has cost more than 3,000 American lives, thousands of seriously wounded, and hundreds of billions of dollars." Yep
"We must have new leadership in the White House to ensure this never happens again." We'll always have wars, but I suspect he means the way this was handled. Well, under most other President, we did nothing but bomb a few factories and AA sites. That didn't stop Saddam's activities, and the Oil for Food program filled his pockets while starving his people. Frankly, President Bush has made some mistakes. However, he tends to (finally) recognize what needs to be done and appointed Petraeus. What reamins to be seen is if that's enough.
As for the Patriot Act, acts such as this are passed in wars to enable intelligence to be gathered. Most of the hyperbole over it is unwarranted. Namely, you need to have some ties to terrorist orgs before your phone is tapped and your computer records are investigated. Such as contributing to foundations that then turn the money over to the PLO, Fatah, Falangiasts, or Al Queda, for example. Should the Act be repealed after the conflict is over? Yes. Which begs the question of when do we know when the conflict is over? My idea is when Iraq and Afghanistan can take care of themselves, most of the Islamic terrorists are hunted down, and jihadists are not supported by mainstream Muslims.
Tall order, there. We'll be in this one for quite some time to come, and we'll see what Islam does when it's tenets are truly espoused and followed, like they were from 621 AD to around the early 19th century.
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