Dr. Paul's position on Iraq

[Slugg]

I posted this on the other forums, since everyone has moved; I'll post it here.

Instead of always talking about how the war creates new enemies or simply costs too much money (valid and strong points, but bad sound bites).

The goal is to convey victory and strength to his message of peace. The goal is to 'pander' to the Republican base. Make sure they realize a vote for Paul is a vote for Security.


Here's the sound bytes after being thought out some more:

"I offer real victory to terrorism. Jefferson defeated terrorism
without trampling on the constitution, and so can I." (read the book "Jefferson's
war on Terrorism")

"Entangling alliances hamper the war on terror, look at where we're at with Pakistan. We must make peace with all nations. And scour the globe for terrorists."


"Redirect our troops BACK TO the Global War on Terror. We can launch
offensive much better from home than we can in Iraq."

"Failed intelligence has caused the deaths of over 6,000 Americans. I
want to fix the intelligence issues to win the war on terror."

"You can't hit a fly with a baseball bat. And at the same time you can't
chase a small group of terrorists with 175,000 men. It doesn't work."

"We need to win the war on terror with tactical missions from a home
base."

"We spend more money protecting Iraq civilians than we do protecting our
own civilians. Bring the troops home and let's go get the bad guys."

"I want to win the war on terror without giving the terrorists the
satisfaction of removing your liberties."

"I WILL defeat terrorism without attacking the freedom of America."

"We must go on the offensive on terrorism instead of waiting in Iraq for
terrorists to come to our military."

"The war in Iraq doesn't make America safer, going after terrorists
makes America safer."

"Terrorists love our debt. It is a national security issue."

"Look what China is threatening to do. Imagine if our enemy held our
debt."

"Economics the the thinking mans war. That's how we beat the Soviet
Union, and that's how our enemies will attack us."

[LibertyEagle]

Slugg has something here, I think. It may not be quite there yet. But, if we could figure out a way to paint the picture that national security means having an economy where we aren't 9 Trillion dollars in debt, aren't borrowing 2 billion dollars a day (largely from China, who is threatening us right now), protecting our own ports and borders, a positive way to say not having huge trade imbalances, and going after the terrorists who attacked us, rather than off nation-building in Iraq. I know, this isn't right either.

Here's what Slugg initially posted on the other Forum, I believe. I'm going to paste it here, because there were a lot of good ideas in here, IMO.

Why doesn't he say:

"You can't hit a fly with a baseball bat. Using a 200,000 man army to track down a handful of people is slow and hasn't worked."

"Let's have tactical forces ready to attack bin Laden, not stuck in Iraq."

"Let's have large forces guarding our border from terrorists, not roaming streets in Iraq."

"We need to hit terrorism hard and fast by saving money and using it on intelligence"

"In the Bush admin we had two major intelligence failures. Once on 9/11 and then with Iraq. Lets beef up intelligence."

"Quit playing checkers with the terrorists and play chess."

"Go get Osama bin Laden, bring him to justice!"

"Someone who isn't willing to track down Osama bin Laden isn't fit to be president."

"Someone who thinks a Iraq's civil war is more important than Al Quida isn't fit to be president."

"While our intelligence community is protecting our troops in Iraq, that man power is NOT being used to protect citizens here. Bring them home and let's go get the bad guys!"

"The War on Terror is GLOBAL...NOT IN IRAQ!!!!" (I think this should be a big point for him...real big....use the 'Global' word against them. Global, not Iraq.)

Remind people that we are fighting global criminals, not Iraqi insurgence.

"I don't want to cut and run, I want to hit the target. IRAQ IS NOT THE TARGET!!!!!"

All these things are still not interfering with the internal affairs of other countries, they are tracking down the criminals. Which I would expect any president to do. Go get the bad guys. So, hit that hard. REAL HARD.

Don't focus on teaching.
For example:

Question: How do we leave Iraq?
Answer: Just come home. (Good!)

Question:How do you want to handle the war on terrorism?
Answer: Just go get them! Find out where they are, and go get them.

Instead of explaining why the war in Iraq causes the terrorism issue to get worse, we need to say, "GO GET THE BAD GUYS!!!! WE STILL DON'T HAVE THE BAD GUYS.'

I think if Dr. Paul hit that issue with the passion he talks about our currency and our Constitution, he'll be a serious contender in no time.