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View Full Version : Neo-cons go on the attack.




boneyard bill
08-27-2011, 12:44 PM
Fresh from his attack on Ron Paul in the Iowa debate, Rick Santorum, the most hard-core neo-con in the present Presidential contest, has once again attacked Ron Paul on his non-interventionist foreign policy position. This comes on the heels of another attack by Jeffrey Lord in the American Spectator magazine which is apparently also making the rounds on the neo-con talk radio shows. Lord's puerile attack is typical neo-con double-think, loaded with historical inaccuracies and examples which really demonstrate the opposite of what they are claiming.

Lord claims that founding fathers were interventionists, and cites several military actions on their part. But these actions were responses to attacks on Americans. They don't come close to a policy like George Bush's unprovoked attack on Iraq, or the neo-cons desire to bomb Iran. But they do have one thing in common with Iraq. Despite their justifications, they mostly turned into military and diplomatic disasters. Washington's incursion into Canada, Adam's war against the French, and especially Jefferson's war on the Barbary pirates, were not America's finest hour militarily. So as justified as the founders military adventures might have been, they do not speak well of military adventurism generally.

If this is the kind of attack that we can expect, Paulistas should be licking their chops. "Talk about a battle of wits with unarmed men!" Tom Woods exclaimed gleefully. The intellectual battle involved here is too one-sided to contemplate with a straight face. But it is important to point out that neo-cons aren't interested in an intellectual confrontation. They are interested in propaganda. Lord's article is about talking points. Throw a bunch of them out there and see which one's stick.

We cannot expect that facts and logic will win out over repetition. The facts is that the neo-cons control the conservative media. The Weekly Standard, the National Review, the Wall Street Journal, and almost all of talk radio is solidly in the neo-con camp. Mercifully, Paulistas have a signficant minority representation at Fox News with the likes of Napolitano, Stossel, and Cavuto.

But, truth be told, the conservative media is the ONLY place where the neo-cons hold sway. They do not, and never have had, any particular strength among the grass roots. When Bush was in power, the grass roots maintained their loyalty to the Chief Executive, but with that domain currently enemy hands, those same policis are beginning to look dumber and dumber.

Now comes the Gallup poll which shows Ron Paul in third place and gaining ground, and other candidates are showing signs of weakness. Mitt Romney is currently a loyal, but unreliable choice. He wants to audit the Fed for God's sake! How would we finance our wars without the Fed! And he's beginning to argue about the timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan rather than the need to stay the course. Rick Perry is looking like an even looser cannon with his attacks on our long-suffering Fed Chairman.

It isn't just a Ron Paul nomination that the neo-cons are worried about. They're worried about a divided convention. They're worried that Ron Paul just might win too many delegates which would force any nominee who wants to unite the party to trim their sails substantially on issues of money-creation, nation-building and interventionism. They're worried that the GOP might just produce a nominee and a platform that actually offers an alternative to the Obama/Bush policies of the past decade. In short, they're worried about a loss of their power.

Napoleon's Shadow
08-27-2011, 01:04 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkfkwfVpp-E&feature=uploademail

boneyard bill
08-28-2011, 12:50 AM
Woods and Gutzman did a good job of debunking Lord's claims. The situations he cites were all responses to previous attacks. They were not unprovoked, and they were not based on flimsey or inaccurate pretexts. But they missed the chance to point out that they weren't particularly successful either. Even with full justification, military responses are very perilous.

But my larger point, which I should have stated more explicitly, is that this is very good news. It shows that, quite irrespective of how far he goes toward winning the nomination, Ron Paul is having a very definite impact on this race. He is re-defining the agenda, and he is doing so in ways that clearly now seem to have the neo-cons alarmed.

Note that Santorum's attacks on Ron Paul in the Iowa debate do not seem to have impacted negatively on Ron Paul's campaign and have done little to boost Santorum's campaign either

MJU1983
08-28-2011, 01:09 AM
I like these:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLUoWhWsOWk

&


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YpP80_J5N8

Ron Paul Campaign Raises Most Donations from Military (http://www.ronpaul2012.com/2011/07/20/ron-paul-campaign-raises-most-donations-from-military/)

Ron Paul Receives Most Military Donations (http://www.ronpaul2012.com/2011/08/25/ron-paul-recieves-most-military-donations/)

^ Where ya at Santorum?

"Ron Paul is one of the outstanding leaders fighting for a stronger national defense. As a former Air Force officer, he knows well the needs of our armed forces, and he always puts them first. We need to keep him fighting for our country." - Ronald Reagan

Cleaner44
08-28-2011, 02:00 AM
I love to blow them up with "borrow and spend" fiscal conservative thoughts. It is hard to be against raising the debt ceiling while arguing for more borrowing for pre-emptive war.