Ron Paul slams Barack Obama on drone strikes

[sailingaway]

http://images.politico.com/global/2011/12/111229_ron_paul_ap_328.jpg

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1211/70958.html

[rawful]

"pacifist foreign policy"

:rolleyes:

[european]

As bad as they were, you know even Adolf Eichmann finally when he was captured he was taken to Israel. Israel gave him a trial! What did we do with the Nazis – war criminals! – after World War II? They got trials! Yeah, and they got what was deserving: they got hung,”

To me that's the perfect answer! And I think this also takes away the idea that if you aren't for killing, you have to be for letting them live. Good comment to get the hawks on board too.

[SpiritOf1776_J4]

And the front runner always attacks the opponent in the other party.

Ignore the attacks. Stay focused on the issues and principles - and one of them is the drone attacks.

[ShaneEnochs]

To me that's the perfect answer! And I think this also takes away the idea that if you aren't for killing, you have to be for letting them live. Good comment to get the hawks on board too.

Hanged. HANGED. x_x

[WD-NY]

MOAR!!!

This is one of several key positions that'll bring out the independents (who need to come through for us in NH).

From the article...

Many in the crowd booed the Democratic president as Paul raised the issue with no prompting. It’s a signal that he’s unapologetic about his views and unwilling to blur his pacifist foreign policy vision with political expediency. Tellingly, the crowd of loyalists roared with approval.

That more than 700 people showed up on a rainy night offered a powerful visual reminder five days before the caucuses that no Republican candidate has as devoted a following as the 76-year-old Texas congressman.

Promising to “bring our troops home” got the rowdiest applause of the night from an audience with a lot of college-aged faces – the standard at Paul events – but also many middle-aged voters. His 52-minute stem-winder touched almost every erogenous zone of the libertarian-minded coalition of Republicans, independents and disaffected Democrats that the campaign is counting on.


I get the sense that there are quite a few DC/1st-tier reporters who are genuinely shocked/perplexed that Ron continues to bring up some of his more "caustic" positions despite now having a real shot to win the Iowa primary.

Part of me appreciates Ron's lack of a filter, but sometimes I can't help but think that what's keeping many (especial those in the press who haven't sold out and are willing to play it straight) from taking the leap is his unwillingness to show that he can "play the part" when required (e.g. give a formal speech once in awhile ... since that's what POTUS's do).

Anywho, I keep coming back to this article in the Desmoines Register with a bunch of Doug Wead quotes about how Dr. Paul arrives at his phrasings since I find the subject fascinating:

http://caucuses.desmoinesregister.com/2011/12/27/ron-pauls-policy-vision-is-consistent-clear/


“I’m most proud of my message, but I keep working on my ability to deliver it,” he said.

The cerebral Paul isn’t likely to stumble a la Herman Cain when answering questions about U.S. involvement in Libya. He likely won’t confuse Concord, N.H., with Concord, Mass., like Michele Bachmann did.

His challenge lies in boiling down complex economic and foreign policy issues until they resonate with the average American.

Paul resists tempering his views to appeal to voters. For example, he stuck to his guns in a May debate when asked about his controversial campaign to end federal drug laws.

“We cannot get him to say or to do something for his own political advantage,” said senior adviser Doug Wead, who was a special assistant to the president in the George H.W. Bush White House. “He’s just a principled person.”



“It’s extremely refreshing to hear amongst all the other politicians that kind of flip-flop back and forth,” Smith said after listening to Paul last month in Vinton. “He’s so consistent in what he believes in that you don’t worry about what will happen if he gets elected.”

But his noninterventionist foreign policy also gives many conservatives pause. His strict adherence to that view, perhaps to the detriment of his electability, was on full display at the final pre-caucus debate, on Dec. 15.

On a stage filled with rivals who consider the potential of a nuclear-armed Iran to be the greatest threat facing the United States, Paul suggested that worries about Iran’s potential nuclear capabilities are exaggerated.

“To me the greatest danger is that we will have a president who will overreact, and we will soon bomb Iran,” he said.

Michele Bachmann immediately called his statements “dangerous.” The next day, Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Paul “is just wrong on this issue. You can’t make nice with the mullahs.”

Craig Robinson, editor of TheIowaRepublican.com and a former Republican Party of Iowa political director, said Paul “shut off everyone” who isn’t already a Paul supporter.


Paul also regularly trolls the Internet, looking for better ways to assert his positions.

“The only way I’ve noticed I can ever influence him is if I write a blog, and a few weeks later I’ll see him using some of my language,” Wead said.

“If I were to send him that language in a memo, he’d never use it. But if he finds it on his own on the Internet and it makes sense to him, he’ll adopt it.”

[Sentinelrv]

I love that picture! He looks like a force to be reckoned with.

[Andrew Ryan]

Hanged. HANGED. x_x
Hung?

[ShaneEnochs]

Hung?

When you hang someone, the past tense of that is hanged, not hung. You hung a picture, you hanged a nazi.

[Adam West]

I like the way the Iowa caucus is "shaping up." Dr. Paul has taken the "hits" and is still gaining momentum. If he wins Iowa, people are going to start waking up. The political climate could be shifting...

[kojirodensetsu]

"pacifist foreign policy"

:rolleyes:
I'll take "pacifist" over "isolationist".

[Vergil]

I'll take "pacifist" over "isolationist". I agree. Being called an isolationist makes it sound like one is very shut off from the rest of the world.

[affa]

comment section needs serious help.

[Gravik]

"ILoveKnowledge
Party: Democrat

Without a shadow of a doubt, Ron Paul is on the side of terrorists and wouldn't mind America being attacked again like it was on 9/11"


"Ron Paul = on the side of terrorists and fascists. What a true coward and defeatist. Ron Paul is not for freedom, he is for tyranny, terror, and oppression. If he was President, he would allow the dictators of the world to mass slaughter as many people as they deemed fit."

"In addition to his defeatist and cowardly foreign policy, Ron Paul was the only representative to vote against the funding of malaria initiatives by the U.S. Congress. In effect, he voted to let millions of African children die as the malarian initiative that passed helps vaccinate millions of African children each year in preventing malaria, in which they would have otherwise died. No surprise Ron Paul does not care for these "blackies" as he has demonstrated the racist coward that he is with those with close ties to his campaign that he will not disown."

[libertythor]

Running ads slamming Barack Obama's liberal foreign policy and showcasing Ron Paul's conservative foreign policy would have a good effect on attracting GOP voters.

[J_White]

isolationist, pacifist, they would use every other word, except non-interventionist !!