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View Full Version : Issue: Foreign Policy: how to capture bin laden?




MsDoodahs
05-22-2007, 02:49 PM
I have been asked directly this question, and I have not seen a mention of how Dr. Paul would address it.

Thanks in advance for your help!

:)

Harald
05-22-2007, 02:59 PM
http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2001/cr101001.htm

...

Specifically, my legislation authorizes the President to issue letters of marque and reprisal to all appropriate parties to capture Osama bin Laden and other members of al Qaeda or any other persons involved in the September 11 terrorist attacks. The President is also authorized to use part of the $40 billion appropriated by this Congress to respond to the attack, to establish a bounty for the capture of Osama bin Laden. My legislation singles out Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda because the information available to Congress and the American people indicates bin Laden and his organization were responsible for this action. By vesting authority in the President to issue the letters, my legislation ensures that letters of marque and reprisal can be coordinated with the administration's overall strategy to bring the perpetrators of this outrageous act to justice.

Letters of marque and reprisal resolve one of the most vexing problems facing the country: how do we obtain retribution against the perpetrators of the attacks without inflicting massive damage on the Middle East which could drive moderate Arabs into an allegiance with bin Laden and other terrorists. This is because using letters of marque and reprisal shows the people of the region that we are serious when we say our quarrel is not with them but with Osama bin Laden and all others who would dare commit terrorist acts against the United States.

Mr, Speaker, I ask that my colleagues join with me in providing the additional ``necessary weapon of war'' and to help defend our fellow citizens, our sovereign nation, and our liberty by cosponsoring the September 11 Marque and Reprisal Act of 2001 and the Air Piracy Reprisal and Capture Act of 2001.

JoshLowry
05-22-2007, 03:06 PM
He also mentions it in the interview with Wolf Blitzer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sy4Eugc0Xls

BLITZER: We're almost out of time, Congressman, but if you were President, what would you do about the Al-Qaeda threat? Forget about Iraq right now. The Al-Qaeda threat, Osama bin Laden, he's still on the loose, what would you do about that threat to the United States?

PAUL: Well, I'd go after him. I voted for the authority, I wish they had done it. We voted for the money, and yet we ignored it. So this is my complaint, that we didn't do what we were supposed to do, and we went and started a war that we shouldn't have. And here we have Osama bin Laden, in Pakistan, they have a nuclear weapon, they have a military dictatorship, they overthrew an elected government, and what do we do when they get nuclear weapons, not following the NPT treaty? We reward them. We give them money. So I'm saying, don't reward people who get nuclear weapons, and then they'll want to get them. That's why Saddam Hussein pretended he had one, because he thought if he had one maybe we'd leave him alone. So it's natural for people like Iran, the leadership in Iran, to want to get a nuclear weapon, because we respect people that have power, and we disrespect people that we think we can run over them and run roughshod over their countries, invade them preemptively, and change their regime. I think it's a bad foreign policy: it's not Republican, it's not conservative, and it's not Constitutional.

MsDoodahs
05-22-2007, 03:44 PM
You Guys Are Totally Awesome!!!!!

:d

Craig_R
05-23-2007, 03:33 AM
quite a few newspapers in the middle east reported bin laden dead about 2 years ago or so.. he was on dialysis

RonPaul4President
05-23-2007, 09:15 AM
Hmmm, if that is true then the waning public support for the IRAQ INVASION and OCCUPATION would be obliterated. Gee, I wonder why Fox, CNN, or MSNBC haven't touched on this possibility. Do you think... *gasp!* No.

JosephTheLibertarian
05-23-2007, 09:46 AM
RP has the solution to the problem, yet noone cares.

Bob Cochran
05-23-2007, 10:08 AM
I personally think the US executive branch struck some type of unholy deal with Pakistan and/or the bin Laden family to not pursue bin Laden.

I mean, heck, you take one-tenth of the resources we've poured into Iraq and add that to any efforts toward capturing/killing bin Laden, and the job would have been done by now.

That the American people have not simply DEMANDED this of our Commander in Chief, the title Dubya is so fond of using in reference to himself, illustrates how apathetic we've become.

I've heard many people take the argument that we don't want to make a martyr about of Osama bin Laden. I don't give a doggone. Martyr him, I say.