CHUCK TODD: Are you satisfied after Governor Bush's sort of fourth answer on this, saying that he wouldn't have gone into the war in Iraq, knowing what we know now?...
SENATOR RAND PAUL: Well, I think it's an important question and I don't think it's a historical anecdote. I don't think it's something that's a hypothetical question. I think it's a recurring question in the Middle East. Is it a good idea to topple secular dictators? And what happens when we do? I think when Hussein was toppled, we got chaos. We still have chaos in-- in Iraq. I think it emboldened Iran. I think-- we now have the rise of radical Islam in Iraq as well. But I think the same question, to be fair, ought to be asked of Hillary Clinton, if she ever takes questions. They should ask her, "Was it a good idea to invade Libya? Did that make us less safe? Did it make it more chaotic? Did it allow radical Islam and ISIS to grow stronger?" So I think the war in Iraq is a good question and still a current question, but so is the question of, "Should we have gone into Libya?"
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"They should ask [Hillary], 'Was it a good idea to invade Libya? Did that make us less safe? Did it make it more chaotic? Did it allow radical Islam and ISIS to grow stronger?'"
Said Rand Paul, as part of his answer to this week's Question of the Week on this morning's "Meet the Press":
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Good question, well asked.
"... if she ever takes questions" was a particularly good line.
Paul is assuming the old Pax Americana goal was the goal. But we see that Obama and Jarrett's goal was determined to destabilize the region and to knock out Egypt and Syria and thus leave Israel helpless and dependent on a peace deal that Obama dictated that would leave the Jews dead, literally dead.
Obama is a Muslim. Islam is a religion of war and conquest that has its orders from Allah to exterminate Jews and the Jewish sect called Christianity.
It's really a sad commentary on the news business that such an obvious point like "Well, how about the Obama's administration's failed invasion of Libya..." needs to be brought up on a news program as an "oh, wow, yeah..." kind of moment.
The media should have done this analysis on their own. But, no, they are such fellators of the Democratic Party & especially the Obama administration that such obvious points never even cross their minds, much less their lips.
Was it a good idea electing Obama knowing what we know now?
He's way out in front of the other candidates. Good show.
And many librul heads exploded upon hearing Rand's response.
The thing about Iraq, was that everyone knew what was going to happen. They thought they could contain it.
When Yugoslavia broke apart, everyone ran to their corners and began to duke it out. The west let them, and then it got out of hand, with images of a new holocaust in Europe.
Even today, we have US troops in Yugoslavia (whatever the new country names are). They are used as in Korea, as a blood zone. Killing American troops to get at the enemy is a difficult escalation.
Now the Holocaust is throughout the middle east, and it may be years before we have the right dictators in place.
Saudi was smart on this. The tribes there all hate each other, as much as any other tribe, but they have a King.
This King idea changes everything. A King can be benevolent. The Saudi King especially so. He makes sure ALL the tribes are taken care of.
Where the US went wrong, was they installed a Shiite dictator to replace a Sunni dictator.
I would insist on a King. As a powerful King can walk down main street. A dictator never leaves the palace.
Paul is right about asking Hillary! about Libya. Someone could also ask her about Russia, and Egypt, and Syria, and Turkey, and, and, and . . . . She was the Sec. Of State, wasn't she?
But we do need to remember that the unstated part of these questions is, What would have happened if we'd done nothing? I think there are plausible arguments that the world would have been worse off if we'd left Sadaam alone. I'm not so sure about some of the other countries.
I'm Ready For Hillary...
...to take questions. If she ever takes questions.>
"If she ever takes questions"
Perfect answer.
Iraq is unlike Libya, Egypt, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, etc. Hussein set himself up for failure with an invasion of a sovereign nation, then continued to violate the ceasefire agreement. We could have maintained the "no fly zones". We could have conducted an air war a la Serbia and carved out multiple Islamic states. Instead, we went the due process and democratic route, established friendly relations with the people, and stabilized the nation. We did not assassinate the leader of a sovereign nation and destroy the government and ourselves (e.g. Benghazi). The movie was good, but not that good.
Asking questions of a female candidate is a vestige of the patriarchal hegemony designed to...
It's clear why the left wants to renew the second-guessing about 2003 and W.
But doesn't that hypothetical also necessarily have to include where would things be now if the US didn't invade and topple Saddam?
Sanctions and no fly zones for another 13 years? Or would they have fallen apart?
Reconstituted WMD program?
Stepped-up export of terrorism?
Conversely, had sanctions and no fly worked, would regime change short of invasion and occupation been been a better outcome?
Would that still qualify as a Powell "you broke it"?
Udday as successor?
Worse than Obama's pull-out?
It's a shame we had to commit an entire division of US ground forces to the assault on Tripoli. And the American-run provisional government in Libya was just as much a disaster as Bremer's fiasco in Iraq. We totally own that mess.
Nobody at NBC will ever ask Hillary Clinton any such question of substance.
I normally don't like putting things in such absolute terms--words like "nobody," and "ever," but I'm afraid that's the impasse we're at right now with media "coverage" of the Hillary Clinton. I sincerely hope I'm wrong.
Rand Paul is great. His only Achilles Heel is that his non-interventionist status on the military is where the general public is, but not where the GOP primary voter is.
He reminds me of a Pro-Life Democrat from years yonder (Bill Clinton, Al Gore) before the Left started rigidly enforcing their dogmatism. Harry Reid was once Pro-Life too.
I'm not sure Rand will be able to get the military vet/defense industry vote. But he's a good man.
If I was asked I would reply:
"Well as long as we are doing hypotheticals, I would go back to the first President Bush, and I would not have stopped the first Iraq war after 100 hours. I would have gone into Baghdad, captured Saddam, destroyed the Iraqi army, and given the Kurds their independence. I would then have restored the Iraqi monarchy, under Hassan, the brother of the current king of Jordan, and establish permanent bases in Iraq, like we did in Germany, Japan and Korea."
"They thought they could contain it."
They did. That's why Biden said in 2010: "I am very optimistic about -- about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration . . . You're going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government." And Barry: "we're leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self reliant Iraq with a representative government that was elected by its people. We're building a new partnership between our nations and we are ending a war not with a final battle but with a final march toward home. This is an extraordinary achievement,"
@Gahrie: "I would not have stopped the first Iraq war after 100 hours. I would have gone into Baghdad, captured Saddam, destroyed the Iraqi army, and given the Kurds their independence."
Same here. Soured me on Bush 41.
C'mon folks, asking Hillary questions would invade her personal space.
@Gahrie: "I would not have stopped the first Iraq war after 100 hours. I would have gone into Baghdad, captured Saddam, destroyed the Iraqi army, and given the Kurds their independence."
Sebastian: "Same here. Soured me on Bush 41"
Nonsense.
The US position, the UN resolutions and the coalition built to expel Iraq from Kuwait were built around the explicit objective of getting Iraq out of Kuwait and not a scintilla more.
I don't blame 41 for what Clinton allowed to fester for another 8 years (post '92).
1. Good for Rand. Going on offense.
2. These second-guessing questions are idiotic.Would NBC have hired Brian Williams if they knew he would repeatedly lie on camera?
" I think there are plausible arguments that the world would have been worse off if we'd left Sadaam alone."
Yes. There are no such arguments about Gaddafi. He was tame and the British and French wanted him out for some reason that nobody remembers.
As for my own thoughts on Iraq they are here.
Nobody wants to consider the real situation in 2003. Maybe we could have let Saddam take Kuwait and Saudi in 1991 but nobody will take that question.
I would not call Rand Paul's embrace of evil, blood thirsty dictators "good." I would not say he is laudable with his self-centered attitude of look out for yourself and screw everyone else, even when they are being raped, tortured, gassed, butchered and terrorized.
Rand Paul is no better than the Clintons or Obama in standing around, watching widespread atrocities and genocide happening, and his and their response is "So? Why should we care? If innocent people are being victimized, f*** 'em."
"I don't blame 41 for what Clinton allowed to fester"
No apologies for Clinton.
But the price for sticking to the "UN resolutions" and the "coalition" was high.
12 more years of Saddam. More problems that "festered." Let's check with the Marsh Arabs.
Hillary will just say, "I don't recall" like she did in the Whitewater investigations.
Play ignorant and hope it blows over.
Catch is, the problems in the Middle East are not 'blowing over' and in fact have grown much much worse.
What she and Obama did in Libya will come back to haunt them. ISIS is the spawn of Libya and our running from Iraq just gave them food to grow.
Hillary voted for the invasion, against the surge, for the pull out, and for the overthrow of Qaddafi. She had a consistent record of being wrong. She doesn't even have the virtue of a stopped clock.
WWI ended in an Armistice. The French generals wanted to fight on and hold a victory parade through the streets of Berlin. Wiser heads prevailed. There was no invasion of Germany. Tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of lives were spared.......It would have been a bloodbath. The French generals would have been forever remembered for their vindictiveness and butchery. And WWII would not have happened.........Something bad would have happened if Saddam had stayed in power. Ditto with Qaddafi. Whatever is wrong with American policy makers, there's something much worse wrong with the people of Iraq and Libya who breed such monsters and then seek worse monsters to follow.
For all the problems that happened afterward inside Iraq, it at least had the virtue that wiping out the Hussein regime let us pull our troops out of Saudi Arabia. Our having troops in Saudi Arabia being an irritant that had, after all, provoked Bin laden into declaring war on the US and arranging the Khobar Towers bombing, the US Embassy bombings in Africa, the US Cole attack, and 9/11.
In Libya, the lesson we taught every single dictator around the world that you never, ever, ever cooperate with the US government in giving up your WMDs and sponsorship of terrorism, because the next US administration will just kill you for the thrill of it.
2. These second-guessing questions are idiotic.Would NBC have hired Brian Williams if they knew he would repeatedly lie on camera?
"With the gift of hindsight, do you think you would always make the decision currently most popular? I mean, if you had a time machine"
2. These second-guessing questions are idiotic.Would NBC have hired Brian Williams if they knew he would repeatedly lie on camera?
"With the gift of hindsight, do you think you would always make the decision currently most popular? I mean, if you had a time machine"
As a Republican candidate for President, they should all respond to reporters the same way. "That is a very good question. I will respond after I hear Hillary's response to the same question."
This should go on for 2 weeks solid. I think after a week, even the MSM (Democrats with by lines) would be forced to report that the leader in polls for the next President lacks the skills to hold up to questions about her record of accomplishments and skills needed to hold the office
As a powerful King can walk down main street. A dictator never leaves the palace.
You sound like English Bob in Unforgiven right before Gene Hackman beats the crap out of him and bends the barrel of his gun.
"Ask me no questions and I will tell no lies" - Hillary
Thank you Jeb Bush...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huw86FKw6Po
Don't remember the gunbarrel bending scene. Can you link to a YouTube clip?
I'm glad Paul made that point--and this is his value in the race. As a non-interventionist, he can go after Hillary from that angle where most of his opponents (who seem to favor more military campaigns) would run over their own talking points.
Hopefully at least SOMEONE is raising such questions in the media, though--Hillary has been getting too much of a free pass. Reporters HATED Nixon for his inaccessibility--and Hillary is taking that to a new level.
I would say that I thought a King was the correct solution for Afghanistan. A monarchy leading to a constitutional monarchy, somewhat consonant with the historical pattern. Armies led by us, sepoy style. When democracy (and SJW politics) is a fetish, it gets misapplied (hammer...nails).
And they are such intractable bumfuck hillbillies over there that any sui generis solution that worked there could not be faulted as lacking exemplary power to ROW. As for that, the exemplary power is that we find a solution that works, not necessarily a cookie cutter to impose the same stamp on everyone.
As for Iraq...it was vitally important to do Iraq, to succeed, and to endure. What part of "the status quo cannot continue" don't people understand? That said, two out of three ain't bad, well not so much. If there was a failure under Bush, besides deferring to the execrable Bremer, it was perhaps in not making us all understand that Iraq was the key log in the Middle East logjam and was going to be a generational project like reforming the Axis powers. It could be seen, but not by low information voters getting the Brave New World treatment and being demagogued by people with no vision or sense of shared purpose.
You tell me, ARM, R&B, garage, machine, whoever, what was Clinton's vision for the ME? Gore's, Kerry's? What do you imagine Obama's to be, whether he is getting it or not? What do you think HRC's may be, or any of her Dem anklebiters? Please save the snark and tu quoque.
Monty, at least under all that shit of false beliefs of yours there's a man in there somewhere. Try and answer me a little serious. Garage, you're a dog lover, you can't be ALL bad. You really can't envision a better world? Can any of you see beyond the tactically useful rubric of MIC pocket-lining?
Please prove you're not robots. I don't ask Robert Cook because he cannot make the conceptual leap.
Don't worry, toy can go back to hating Bush later. But try to see what they were doing.
Toy = you. Stupid Android.
Little Bill returns English Bob's gun.
He doesn't actually bend it on camera, probably had the town blacksmith do it.
The point being, that English Bob was coming to kill mere men. Had it been a Prince, King, or Queen, he would have never left home.
One doesn't shoot a King, but a President, well...
Savages!
The problem with Rand Paul's Hillary retort is that it continues to play the MSM/Democrats' game. The real question today is why did Obama & Hillary lose Iraq, and screw up everywhere else.
Ah yes thanks. That happened after the beating, jail scene, etc.
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