Ron Paul: US gun laws aid Somali pirates

[DadaOrwell]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztBsAXOeYA0

So, what do you think? Is he right? Or should vessels that dock in Massachusetts have to face the state's draconian gun laws, traveling the whole world unarmed?

 

[Titan]

He also commented on Michael Steele's monsterous verbal screw up by deciding that Steele is right!...

"He is guiding the party in the right direction and we (the GOP) are on the verge of victory this fall," said Paul, who mounted an unsuccessful bid for the GOP presidential nomination in 2008. "Chairman Steele should not back off. He is giving the country, especially young people, hope as he speaks truth about this war." (From CNN)

He shouldn't be allowed to be interviewed.

 

[Gonzo]

I missed the whole Steele thing. What happened there?

 

[M1911]

I missed the whole Steele thing. What happened there?

He's in the process of running the RNC into the ground, while greatly increasing RNC spending on luxury travel (four-star hotels, limousines, and private jets) and fine food at RNC events. Instead of spending money to support Republican candidates, Steele is livin' large.

 

[Gonzo]

He's in the process of running the RNC into the ground, while greatly increasing RNC spending on luxury travel (four-star hotels, limousines, and private jets) and fine food at RNC events. Instead of spending money to support Republican candidates, Steele is livin' large.

So he's acting like a politician?

 

[M1911]

So he's acting like a politician?

Not all politicians are that stupid and that greedy. In the past, most RNC events were relatively sparse affairs. They didn't spend millions on the catering -- they spent it campaigning and organizing.

The money donated to the RNC should be spent defeating Democrats. That is how it was spent in the past. Steele is spending it on himself and his staff.

 

[Gonzo]

Public servant v. Politician.

 

[Titan]

I missed the whole Steele thing. What happened there?

No intent to hijaak, but to respond to your question...

Michael Steele is on video talking to a group of folks saying that the war in Afghanistan is a war of choice for Obama and a that he is making an enormous mistake because anyone who knows history knows that ALL ground wars in Aghanistan in the past 1,000 years have been unwinnable.

LINK

Bill Krystol and others have asked for his resignation. Those who haven't outright asked for it, have condemned his comments in the strongest possible way and suggested that he needs to determine whether or not he can effectively lead the party after these remarks.


Now...back to Ron Paul and the Somali pirates....

 

[Lamina]

Not that I condone or condemn steele, but almost all wars are wars of choice these days.

Politicians choose what is in their, and sometimes the countries, interest. The warfighters interest are sometimes given a moment of consideration.

The warfighter chooses to honor his oath. Or he chooses not to. Or he chooses not to choose.

Unless we become like Isreal... aka, Canada and Mexico both actively trying to destroy us... we choose to fight wars.

Bring the boys (and girls, for you PC types) home. Let them blow eachother up. When they manage to un charlie fox their assess once and awhile and strike us here at home, send lots of big hurty things and a few quiet professionals to remind them why it's a bad idea.

Rinse, repeat.

 

[RKG]

So he's acting like a politician?

More like kid in the candy store.

 

[kevin9]

So he's acting like a politician?

More like kid in the candy store.

Or a drunken sailor. Not there's much of a difference.

 

[cekim]

No intent to hijaak, but to respond to your question...

Michael Steele is on video talking to a group of folks saying that the war in Afghanistan is a war of choice for Obama and a that he is making an enormous mistake because anyone who knows history knows that ALL ground wars in Aghanistan in the past 1,000 years have been unwinnable.

Some more hijacking (of a piracy thread no, less, the irony is overflowing... ):

It is interesting to note that the most recent failure of a "land war in Afghanistan" was in large part due to our arming the Mujahideen against the Soviets. Without this armament, the Afghanis were putting up a spirited defense, but a largely toothless one...

 

[cekim]

Or a drunken sailor. Not there's much of a difference.

Pirates are at least honest about what they are/do.

 

[luv2Bfree]

I haven't paid attention to Michael Steele or the RNC. I disregard any messages sent in his name. The RNC has come so far off course from its roots... Ron Paul, as usual, in his wisdom of Paulitics, is right.

 

[Titan]

Not that I condone or condemn steele, but almost all wars are wars of choice these days.

Politicians choose what is in their, and sometimes the countries, interest. The warfighters interest are sometimes given a moment of consideration.

The warfighter chooses to honor his oath. Or he chooses not to. Or he chooses not to choose.

Unless we become like Isreal... aka, Canada and Mexico both actively trying to destroy us... we choose to fight wars.

Bring the boys (and girls, for you PC types) home. Let them blow eachother up. When they manage to un charlie fox their assess once and awhile and strike us here at home, send lots of big hurty things and a few quiet professionals to remind them why it's a bad idea.

Rinse, repeat.

I understand the point about choice.

I couldn't disagree more about tucking tail and leaving. I think it's absurd to fight to take the same land twice and 'waste' blood and treasure in doing so. The 'solution' of waiting for them to attack here, then punishing them, is just as bad an idea as it was on 9-10-2001.

The fact is that Steele was factually incorrect/irresponsible on multiple levels. The war in Afghanistan wasn't Obama's war of choice, it was initiated by Bush and Congress in response to 19 guys from Al-Qaeda, supported by the Taliban who killed nearly 3,000 people with airplanes.

Nobody despises Obama more than me, but the only thing he chose to do was to campaign against Bush by suggesting that Iraq was the wrong war and Afghanistan was the just war. He then got more or less pressed into expanding a troop surge, because he couldn't break absolutely EVERY campaign pledge.

Since we have committed our blood and treasure to the cause of battling Al-Qaeda and the Taliban (at a minimum), and that is the explicit policy of both the Republicans and the entire U.S., it is completely irresponsible for Steele to undermine that effort and attack the morale of our fighting forces, via the comments he made. He is PAID to represent the Republican Party and its policy positions.

He is NOT paid to misstate facts and undermine the nation's war effort. There are plenty of leftists/Socialists/Democrats getting paid to do that!

 

[Lamina]

Titan...

Unfortunately, we're in a quagmire. There is not good solution for the equation we've been drawn into.

I concur that there are issues with leaving. But if this were truly a "war" we cannot win, what purpose do we serve to continue to sacrifice our blood just so we can say we did not sacrifice our blood in vain?

We, as a nation, as a military power... we are capable of "defeating" the enemy through the might of our violence and the power of our technology. We are not capable, however, of defeating the creation of those enemies with military force. The only way we stand to exterminate the creation of our foes is to either reduce their will to fight by beating it out of them (which the puppeteers have not the stomach nor conviction to do), or "convert" them by way of showing them that their way is inferior, not only in type but in ability to deliver them happiness.

We need to pick one of the two paths and stick to it. We are half assing both, which will assure neither can work.

 

[Titan]

Lamina,

We absolutely CAN win in Afghanistan, but I agree it will take a much different level of political will than what exists now.

"We have the tools, we have the technology!" It's the will to win that needs pumping up!

Bugging out is not the answer.

 

[Bill Nance]

Lamina,

We absolutely CAN win in Afghanistan, but I agree it will take a much different level of political will than what exists now.

"We have the tools, we have the technology!" It's the will to win that needs pumping up!

Bugging out is not the answer.

I think Afghanistan is going to go down as a debacle, period.

First, the traditional CI model depends on some semblance of normalcy at least at one point, to hearken back to and return people towards. Afghanistan hasn't had any real stability OR justice in over 40 years, meaning it's out of living memory for the majority of the population there. It's hard to get people to "remember when" when there hasn't been a "then" to remember for so long it's meaningless.

The other part of standard CI models is to provide enough security that cooperating with the CI force doesn't mean a virtual death sentence for anyone who does it. Between the sheer size of the country, the geography and the isolated nature of the population, we'll NEVER have the manpower available to maintain security in the boonies. It's like Vietnam in 1965. We may do fine in the cities and surrounding areas, but the Taliban will still control the rest of the country.

CI operations typically last 10+ years as well and depend on a national government that's a reliable partner to the military operation. There is no such government in Afghanistan. Karzai is a modern Ngo Dinh Diem only even more incompetent.

Could the U.S. turn Afghanistan into a more stable place that made it a less than ideal spot got terrorist training? Perhaps so. But the cost is going to be so high that I see no way you could possibly justify it.

Iraq was a far, far easier place to intervene in than Afghanistan ever will be. Prior to the first gulf war and the sanctions it was one of the most modern, secular and educated places in the Arab world. The whole Dirka Dirka Muhammed Jihad thing was only an afterthought after the gulf war started and Hussein was using religion to legitimize his rule and stay in power. There is actual infrastructure (as broken and shitty as it is) in Iraq, and we haven't even had to spend much time in the entire northern part of the country due to the Kurds.

Short of full-on nuclear genocide or a decade(s)-long fight with 100k+ guys on the ground, I see no major results likely that we couldn't do a lot cheaper with a lot fewer people, from over the horizon with special ops people and drones targeting the bad guys wherever we find them.

You'll recall the Taliban didn't attack us. They gave Al Quaeda safe haven, which definitely warranted our initial invasion. But frankly if the people of Afghanistan was to live in a violent, miserable Hellhole, it's THEIR problem. I think we should give them a specific timeline (privately, not just for domestic political advantage) that we are GONE in x time, so get their shit together because we are NOT going to fight their war for them indefinitely.

Taking another couple of thousand dead and few thousand more serious wounded when the whole thing is highly unlikely to produce the desired end result is sheer bloody-mindedness or substituting your brain with your ego.

CI isn't going to work long-term in Afghanistan. You can't fight a conventional war against an insurgency and brutality, purely aside from the political costs, near and long term, simply won't work. The Russkies tried it and it was less than useless.

Since you're so sure "We CAN win in Afghanistan," I'd like to hear some specifics that will have any meaning in the larger context of our end goals.

Thumping your chest and intimating that only reason we're having trouble is "will" may feel good, but you have yet to state a specific strategy you advocate. Making Afghanistan a permanent colony with a permanent giant occupying force is not an option. And another decade of war is something we simply cannot afford.

 

[Titan]

Could the U.S. turn Afghanistan into a more stable place that made it a less than ideal spot got terrorist training? Perhaps so. But the cost is going to be so high that I see no way you could possibly justify it.

It's pretty simple really. The war has to actually be fought. The costs of leaving are simply higher than the costs of fighting a decisive war. We didn't run from WWII because it was expensive. We fought it to a resolution.

I'm not interested in any comparison to the Russians. We're not the Russians... our forces are volunteer, more highly motivated, and better equipped.

I agree it will be a disaster if the current course continues. We have to drop the idea of building a better country than has ever existed there and focus on routing out the enemy. If the threat to the locals is destroyed, they'll come around.

Pulling out and coming home is simply not an option unless you want to surrender to fundamentalist extremism and constantly fight a defensive war in the U.S. or keep moving resources back and forth to the middle east every few years (with all of the attendant hassle, expense, delay, and repetitive loss of life).

Unless we focus on decisively destroying the enemy through air and ground efforts, we might as well start buying burqqhas for our women.

I realize there's no evidence that the current administration will take the steps necessary to win. I'm hoping that changes after Petraeus recommends a new approach. This can only end two ways....complete annihilation of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban hostiles, OR we tuck tail and run, inviting our enemies to attack us later at a time and place of their choosing.

Sooner or later fundamentalist Islam has to be confronted head on and CRUSHED. If it isn't through lack of political will, then we'll likely not see things settle down until after a nuclear holocaust.

Any course we take, has consequences that can't be ignored.

 

[z0mbi]

Just what would 'winning' in Afghanistan entail, anyway?

 

[Batbox]

are we done talking about pirates here? i find the idea of bringing back letters of mark and reprisal very interesting, possibly the second best solution i've heard (the best being allowing ships to defend themselves.)

 

[TomH]

Just what would 'winning' in Afghanistan entail, anyway?

Nothing short of hope and change. We will never see the day. I agree with RP, get out now and beef up our own border defenses instead. We'll never kill them all over there, and we'll never save that country from being a mess. The "lack of will" is correct, but not OUR will, it is lack of will from Afghanistan.

 

[Bill Nance]

It's pretty simple really. The war has to actually be fought. The costs of leaving are simply higher than the costs of fighting a decisive war. We didn't run from WWII because it was expensive. We fought it to a resolution.

You're making an utterly ridiculous argument. It's completely divorced from all reality.

This is not WW2. We're not fighting a conventional force that's locateable and therefore destroyable. Pretending that "lack of will" is the only thing stopping us from the decisive battle that will settle Afghanistan is wishful thinking. It's no more true in Afghanistan than it was of the VC in Vietnam. Insurgents aren't fing idiots. It's not an accident that they hide and only attack when they have the advantage. Do you seriously think we aren't constantly looking for insurgents? Do you seriously think that ROEs result in the entire Taliban (who, but the way, never attacked us in the first place) evading our forces? Or are you of the opinion that it's worth keeping 100,000+ troops on the ground indefinitely to find and kill the estimated 50-100 Al Quaeda fighters in the country?

Your argument is essentially the same one Westmoreland and the other "hey dididle, right up the middle" airborne WW2 vets were making in Vietnam. they were looking for a head-to-head confrontation. A confrontation they virtually never got outside Tet, which was a disaster of biblical proportions for the VC and the North Vietnamese. We're not going to get a large-scale conventional fight and you don't win wars of insurgency that have a lot of support form the locals by blowing up civilian houses and killing one bad guy at the cost of a whole family. If you do, you just created more bad guys than you killed. It's the entire point of CI.

I'm not interested in any comparison to the Russians. We're not the Russians... our forces are volunteer, more highly motivated, and better equipped.

Where did I make a comparison to the fighting capabilities of the Russians? I said brutality doesn't work.

I agree it will be a disaster if the current course continues. We have to drop the idea of building a better country than has ever existed there and focus on routing out the enemy. If the threat to the locals is destroyed, they'll come around.

They won't come around if you've killed so many people's relatives with indiscriminate bombing with no concern for collateral damage that you're considered no better than the Taliban and foreign invaders to boot.

Pulling out and coming home is simply not an option unless you want to surrender to fundamentalist extremism and constantly fight a defensive war in the U.S. or keep moving resources back and forth to the middle east every few years (with all of the attendant hassle, expense, delay, and repetitive loss of life).

Please stop arguing against a position that no one is advocating. It just makes you look silly. The alternative to a giant force on the ground was to withdraw most of our troops over the next few years and continue to fight the insurgents from over the horizon with drones and special ops. NO ONE in power has ever suggested simply pulling out and hoping for the best.

Unless we focus on decisively destroying the enemy through air and ground efforts, we might as well start buying burqqhas for our women.

There you go again. Engaging in wishful thinking that this is like WW2 with a country and a capitol, and an army that stands up and fights you toe-to-toe. -Ain't happenin'. We're already decisively focusing on that. But nothing about fighting an insurgency is actually decisive. It's 1000 little things that add up to a win. And conflicts against some insurgencies are simply unwinnable completely. Look at Peru and the Shining Path, or Sri Lanka and the Tamil Tigers. Hell, even the Khmer Rouge still has people hiding out in the jungle. You get them weak enough not to cause too much trouble and that's the best you can do.

I realize there's no evidence that the current administration will take the steps necessary to win. I'm hoping that changes after Petraeus recommends a new approach.

Which finally, shows your points for being what they are. Completely ignorant of the whole thing.

The CI strategy is PETRAEUS' baby! It's not even the Obama preferred strategy! McChrystal didn't come up with the CI strategy, he just implemented it. Petraeus' whole deal in Iraq was based on traditional CI. Marginalizing the enemy's ability to inflict damage while simultaneously providing the security they needed to induce cooperation and indeed, recruited many who fought against us to swap sides. It's as textbook as CI gets.

IMO, Afghanistan is such a vastly more difficult place for such a strategy to work it's hardly worth bothering with. Geography alone defeats you in half the country because you can't kill what you can't find. No one is suggesting unilateral pullout except some of the idiots on the left. It's not even a mainstream leftist idea, much less a liberal one. All critics of the war is saying for the most part is that what we're accomplishing there is small in terms of OUR interests and the cost is enormous. I'd far rather concentrate our military power on focused, clear and acheivable goals than fritter it away chasing chimeras merely to assuage your ego.

We'll do a lot better putting more effort into getting spies on the ground and using locals to rat out the bad guys and THEN pounding the crap out of the enemy than we will with an indefinite large military presence. And that's the big downside of CI. It takes 10+ years win, sometimes a lot longer. I don't want to be in Afghanistan for the next decade or more and that's the only way to have a hope of winning militarily.

 

[OPM]

Or we could go around the country knock on the doors and ask, are you with Al-Qaeda? If they answer yes – shoot them in the head. If they say no – ask them if they are with Taliban? If they say yes – shoot them in the head. If they say no – go to the next house. Employing this strategy we should have this whole conflict won by Christmas.

 

[cekim]

Or we could go around the country knock on the doors and ask, are you with Al-Qaeda? If they answer yes – shoot them in the head. If they say no – ask them if they are with Taliban? If they say yes – shoot them in the head. If they say no – go to the next house. Employing this strategy we should have this whole conflict won by Christmas.

Well, you laugh, but that's the basic idea behind the FA-10 and 4473 form...

 

[OPM]

Well, you laugh, but that's the basic idea behind the FA-10 and 4473 form...

Sadly and unfortunately, you are absolutely correct. [sad2]

 

[Titan]

Bill Nance posted...

They won't come around if you've killed so many people's relatives with indiscriminate bombing with no concern for collateral damage that you're considered no better than the Taliban and foreign invaders to boot.

To bad that you've decided to make this so personal. It's got nothing to do with my ego.

We didn't worry about 'hearts and minds' in Japan or Germany and need to get over worrying about it. It's only important if you plan to rebuild the country you destroy, or build something that was never there after the conflict. There's nothing in Afghanistan worth re-building and creating a democracy out of a place that has been tribal for a thousand years, isn't likely to work.

We just aren't going to see eye to eye on this. I believe the insurgents can be beaten into dust and we don't have to befriend them, or turn the locals against them. I understand Petraeus is the key guy regarding CI, but I also understand that he's bright enough to realize, over time, that a different course is required in Aghanistan. I find him very capable of realizing when something isn't working.

So, you're for the Murtha plan over there, eh....pull out and remain 'ready' from 'over the horizon'. I beleive Murtha's thought was that Okinawa would be the perfect 'over the horizon' location. Brilliant!

Any idea what it takes to move massive resources in and out of a place like Afghanistan? It's absurd to believe the problems there can be addressed with drones alone. Where do you think intelligence will come from? Some efforts REQUIRE boots on the ground.

My son in law is active duty 3rd ID, so I don't make recommendations to stay there and fight to a solution lightly. I feel that I have 'skin in the game'. I'd never advocate putting my son-in-law in harm's way for my ego. I take the U.S. strategy for success or failure over there VERY seriously.

You and I just disagree and neither of us will change the other's mind. There are lots of people in MA that I find I can't come to agreement with on a whole range of issues.

Nice chatting with you.

 

[cekim]

They won't come around if you've killed so many people's relatives with indiscriminate bombing with no concern for collateral damage that you're considered no better than the Taliban and foreign invaders to boot.

I can't question the "micro" logic there, but it does raise a point that keeps coming up again and again...

The progression of warfare is generally something like:
1. Disagreement/misunderstanding/hatred
2. Open Conflict
3. Cease-Fire
*4. Reconciliation/Resolution

*#4 reconciliation assumes that both parties still exist rather than one having been destroyed in the process either literally or figuratively sufficient to permanently remove their "power" to wage war/raise armies as that entity.

Wash, rinse and repeat 2,3,4 until a meaningful resolution is found (again, accepting that resolution has often meant the complete destruction of one party or another as a "nation").

So, without going into a dissertation on the variations on this theme, it seems to me that we have tried to compress/skip to the reconciliation phase before "victory." We go into "wars" now with the idea of winning "hearts and minds" before we have assured that we can "win" at all.

I understand why we do this. It seems like a good idea to minimize the fighting by making friends of those within your enemies influence who aren't committed to the ideals of your enemy. It's always good to have an end-game in mind, but you need to assure that you win before you start worrying about the reconstruction afterward.

However, I think it is a mistake that ultimately costs more lives (on one or both sides) in the end and extends the "conflict" (and thus the killing and recruitment power of it for the enemy).

 

[Cato]

I would rather that every man, women and child in Afghanistan be completely vaporized before even one US soldier receives just a simple flesh wound.

 

[mikem317]

We already won Afghanistan. There are less than a few dozen low-level operatives in Afghanistan now. We won. Come home. Time to stop spending this once great republic into nothingness.