- This topic has 63 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 16 years, 2 months ago by
.
- Posts
no, he’s against FEDERAL help – ie money being taken without authority from taxpayers not in the state affected. he’s all for voluntary donations and the affected state itself using its resources.
he also says that federal agencies have shown themselves to be pants in such situations. not only do they not perform, they stop anyone else from performing .
and its not true that only the US military has the logistics for humanitarian relief. most of its logistics come from hired private sector suppliers, from food to heavy machinery. anyone with money can hire them. relief agencies are able to collect money, provide supplies and co-ordinate delivery a lot better than the military.
the US military has little more than weapons and soldiers. and in many places even those are bought in from the private sector. "Private Military Companies" (PMCs), "Military Firms", "Military Service Providers" (MSPs), "Privatized Military Firms" (PMFs), "Transnational Security Corporations" (TSCs), and "security contractors" all point at the same phenomenon: firms offering security and military-related services that up to the 1980s used to be considered the preserve of the state. More of them in Iraq than regular US troops.
US doesn’t want a foreign power influencing Haiti (not happy even with Taiwan being Haiti’s mainstay 2000-2004). Also doesn’t want hordes from Haiti getting into boats and showing up in US.
As for WW II, not surprised that you think US should have got involved before it was directly attacked at Pearl Harbor.
From everything you’ve said, its apparent that – along with Blair and others – you are totally signed-up to the Project for the New American Century – ie the military imposition worldwide of US interests and ideals as defined by those in control in Washington:
http://www.newamericancentury.org/Rebui … fenses.pdf
presumably including (as the project says) moving on beyond the Middle East to East Asia (ie China) ?
in your words, anyone who disagrees with “pax Americana” must be “mentally ill”, a “nut”, etc.
including presumably the founding fathers, who advocated open trade, travel, communication, and diplomacy with other nations, but strictly forbade intervening militarily, financially, or covertly in the internal affairs of other nations, absent direct attack on the US.
“steer clear of entangling alliances with the foreign world” said Washington the man.
Washington the place does the opposite – it keeps military bases in 130 countries of the world and constantly intervenes in their affairs, including involving itself multiple intractable and endless conflicts.
this all costs of course, and its only right that those who “benefit” should pay – so we’ll take those resources.
don’t worry, we’ll give you in return some vouchers that we’ve printed up – you can swap them for stuff in our country (but we’ll keep control of what you can get for them – obviously wouldn’t want you buying and controlling our important stuff, ha ha).
these vouchers are even accepted in other countries for other stuff because they’re what’s called “the world’s reserve currency”.
no, they stopped being backed by gold in 1971.
no, obviously not good news if we debase them by printing huge amounts. don’t shout it about though.
and don’t go spending them all at once though for real stuff like fuel, food, shelter, or minerals. you’ll start a run.
then it will only hurt your holdings of them……plus the value of the next bunch of them that you’ll get for the next lot of resources we take in exchange for you getting the benefit of our presence here.
what do you mean, you can’t afford us and don’t want us around ? that option’s not on the table, sunshine. how are we going to eat and drive big cars if we don’t sell you our protection ?
give us them resources if you know what’s good for you – remember who’s got the hardware.
So you are seriously telling me that if there was this earthquake in San Francisco and the military had the hardware to bring relief, then Ron Paul would be against that because it "!required taxpayers permission"?
Is this for real?
Is he autistic?
People dying or buried under rubble cannot be rescued because the congress has to pass a resolution or something
This is barmy.
As for ww11, well i will go along with the view that thet the nazis were a rather evil empire (not a view shared by a lot of Ron Paul supporters admittedly) and defeat of them by whatever means and whatever interventions was highly desirable.
you’re confusing who has the equipment (basically private contractors have heavy-lifting stuff) with who pays for hiring it.
the military corps is not the peace corps, nor is it a relief agency.
as recent history has shown, there are a lot more capable and faster relief operators around than the federal agencies you revere.
as to your approach on going to war, you’re just another Tony Blair – never mind the truth or what anyone else thinks, you’ll make sure war happens because you’re in a position to finagle it, and you’ve decided in your infinite wisdom it must happen.
you are war "by whatever means": Ron is "by the proper means".
pretty obvious as to who is the dictator as between your approach and Ron’s.
this is getting silly now…
Private contractors do not have the resources of the US military. Ok? They simply do not
and for the nth time, it is of no relevance whether the military do a good bad or indifferent job in Ron Pauls world,… he is against it ON PRINCIPLE, because it is THE UNAUTHORISED USE OF TAXPAYERS MONEY
And that is barmy
It means that a goverment would refuse to rescue its own people in a natural disaster. Simple as that
As for the rest, i think you are getting a bit embarrassing now.
i’m sorry its embarrassing for you, but going to war "by whatever means" as the result of a personal conviction of a leader, rather than "by the right means" as laid down by laws governing such a decision, is a perversion of democracy.
Ron would have gone into WWII according to the law, as in fact was done, after a direct attack on the US.
you deride his approach and say the US should have gone into WWII earlier, before any direct attack, regardless of what its law says because the Nazis were bad people (albeit they were democratically elected and were under threat from their neighbours, so on your Israel justification, would have been entitled to have nuclear weapons).
its a mirror of your attitude on attacking Iran – never mind whether they’ve actually done anything wrong under the IAEA, never mind whether they’ve actually got any WMD: they’re also "bad people" and deserve to be attacked. (although again, Iran is a democracy under threat – none of the politicos there differs on nuclear – and under threat from its neighbours, so on your Israel justification, would also be entitled to nuclear weapons).
on Katrina:
"Blackwater Worldwide was employed to assist the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts on the Gulf Coast.
According to a company press release, it provided airlift, security, logistics, and transportation services, as well as humanitarian support.
It was reported that the company also acted as law enforcement in the disaster-stricken areas, for example securing neighborhoods and confronting criminals.
Blackwater moved about 200 personnel into the area hit by Hurricane Katrina, most of whom (164 employees) were working under a contract with the Department of Homeland Security to protect government facilities, but the company held contracts with private clients as well.
Overall, Blackwater had a "visible, and financially lucrative, presence in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as the use of the company contractors cost U.S. taxpayers $240,000 a day."
There has been much dispute surrounding governmental contracts in post-Katrina New Orleans, especially no-bid contracts such as the one Xe was awarded. Xe’s heavily-armed presence in the city was also the subject of much confusion and criticism. "
Who needs the military?
Meanwhile:
"….emergency operations chief Terry Ebbert blamed the inadequate response on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). "This is not a FEMA operation. I haven’t seen a single FEMA guy", he said. "FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control….
..Many police, fire and EMS organizations from outside the affected areas were reportedly stymied in their efforts to send help and assistance to the area. FEMA sent hundreds of firefighters who had volunteered to help rescue victims to Atlanta for 2 days of training classes on topics including sexual harassment and the history of FEMA."
More from Ron on your Federal favourite:
Why are you posting about the QUALITY of the military effort at Katrina when Ron Paul is against the aid in PRINCIPLE? Full stop. He declares all aid to be ILLEGAL without "taxpayers permission". I am repeating myself, but I tend to think a decent goverment might look at a domestic disaster as something to be tackled rather than debated? dont you? Isnt that simple humanity?
Stop trying to muddy the waters by flooding the thread with irrelevance
As for ww11, yes i do think the nazis were "bad people" ("under threat from their neighbours"????) I do think that intervention to stop a genocidal regime is a good thing, whether it is "legal" or not. Yes, the americans could have saved thousands of lives (anmd perhaps even the holocaust) by earlier intervention. yes, I do not have a problem with that.
But please shoot me if I ever ended up worrting about obscure legal points rather than humanity…
Oh and Iran
never mind whether they’ve actually done anything wrong under the IAEA
I think you should be keeping up with the news
its because in principle the military is not about humanitarianism – as seen, that’s for others.
the military is about force and control by its political masters, who have no qualms using it to delay and deny the humanitarianism when it suits.
thank you for the news just in.
"What has happened with this report is that the new IAEA chief, Yukiya Amano, a Japanese lawyer and diplomat, is more open in saying that Iran’s activities do raise concerns, not just about its past programmes but about its present……
..while the language is stronger, it is less clear that the evidence is…
The effect, though, is that the headlines taken from this report are more dramatic and the arguments for sanctions are more pronounced."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle … 524479.stm
nice move. and so another war comes nearer for the Project for the New American Century.
…I’m not sure who won that….?
but it was an interesting discussion nonetheless, if not yet finished…regardless:-
If Mossad is responsible, and I think it could hardly be anyone else, for stealing the identities of British and Irish passport holders in their dirty deed, then I’ve really had my bellyful of Israel for the time being, it’s a despicable act [let alone the murder], and if I’ve ever felt they were on our side, and vice versa, well I’ve had enough of them – I no longer care what happens and I think that’s an awful and shameful thing for me to say and I wonder how many other people living here, who perhaps don’t take a great interest in or have acute knowledge of the facts of the matter, might feel the same.I’ve always given Israel the benefit of any doubt about their rightful place in the Middle East but this is making me seriously anti-Zionist not that they or anyone else would give a jot but my personal way of making a statement will be to avoid buying any Israeli produce in the supermarkets, at least for as long as I can hold out, other than that there’s nothing else one can do.
Ugly mare
Isnt it very obvious that their is only one winner in an argument between whether a government should offer aid in a disaster or not?
Are you also a moral vacuum?
Compared with the actions of many states in the world at any one time, i think the stealing of passports to carry out a (very welcome IMO) act is not exactly going to get me joining amnesty internationl
Oh hang on…I would have to be a taleban sympathiser for that one now
Ugly mare
Isnt it very obvious that their is only one winner in an argument between whether a government should offer aid in a disaster or not?
Are you also a moral vacuum?
…I wasn’t referring to the merits of the arguments, merely that one antagonist appeared to have left the field.
………
Getting the ‘top man’ of Hamas may be relief to many and a feeling of ”that’s one more out the way”, and something I may have felt in the past with our own terrorists, such as an incident in Gibraltar some years back with an IRA cell, but just because Israeli’s are not allowed to travel to Arab states
, doesn’t give them the right to steal identities of innocent people unconnected with their clandestine activities.
You are defending the indefensible, and shame on you and anyone else for doing so.
UM,
not so much left the field, as trying to think through the chinese position on yesterday afternoon’s announcement.
the other national reactions were predictable.
also i think i’ve gone as far as i can with clivexx, whose position above is very clear and unashamedly non-objective:
– nuclear in israel good; nuclear in any neighbour bad
– genocide against israel bad, genocide by israel good (though then the term becomes "self-defence")
– rule of law and constitutional checks and balances all to be cast aside whenever an arbitrary squawk of "humanitarian" or "democracy" is attached to a proposition, however irrationally
– if a democratic process doesn’t yield the in-his-mind "correct" result, it can’t have been democratic after all.
that a fair summary, clivexx?
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.