Rand Paul: It Was a 'Mistake' to Overthrow Saddam Hussein

[EC]

All the dead terrorists might disagree with you on that point.....   

That said, if these wars had been waged more aggressively, we would have won them sooner.

But we DID win them.

Until Obama came along.....

The dead terrorists are not the point, m'lady. In the past 14 years we've killed somewhere around 50,000 terrorists, total. More than that if you count them blowing themselves up as a a win. It's like taking a bucket of water out of the ocean then claiming the ocean levels are dropping. Terrorists are 10 a penny.

What needs to be done is to get rid of the recruiting tool of the terrorists.

While bigun makes a solid point that Iran is a huge problem, and I'm not going to diminish their threat or his very valid concerns, ALL Islamic terrorist organisations are Wahabbi school. The same school promulgated world wide by the House of Saud.

[Lando Lincoln]

You'll get no argument from me.

Nor me.

[Bigun]

The dead terrorists are not the point, m'lady. In the past 14 years we've killed somewhere around 50,000 terrorists, total. More than that if you count them blowing themselves up as a a win. It's like taking a bucket of water out of the ocean then claiming the ocean levels are dropping. Terrorists are 10 a penny.

What needs to be done is to get rid of the recruiting tool of the terrorists.

While bigun makes a solid point that Iran is a huge problem, and I'm not going to diminish their threat or his very valid concerns, ALL Islamic terrorist organisations are Wahabbi school. The same school promulgated world wide by the House of Saud.

When and if the Mullahs in Iran are ever effectively dealt with the rest of the Wahabist will fall in line rather easily IMHO.

[alicewonders]

The dead terrorists are not the point, m'lady. In the past 14 years we've killed somewhere around 50,000 terrorists, total. More than that if you count them blowing themselves up as a a win. It's like taking a bucket of water out of the ocean then claiming the ocean levels are dropping. Terrorists are 10 a penny.

What needs to be done is to get rid of the recruiting tool of the terrorists.

While bigun makes a solid point that Iran is a huge problem, and I'm not going to diminish their threat or his very valid concerns, ALL Islamic terrorist organisations are Wahabbi school. The same school promulgated world wide by the House of Saud.

The House of Saud. 

You are right EC - killing terrorists is a futile venture, more will always pop up.  But who will fight the Saudis?  I don't see our country doing that with either a Democrat or Republican administration - and there lies the crux of the problem. 

Why can't we use our own energy resources and stop our dependence on foreign sources?  It's the money, always the money.  That is why I don't favor us engaging in any more war over there until we attack the root of the problem. 

[Dexter]

As long as the bad guys in the ME are targeting us ("Death to America") we're going to need to be involved there.

What does our involvement there do to help protect us here? Acts of terror can be carried out with very few people. There is no logical connection between our wars there and our safety here.

[Dexter]

The very big issue is avoided. Will American voters support a big enough military force, to defeat, occupy, pacify the Islamic world, or not?

I think anybody that would consider our military to be in need of growth is outside of the realm of reason. You can't defeat and pacify this type of extremism with military force. Our involvement makes their extremists feel more justified and helps them grow in number.

[DCPatriot]

How could anybody say liberating Iraq was a mistake?

Obama walked away from the SOF (Status of Forces) Agreement. under the guise of protecting our troops.  He stopped all negotiations once Iraqi officials demanded that American soldiers be subject to Sharia and for possible war crimes.

Iraq relented to no avail.  Nobody answered the 3AM phone call.

[Dexter]

Impossible to prove I suppose, but had there been a cohesive Administration following GWB, we'd be touting Iraq as a successful - or at least, hopeful - use of our military.  We had it in our hands to develop a base in Iraq of some "permanency" smack between Syria and Iran with the sensible Kurds and (yes) the Turks to the north.  Saudi Arabia, to the south would be friendly flyover sand to Yemen/Somalia and we'd have had an immoveable naval fleet presence in the Persian Gulf.  Stubborn democratic reform in Iraq would have had a life.  Our intelligence in the region would be growing exponentially by the day.

Instead, because of Obama's political calculus, we have Assad entrenched, ISIS and massive relinquished territory, thousands of innocent dead and persecuted, Iraq again in disarray, Putin's navy in the Gulf, Iran is trading rugs for nukes with John Kerry, Israel is on its own for the most part, Yemen is training its own jihadists, and emboldened bad guys throughout the region. And don't forget Afghanistan and even Pakistan being bold and cocky. 

We were there.  Blood and treasure sunk and invested.  What remained was a generational presence.  Obama ensured the catastrophe.

(BTW... I could not agree more on the Rules of Engagement.)

The problem with the "peace" we created in Iraq is its shaky existence was completely dependent on our occupation of the area. It's not real peace if you need tanks and airstrikes readily available to maintain it. We can't permanently occupy the Middle East.

[Dexter]

How could anybody say liberating Iraq was a mistake?

Obama walked away from the SOF (Status of Forces) Agreement. under the guise of protecting our troops.  He stopped all negotiations once Iraqi officials demanded that American soldiers be subject to Sharia and for possible war crimes.

Iraq relented to no avail.  Nobody answered the 3AM phone call.

We don't have the resources to liberate every disadvantaged person on Earth. There is a laundry list of horrible leaders that commit wrongdoing on innocent people, some of which we trade heavily with. Are we morally obligated to stop them too?

[EC]

We don't have the resources to liberate every disadvantaged person on Earth. There is a laundry list of horrible leaders that commit wrongdoing on innocent people, some of which we trade heavily with. Are we morally obligated to stop them too?

Nope. That's your call as a country.

However, I do think if you start something you are morally obliged to finish it.

[DCPatriot]

We don't have the resources to liberate every disadvantaged person on Earth. There is a laundry list of horrible leaders that commit wrongdoing on innocent people, some of which we trade heavily with. Are we morally obligated to stop them too?

That little girl in in the photo is a grown woman today, perhaps with children of her own.  However, in all likelihood, she is dead today.

We liberated those people.  We won them their freedom and Barack Obama stole it away from them.

Makes me want to puke.

[Dexter]

Nope. That's your call as a country.

However, I do think if you start something you are morally obliged to finish it.

How should we have finished it? How could we have finished it? Everybody likes to imply we just didn't try hard enough, as if we were getting calls from Washington telling us to ease up on the terrorists. We leveled countless buildings and killed tens of thousands of people. If we knew where they were we were working out the best way to destroy them. I'd like somebody to explain to me in detail the steps that should have been taken to defeat extremism and create lasting peace in the Middle East.

[truth_seeker]

The problem with the "peace" we created in Iraq is its shaky existence was completely dependent on our occupation of the area. It's not real peace if you need tanks and airstrikes readily available to maintain it. We can't permanently occupy the Middle East.

We defeated Germany and Japan militarily, then sat on them for decades to be sure they stayed defeated.

We had a draft, too. The occupation to subdue the Germans, became the first line of defense in the Cold War with the USSR.

[Dexter]

We defeated Germany and Japan militarily, then sat on them for decades to be sure they stayed defeated.

We had a draft, too. The occupation to subdue the Germans, became the first line of defense in the Cold War with the USSR.

The Nazis and Japanese wore uniforms that made it really easy to distinguish them from the millions of people that live in those countries. There isn't a bunch of military bases and airfields we can destroy to cripple them. There isn't infrastructure churning out guns and death machines. These are desperate people using desperate means to carry out their extremism, and no amount of killing is going to correct the problem. People try to draw lines between our struggle in the Middle East and World War 2 constantly, but the truth of the matter is this is nothing like World War 2. What worked then doesn't necessarily work now.

[DCPatriot]

The way to victory is to smother the practice of their so-called religion.

Destroy ALL mosques.  Execute all religious leaders.  Gentrify the MFs.   

They don't deserve Islam if they are going to practice the 14th century version in the 21st century.

We won't eradicate the violence.  But we sure will temper it for a few generations at least.

[Dexter]

The way to victory is to smother the practice of their so-called religion.

Destroy ALL mosques.  Execute all religious leaders.  Gentrify the MFs.   

They don't deserve Islam if they are going to practice the 14th century version in the 21st century.

We won't eradicate the violence.  But we sure will temper it for a few generations at least.

Destroying mosques and killing religious leaders would spark Islamic outrage all over the world. This is exactly how you do the opposite of tempering extremism.

[Luis Gonzalez]

What does our involvement there do to help protect us here? Acts of terror can be carried out with very few people. There is no logical connection between our wars there and our safety here.

That's kind of like saying that there is no connection between bars and drunk drivers.

[Dexter]

That's kind of like saying that there is no connection between bars and drunk drivers.

When as few as 1 person can commit an act of terror there is no way to exert force on other regions of the world to protect yourself from that. There are billions of Muslims in the world. Killing a handful of extremists in the Middle East is not going to do anything but possibly increase your chances of being a target.

[Luis Gonzalez]

Sorry about the source. It's the only place I could find this.

A Grand Strategy of Transformation

[Luis Gonzalez]

When as few as 1 person can commit an act of terror there is no way to exert force on other regions of the world to protect yourself from that. There are billions of Muslims in the world. Killing a handful of extremists in the Middle East is not going to do anything but possibly increase your chances of being a target.

You have one pertinent fact wrong.

We are already the target. Doing nothing will simply make us easier targets.

[Bigun]

The way to victory is to smother the practice of their so-called religion.

Destroy ALL mosques.  Execute all religious leaders.  Gentrify the MFs.   

They don't deserve Islam if they are going to practice the 14th century version in the 21st century.

We won't eradicate the violence.  But we sure will temper it for a few generations at least.

Not at all necessary! But we must make it plain to them that we have had enough and will not tolerate any more of this Jihad crap! The Marines dealt with this once before and it took the jihadis 200 years to forget that lesson!

[Dexter]

You have one pertinent fact wrong.

We are already the target. Doing nothing will simply make us easier targets.

We're not the only target, and the more important fact is that wars in the Middle East won't protect us from terrorism. Doing nothing will not make us easier or more difficult targets.

[Luis Gonzalez]

When as few as 1 person can commit an act of terror there is no way to exert force on other regions of the world to protect yourself from that. There are billions of Muslims in the world. Killing a handful of extremists in the Middle East is not going to do anything but possibly increase your chances of being a target.

P.S. There aren't "billions of Muslims in the world", there are @1.5 billion Muslims in the world.

[Luis Gonzalez]

We're not the only target, and the more important fact is that wars in the Middle East won't protect us from terrorism. Doing nothing will not make us easier or more difficult targets.

In the eyes of Islamic radicalism, we are what stands between them and world domination.

[DCPatriot]

Destroying mosques and killing religious leaders would spark Islamic outrage all over the world. This is exactly how you do the opposite of tempering extremism.

BFD, Dexter.

They NEED to be outraged.  Outraged at their militant minority for putting their religion and lives at risk.

They'll be outraged alright.   For about a week.  Then, they'll be begging forgiveness and for mercy.