youtube.com— Ron Paul gives opening statement and then questions the panel during House Foreign Affairs Committee on the War in Afghanistan on October 15th, 2009.
Oct 17, 2009View in Crawl 4
Ron Paul suggested the cowardly and antiquated use of letters of Marque and Reprisal after september 11th in lieu of military action. 'nuff said.Can you imagine how weakened and defenseless the world would have looked if we Paul had been president, and we issued letters meant for the seizure of pirate ships? We'd be a laughing stock of the world and all those terrorists who wanted to hurt us (not to mention foreign nations that would love to see us weakened) would realize that it was open season as the US wouldn't be doing anything to defend themselves. Very dangerous that Paul even suggested such ridiculousness. So no, Mr. paul, we don't care what your opinions of Afghanistan are at all (capitulating to the terrorists... just like he suggested in 2001), and frankly it would save this country further embarrassment if you just stayed quite for the remainder of your political career.
Because the marque letters are impractical for dealing with large scale enemies like those who attacked us. Maybe in the 18th century when they were used to go after a single pirate ship, that could work; but essentially it would just be de facto contracting of large scale mercenaries to fight our battle instead of US forces, which for one sends the wrong message image wise, makes the conflict harder to regulate, makes oversight more difficult and is impractical on a logistical basis. Those letters were designed to deal with individuals and small groups at best - not like the forces of the taliban and al qaeda.
So do you think when a predator drone launches a hellfire missile it only kills "bad guys"? No, it kills men, women, and children who are guilty only of trying to live their lives. Those who are not killed are given more then enough reason to not like America. For every militant killed you create 20 more. Whats really disturbing to me is that this doesn't even register with some people like NoLibs. Do these arrogant Americans really think that human lives in other countries don't count as much as anyone in their own family? Oh yeah.... That's right, they just "hate us because of our freedom". The blowing up of their villages has absolutely nothing to do with it...... Good grief what have we become?
endantisemitismOct 17, 2009
Ron Paul suggested the cowardly and antiquated use of letters of Marque and Reprisal after september 11th in lieu of military action. 'nuff said.Can you imagine how weakened and defenseless the world would have looked if we Paul had been president, and we issued letters meant for the seizure of pirate ships? We'd be a laughing stock of the world and all those terrorists who wanted to hurt us (not to mention foreign nations that would love to see us weakened) would realize that it was open season as the US wouldn't be doing anything to defend themselves. Very dangerous that Paul even suggested such ridiculousness. So no, Mr. paul, we don't care what your opinions of Afghanistan are at all (capitulating to the terrorists... just like he suggested in 2001), and frankly it would save this country further embarrassment if you just stayed quite for the remainder of your political career.
neognosticOct 18, 2009
@jam - Newsflash!RP got less than 1 % of the republican primary vote.
endantisemitismOct 18, 2009
Because the marque letters are impractical for dealing with large scale enemies like those who attacked us. Maybe in the 18th century when they were used to go after a single pirate ship, that could work; but essentially it would just be de facto contracting of large scale mercenaries to fight our battle instead of US forces, which for one sends the wrong message image wise, makes the conflict harder to regulate, makes oversight more difficult and is impractical on a logistical basis. Those letters were designed to deal with individuals and small groups at best - not like the forces of the taliban and al qaeda.
rexbladeOct 19, 2009
So do you think when a predator drone launches a hellfire missile it only kills "bad guys"? No, it kills men, women, and children who are guilty only of trying to live their lives. Those who are not killed are given more then enough reason to not like America. For every militant killed you create 20 more. Whats really disturbing to me is that this doesn't even register with some people like NoLibs. Do these arrogant Americans really think that human lives in other countries don't count as much as anyone in their own family? Oh yeah.... That's right, they just "hate us because of our freedom". The blowing up of their villages has absolutely nothing to do with it...... Good grief what have we become?