The more I think about it, this exchange between Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee was by far the most important of last evening's event. Here's how NPR reported it:
The biggest fireworks of the night came in this exchange between Congressman Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee. Paul is the lone anti-war candidate in the Republican field and wants U.S. troops out of Iraq now."We've dug a hole for ourselves and we've dug a hole for our party," Paul said. "We're losing elections and we're going down next year if we don't change it, and it has all to do with foreign policy and we have to wake up to this fact."
Huckabee responded sharply: "Even if we lose elections, we should not lose our honor, and that is more important than the Republican party."
"We have lost over 5,000 Americans killed in - we've lost over 5,000 Americans over there in Afghanistan, in Iraq and plus the civilians killed," Paul retorted. "How many more you want to lose? How long are you going to be there? How long - what do we have to pay to save face? That's all we're doing, is saving face. It's time we came home."
This is why Ron Paul, as cranky as he comes across, and as eccentric as some of his opinions are, is so valuable in this race. He's speaking the truth here, a truth that no other Republican candidate will even consider. But Huckabee is also speaking from the heart, I believe, and he's articulating what I think is the true bottom line for most conservative voters, whether they realize it or not.
I don't believe that most Republicans believe that the Iraq war is winnable, but I don't think they've reconciled themselves to the painful truth that Ron Paul articulates: that we're stalling trying to figure out how to save face. It would be wrong to sneer at Huckabee's noble sentiment. But let's be clear: we are asking American service men and women to die in a lost cause in large part because our leaders can't stand to lose face.
Am I wrong? Possibly. But how useful to the public debate it would be if the candidates would talk about this instead of repeating robotic bromides about Iraq policy.
UPDATE: Here's a video of the exchange:
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"I see little courage in a politician standing up after the fact and saying "yeah, I agree with them." That they take no action thereafter is a telling fact."
I agree, and that's one reason I'm still p!ssed off at Rod Dreher for his unmitigated, cheerleading support of Bush and the 'war' back in 2003. In his defense, he does appear to have changed his stripes on that one issue. And as a true-blue lefty/progressive, I admit I don't know all I need to know about Ron Paul, but right now he is the only potential candidate who could get my vote today, with Obama running a very distant second.
I intend to make it my goal to dissect and understand all of Ron Paul's positions, and I hope Dreher will continue the blogging on Paul. This might just be my first time ever to vote in the Republican primaries, and judging from the signage in Austin, there will be a lot of other old hippies out there voting for Ron Paul, too!
Franklin Evans
Laws are made to be broken. Many UN members "comply" with UN statutes alot more in word than in deed... and since the invasion of Iraq, the US is counted amongst that crowd including being deserving of sanctions. Think about it.
Actually, no. Countries violate UN rules all the time, but violating the charter is another thing altogether, and invading another country is yet even more horrible than that. Invading another country doesn't subject you to sanctions, it subjects you to invasion, as it is the first, and most important, war crime. (Because without that one, no other war crime could exist.)
We, and by 'we' I mean 'the world', conquer countries and hang their leaders for waging wars of aggression.
Which is what this 'preemptive war' is, because it's not 'preemptive'. Preemptive is if Canada has 100,000 troops on the border and is going clearly going to invade us, so we attack first. That's still not technically legal, but people get away with it if their countries are clearly in danger.
Iraq, sadly for this concept, had no air force or navy or ICBMs, and thus could not, under any imaginable circumstances, invade us, at all, whatsoever, even if they had WMDs.
To recap: What we did to Iraq was legally, morally, ethically, in ever meaning of the term, a 'war of aggression', the exact same thing we hung people for at the end of WWII. All our other wars have been justifible under 'We were invited to a war already in progress' or 'We were authorized by the UN' or something, but not this one.
Compared to that, violating a few copyright treaties or some illegal undersea drilling or refusing to settle a border dispute in the UN instead of with gun are nothing.
People do not really how completely horrible this entire thing was. The 'Bush Doctrine' basically destroys western civilization's past 100 years of work outlawing war.
Our honor, my ass.
"People do not really how completely horrible this entire thing was. The 'Bush Doctrine' basically destroys western civilization's past 100 years of work outlawing war."
I agree, and I would add 'how completely horribe this entire thing is and will be.' It is far from over, and even the best-intentioned amoung us will have a herculean task to extricate us from Iraq in a decade, given the best of circumstances and partisan cooperation.
And the real visionaries are effectively marginalized by the megabuck corporate candidates, and the truth of our condition - our moral and economic health as a nation - is so bitter that few can even recognize it as the truth, much less articulate it persuasively and deal with it as a practical matter. "...and the worst are full of passionate intensity." as Yeats said.
David, I stand corrected in my usage.
I also point out that, in practical terms, the US will never get the reaction it deserves. Our variation on the Golden Rule: he with the most gold to buy the best weapons makes the rules.
Is there anyone left who can say with a straight face that Bush and Cheney (at least) do not deserve impeachment?
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