[FlameDad]

As Red State observes, strange things happen when Tim Russert meets Ron Paul. On MTP this morning, Russert asked Paul a number of questions, from how and what government stuff would Paul pay for once he’s done away with the income tax, to whether America should defend its allies like South Korea (he thinks we shouldn’t, and double ditto that for Israel, and don’t even get him started on any other problem area anywhere in the world — his answer is always to blame America).
Ron Paul, quite incredibly, thinks Iran has no army, no navy and no air force at all and therefore would never attack Israel. Evidently Paul doesn’t realize the utility that ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons would offer an Iran whose president has repeatedly declared his personal desire to wipe Israel off the map. A couple of well-placed nukes could in fact do that, whether Iran has an army or not. Which, by the way, it does. Really. Iran does have an army. A navy and an air force, too, with an indigenously constructed fighter airplane leading the latter into the skies. Paul might want to bone up on that a bit. He’d do well to Google the Shahab series of missiles while he’s at it.

There is much more, pro & con RP

http://hotair.com/archives/2007/12/23/v ... the-press/

[Baldspot]

He might as well stick his head in a hole and forget the world exists.

[4everfsu]

What a nut

[whmatthews]

I just finished reading a book called "Atomic Iran" It was written just before Ahdminijiad (However you spell the President's name) was in power. The author alleges they already have many weapons thanks to the Russians and Chinese, but what they want now is the nuke capabilities and the capabilities to deliver them first to Israel, then America.

Furthermore, wasn't it a headline on Drudge this week about how they're looking into building 12 new nuclear power plants?

[Ed Dantes]

Devil's advocate here -- aside from theology, why should we offer Israel Most Favored Nation status when it comes to our diplomacy in the Middle East?

[ATrain]

Devil's advocate here -- aside from theology, why should we offer Israel Most Favored Nation status when it comes to our diplomacy in the Middle East?

B/c they tend to kick butt in every conflict with other nations that involves them, the Mossad is far better than the CIA and definitely way ahead of any other intelligence service in the Middle East, and economically they are more prosperous than several of their neighbors. In other words, we are aligning with winners when we align with Israel.

[Baldspot]

Israel is democratic in a very undemocratic area of the world.

[Stevewalt]

I am by no means a Middle East expert but this video by Horowitz is very interesting and can shed some light on the conflicts over there. It will also hopefully help others understand why we should and must give Isreal most favored status. Also just because we are the most powerful on the block doesn't mean we don't need allies. If we can trust someone to always have our back I feel we make that bond as strong as possible.

http://www.terrorismawareness.org/what-really-happened

[Ed Dantes]

Israel is democratic in a very undemocratic area of the world.

Actually, many of those areas are democratic. They just had the so-called Cedar Revolution in Lebanon in 2005 where they put in a guy so weak that Hezbollah radicals are trying to overthrow them. Democracy put in Hamas -- a terror organization -- in the Palestinian regions of Israel. Democracy put in a terrible prime minister in Iraq, Nouri Al-Maliki. I'm pretty sure the guy in Egypt was elected.

[Baldspot]

Israel is democratic in a very undemocratic area of the world.

Actually, many of those areas are democratic. They just had the so-called Cedar Revolution in Lebanon in 2005 where they put in a guy so weak that Hezbollah radicals are trying to overthrow them. Democracy put in Hamas -- a terror organization -- in the Palestinian regions of Israel. Democracy put in a terrible prime minister in Iraq, Nouri Al-Maliki. I'm pretty sure the guy in Egypt was elected.

I think most people understand Israel as well as Turkey give us our best chance at maintaining western style democratic governments where the opposition is not murdered before elections as in Pakistan, Lebanon etc or put in jail shortly before elections such as happened with Putin. Try to hold a pro-western rally in front of a Hamas stronghold and find out how strong they believe in democracy.

PS - what's so terrible with Maliki especially when compared to the Baathist led government. Of late, he's done a good job convincing the Sunnis to turn on Al Quaida coupled with the US surge, things are going very well. Its taken a while to get things going but they've had monumental tasks at hand.

[Dale]

Did anyone see Ron Paul on CNN with Glenn Beck last night? It was very interesting. He was on for the whole hour. His views on Israel and the Middle East were very interesting.

[TDDance234]

Did anyone see Ron Paul on CNN with Glenn Beck last night? It was very interesting. He was on for the whole hour. His views on everything are very interesting.

Fixed it for you. I'm not supporting him for president but he sure knows how to seperate himself from the other candidates. And I don't mean that negatively. He really has some interesting views--some of them very valid points, others are a bit off-the-wall.

[Realist]

I think Ron Paul has some great ideas and some very workable solutions to some problems, but then he seems off the deep end on others. I love his healthcare stance in particular, and I come from 2 years of study in that area.

Some of his stuff though scares me too much to vote for him.