An objective take on Ron Paul

[theVOID]

So you simultaneously agree with Ron Paul's position of complete non-interventionism while also being against reducing military presence in allied nations where there is no clear and present threat to the liberties of your countrymen due to "logistics"?

Nah, you miss the point...probably deliberately.

There is no point to maintaining troops in Germany or Japan except to provide the very necessary logistical support for our adventures elsewhere.
We have 35,000 troops in S. Korea who are backed by extensive air units in Japan ( including Okinawa.) You cannot simply say, we are at peace with Japan so bring them home because then those guys in Korea would be feeling awfully lonely if L'il Kim decided to cross the border. The North Korean regime is batshit crazy and we do not have a Peace Treaty in Korea - merely an armistice.

Fair call on Japan and Korea then, North Korea are likely a greater threat than Iran so if occupying Iranian border nations is justifiable then troops in South Korea and Japan are most certainly justifiable.

So while Paul's idea is tempting it ignores one of the basic rules of modern warfare which is essentially that for every guy carrying a rifle there are 5 guys driving trucks. The fact that we have outsourced a lot of that to "contractors" changes nothing. Unless we are going to withdraw from Korea.....dangerous....we need the support facilities in Japan.

I agree with that.

Germany, of course, is a different story. It would take a monumental Russian offensive to cross all of the territory they have lost since the end of the Cold War and they have shown no ability whatsoever in that direction. Therein lies the problem with Paul. He is an ideologue who does not understand that one-size does not fit all. He is right in some places and wrong in others.

Again we agree, we've got our wires crossed here somewhere.

As for the "liberties" of my countrymen..... we have a decidedly spineless willingness to throw those away ourselves because of a bunch of towel-heads with exploding underwear.

Sure, but nowhere did either myself or McGrath advocate limiting domestic liberties of one kind to protect other liberties from enemies of the state - The contention was that those nations or groups that do pose a real threat to people's liberties should be dealt with promptly, not just in retaliation as Paul would advocate - none of this condones the abolition of other liberties to achieve such ends.

America's policies are overkill, McGrath acknowledged that, he was merely saying that the Ron Paul approach also isn't the right answer.

Recall that the army overran Iraq in 3 weeks and then stood around for the next seven years with their thumbs up their asses getting blown up to the tune of 40,000 casualties because they had no real mission left.

And that is the problem with the idea of nation building. If Iraq was a real threat (something that I'm not so convinced of) then the appropriate action would be to eliminate the threat and leave.

The threat today does not come from other nations with conventional armies. It is far more nebulous. We have 11 carrier battle groups and no one else in the world has more than 1....and most of them are our allies. The Chinese have an old Russian p-o-s that they bought and re-furbished and to listen to our admirals you would think it was the British talking about the fucking Bismarck in 1940. We have terribly expensive aircraft that have never flown a combat mission because there is no use for them in a hovel in Afghanistan. Stealth aircraft are only useful when the enemy has radar coverage. There is precious little of that in the hills of Afghanistan. Our tank forces can go anywhere they want.... but the fuel trucks following along behind are highly vulnerable to any douchebag with an rpg. The list goes on.

I also agree with this. I wouldn't advocate conventional warfare unless it was necessary (which would be the case should North Korea or Iran begin hostilities), but for the 'terrorist' thret strategic strikes and assassinations is probably a much more effective (in terms of both costs and results) approach against the current threats to western society.

We have a muscle-bound military designed to do one thing which now faces a different threat. To be sure there are special ops groups who can and do effectively discharge missions against actual terrorists but far too much of what we waste money on is to keep defense contractor profits up and jobs in congressional districts with no real conception of how these efforts actually aid in the defense of the nation against the ACTUAL threat. The Russians are not going to descend on the East Coast in landing craft. The Chinese are not going to swim to California.

Exactly. Do bare in mind that the more effective proactive tactical operations however are not an example of Ron Paul's "non-interventionism", which is what the OP was arguing against. You seem to think that he was arguing an either/or, either complete non-interventionism or business as usual - that's not the case.