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*talks

Adding video to channels (Talks) - requested by ant.

Well, He talked straight for almost 6 minutes. To be fair that could have been anything.

I do really like Ron Paul and agree with him on most things (there are some BIG caveats, but for the most part), but he could really use some work on staying on point, hitting his logical arguments ONCE, and then knowing when to stop talking. I agreed with Paul much more than the Democrat that was also being interviewed, but he managed to get his points across in a much more clear and concise way in spite of having a sentence count of like 3 vs Paul's 50 here.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

He makes too much damn sense on this.

i like ron paul.
we dated for a bit because we had so much in common in regards to civil liberties and a non-intervention foreign policy.
i had to dump him due to his free-market corporation obsession.
it had just turned creepy...
he still calls on my birthday though,very sweet.

the american people are against any military action.up to 80% of the population kind of against,but what have we learned over the past 10 yrs?
the american government ignores the population and relies on bobbleheads like blitzer and this other cunt to promote the propaganda.

"so let me just say,that after being briefed the gas attacks took place"
ok..im listening,please continue.
"and that the assad administration is responsible"
the assad situation is responsible?
really? are you sure? because as far as i can tell there is not one shred of evidence.
well,thats not quite true.isreali intelligence says the assad regime is responsible.
and if the isreali intelligence says its assad then it MUST be true right? they wouldnt,,you know..lie.

whoa whoa whoa mr quigley.
am i correct in assuming that your entire argument is basically "trust us"?

you sir,are a whore who would sell his integrity to the highest bidder.you have lost any right to speak on this situation or for any of your constituents to show you any form of respect.
i revoke your right to participate in human affairs and i bid you good day.

i said good day!

and look at our little slut blitzer trying to snipe from the bleachers.
oh blitz...
you sold your soul a looong time ago.
nobody listens to you anymore.
they are just transfixed by the beard.

to imply that military force is a righteous and just course of action due to 100,000 people dying ignores the fact that america has used chemical weapons.

so when THEY use chemical weapons it is a crime against humanity but when WE use them it is justified?
nice logic captain propaganda.

and if we are to take your argument to have any validity.then i am forced to ask this question:
"if the united states has the right to invade another country for crimes against humanity.that the invasion is for humanitarian reasons (as if bombing and killing is humanitarian),then explain to me why so many countries were NEVER invaded by the united states,even when THEIR crimes against humanity were far more egregious?"
see:rwanda
see:east timor
the list is NOT short.

cant answer?
then i submit that your argument is no argument at all.
because if you were a true journalist you would have asked "where is the diplomatic solution?"
"why are we we going in to drop a limited sorte of bombs?"
"in what reality could that produce positive results for the region?"
"where is the international political pressure to bring these factions to the negotiation table?"
"where is the evidence that assad's regime is responsible?"
"why is the obama administration ignoring the military commanders advice of non-intervention?"

i could do this all day.

there is a bright spot in this otherwise dreary and dystopian picture.
the american people are not as politically gullible as they were 10 yrs ago.
we SEE whats going on.
the world SEES whats going on.

welcome citizen to the united states of empire.
please have a seat.
be quiet and obey.
your government is in control.

Bravo.

Non-covert blowback anyone?

I vehemently oppose Ron Paul's "non-interventionist" foreign policy. If that's his stance, one of the first things he aught to on becoming president is revoking America's signature from the global convention against genocide since it clearly demands signatories maintain a policy of intervention when genocide occurs. Ron Paul opposes this and on those grounds I similarly oppose his viewpoint as unpalatable.

Oh, and he thinks the Iraq "problem" was created by America in the last decade. America's role started with support for Saddam, and from there 99% of the "problem" with Iraq needs be laid at Saddams feet for the decades of brutal repression destruction of Iraqi society that he committed. All that damage had everything to do with how horrific and ugly Iraq is today.

So finally a Politician who doesnt talk bullshit, just to sound smart, and you guys still bitch about it.
Yeah, this world is going nowhere.

I like Ron Paul's stance on non-intervention. I like Ron Paul a lot.
But what he is saying on Syria and the convoluted power system there is simply not true. There are Al Kaida fighters on the sides of the rebels. However, there are also Hezbollah fighters on the side of the Assad Regime.
If America's stance on what asserts a terrorist group and what not holds true interpolitically they, by their own theory can not stand by passively and watch. America HAS to do something- they allready "invested" too much into the region to now sit back and not act. WHAT exactly this intervention should look like is the question and you can see the current adminsitration suffer with a good answer to it.
Don't listen to the currently popular theme of "Gas-weapons are just another way to kill people". If you think the deployment of poison gas weapons into a urban warzone is the same as just "regular" bombardment you have to seriously go and read up on how gas-weapons behave in an urban environment especially WHEN combined with regular bombardment.
The use of this weaponry is an absolute show stopper, which makes it a lot more painful to realize that the USA itself is using enriched Uranium munitions and clusterbombs) - Nonetheless- the USA not acting now would be like saying: "You might not be as powerful and omnipotent as we are, but go ahead since we take this so seriously that we trivialize it to start our own wars".

Does it have to be military intervention? Hell, no.
Can it be expensive? Hell, yes.

The Use of UEAE-weapons (undiscriminatory extended area effect weaponry- i.e. stuff which even gets into protection shelters and doesnt worry which ones) is like lining up and shooting an entire part of a town by principle. Kinda like a poor man's nuke and even if it was a ruse by the rebels- this certainly warrants the current drama.
The USA invaded Iraq because they thought that Sadam Hussein had these weapons (fabricated charges or not, thats what they started the war on) so what exactly would be the consequences now if America sits back?
John Steward said on the daily show that this is like 7 year old bullies fighting on the playground. The irony is that he is frightingly right.
Again, I am against military intervention but this is some serious stuff.

if someone uses chemical weapons in an urban environment that is certainly something to bitch about. The same way people should bitch about a number of other conflicts worldwide. It is called bringing attention to something that is obviously fucked up.

Ideally politicians should both sound smart and not talk bullshit. The fact that it is Ron Paul, someone videosift (me included) has a thing for deserves taking his response seriously and analyzing it critically.
That is also called debate and not just bitching.

Quite irrelevant. Those rebels are backed by the west (UK, France, USA) since the beginning, some reports even say its again one of those CIA induced overthrows. So Ron Paul is exactly right.

Your critical analysis is non-existent. They have already made up their mind, no matter who did it, and Ron Paul is just trying to talk sense.
Quite logical, when you take into account that they have supported the rebels since the start and dont even care, if they did that attack, or, as some reports say, got those weapons from the Saudis.

You Americans are once again making your own "terrorists". Ron Paul has learned this simple thing long ago and thats why what he says is absolutely true, and his side swaying is just an attempt to show people how it really is. Instead you bitch about it, since you dont know whats going on.

You do recall that those "reports" calling this a CIA induced uprising were written by Assad? Are you aware that the ONLY ones claiming uncertainty who was behind the attack are Assad and the Russians? Assad being the one who actively blocked the UN from investigating the site he claimed would prove his innocence?

You are advocating we do nothing as a dictator uses chemical weapons against his own people. How is it humanly possible to have any more certainty than we already do about what is happening within a war zone? This isn't the first time Assad's family annihilated a people. His father put down a rebellion in his time by taking an entire city and simply turning it into a parking lot and mass grave of the residents. Assad has been deliberately targeting civilians and unarmed protesters from the very beginning. This latest attack isn't some lonely isolated charge, it's the icing on a very horrific cake of war crimes.

None of that is to say anything positive about the rebel forces, disparate and varied as they are. Yes, they include people I would declare our allies in the region who from the start were protesting and advocating for a Syria free of dictatorship and the Assad crime family. Unfortunately, the rebels most effective/powerful fighting forces largely seem to be jihadi fighters back by Saudi money, or even worse, Al Qaida and like minded foreigners coming over from Iraq to take on a hated Shia led military in Assads forces. Al Qaida sees a chance to win hearts and minds among Syria rebels, and we play right into that by doing nothing.

More over, with all that Assad is doing, you need to stop and think before apologizing for him. You need to at least admit that when advocating that we do nothing you are up front and honest with the horrific crimes you are demanding we ignore.

Assad wrote them? He works for the Guardian? For RT? For several independent news magazines? Thats news to me! Alright! Youre right! Yep.

It doesnt matter what Assad did, and what he didnt. You dont know anything about it. You marking him as the one who used chemical weapons, without any proof, is gambling at best and only shows you are following an agenda.

No, we should use political matters. We shouldnt have interfered in the first place, because THAT IS WHAT MADE IT WORSE!!!!!!!!!!
Assad has often offered many things to the rebels - they were never accepted, because they knew they had a powerful ally from the beginning.
Assad != his father. Youre assuming too much. And right now I notice that there is no point in continuing talking to you, if all you do is spewing typical propaganda without proof.

For your own sake, please step back and look at your own positions and posts.

You repeatedly state as fact all manner of roles and intrigues the West is playing in Syria, but demand evidence beyond a shadow of a doubt be held up for any accusation against the Syrian regime.

You're too blinded trying to avoid western propaganda that your greedily swallowing everything the Assad regime sends out in it's press releases. It's very sad and you should step back and look at it objectively.

@bcglorf
there are a few things i dont understand about your position.i hope you can clear them up for me.

1.you state that there is conclusive evidence that it was the assad regime that executed the use of chemical weapons and that only russia and the syrian government are stating otherwise.
could you supply this evidence for us?
because as far as i can tell the only entity providing evidence is isreal and i have to admit being skeptical of their claims.they have been wrong before and often.

2.now lets address the hypothetical that it IS assads regime that is responsible for the chemical attacks.
how does this give the united states the right to unilaterally use military force?
where is the diplomatic option?
why are we not even attempting to bring the players on the ground in syria to the negotiating table?
sanctions?embargoes?
why are we jumping right over steps 3 and 4 and diving into bombings?
how is killing innocent civilians considered "humanitarian"?

3.if the reasoning that we are being given is that a syrian intervention is based on "humanitarian" grounds and that the assad regime has perpetrated "crimes against humanity" (which is possible).where is the united states deriving this moral authority?
when we consider that the united states itself used:phosphorous and depleted uranium in iraq,which IS indeed considered a war crime.
in fact the united states has pretty much broken international law in every conflict since 1950 in regards to war crimes.
so where is our supposed moral authority?

4.if we dismiss the questionable intelligence in regards to chemical weapons in syria AND we ignore the utter hypocrisy in using banned weaponry and we focus on JUST the crimes against humanity defense for intervention.that somehow the united states is doing all this for "humanitarian" reasons.
then we must ask the question:
"if the united states is such a beacon of moral purity and is the defender of the weak and helpless that it will strike at any sovereign nation that dares to kill its own citizens.why is it that the united states turned a blind eye in other countries that perpetrated almost mass genocide against its own people"?

what makes syria more special than the millions of human beings who were allowed to be murdered and slaughtered by its own government while the united states sat back and did nothing,and many times supplied the very weaponry USED to murder those people?

the hypocrisy is staggering.

the implication is that the united states is NOT interested in a stable syria but exactly the opposite.
maybe this thought is troubling for americans but i submit that if that is the case then they have not been paying attention.

*edit-as for your "iraq is the way it is due to saddam hussein" assertion.
really?reeeaaaally?
you do realize the united states armed saddam.we didnt pull the trigger when he went after the iranians and the kurds but we supplied the gun.
you do realize that we never left iraq after the first gulf war.
are you aware that even as reprehensible and venal saddam was,iraq had running water,hospitals,schools.even with the continued bombings and sanctions iraq had a functioning government?

are we to believe ,by your assertion,that iraq is in the state it is right now due to saddam hussein and america bears ZERO responsibility?
we have occupied iraq for TEN YEARS.saddam was executed 7 yrs ago.
the united states has failed on an epic scale in regards to iraq.

remember that whole "we will be greeted as liberators"
"the oil we confiscate will pay for the war"
maybe i am reading your commentary wrong but i cant wrap my head around your assertion.
it just does not hold up under the simplest of scrutiny.

@enoch,

If Israel is the only place you've seen evidence from then you are reading the wrong news sources. Al Jazeera's coverage and first whiff of the chemical weapon story originally came from reports by field medics in Syria observing huge numbers of dead in the area with no noticeable violent cause of death. Al Jazeera then reported on the UN inspection team set to go into the area to gather evidence of what happened, noting Assad's steadfast refusal to allow the team access to the area. When the team finally was granted much delayed access to the area they were shot at on the way by snipers within territory controlled by Assad. Now Putin is on television not to deny that chemical weapons were used, not even to deny there is sufficient evidence to conclude that they were used, but instead to make the sole denial that we lack evidence of who used the chemical weapons deployed against the civilians in a rebel stronghold. That is as much or more evidence than we had of the gassing of Iraqi Kurds or the Rwandan genocide while they were in progress. Sure, the world denied both of those as well until they were long over, but I resent that and want that willful contempt for civilian suffering to change.

As for your followup questions, I don't much care WHO goes in and punishes Assad's regime for it's crimes so long as it succeeds in discouraging him from continuing to do so. I'd support Putin sending in a limited strike against Assad's suspected chemical weapons supplies. I want to see ANYBODY step up and say using chemical weapons against civilians is sufficient crime to warrant a military response to ensure that dictators don't have more to gain than lose by doing so.

You seem to have a very perverted way of looking at things. You are so interested in America's past crimes of both action and inaction that you don't seem to actually give any though or consideration to what you'd actually WANT to see done. America supported Saddam while he waged a war with Iran that killed millions and saw extensive use of chemical weapons. America entirely ignored the genocide in Rwanda. You seem to share a contempt for those things with me. I at least assume so by you referencing the general idea behind them as a list of reasons America is no white knight or respectable global police force. If you agree those actions where horrifically wrong though, doesn't it follow that if you could turn back time, you'd be willing to advocate for American action in Rwanda? That you'd advocate for at the least American sanction on Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war, if not outright military action to stop his excessive deployment of chemical weapons?

You can't have it both ways, if you decry American action and inaction in the past, that must amount to a call for taking a different and better course.

@bcglorf
thanks for the thoughtful response my friend.

since i wrote my comment i have come across a few more pieces of information that implicate assads regime but not assad himself.it has become apparent that chemical weapons were used but still no conclusive evidence WHO authorized the use.

so right now,in regards to who is to blame for the usage of chemical weapons is still conjecture.

my friend,syria is an awful situation.
two millions people displaced and flooding into neighboring countries.innocent people are dying.the political situation is a hornets nest of privileged power,theocracy and religious dissidents.

but you skipped over (much like the obama administration is doing currently) my questions regarding diplomacy.
why are we not searching with vigor a multi-lateral diplomatic solution?
what would a limited strike on damascus actually produce besides continued violence in which the innocent will pay in blood and only succeed in prolonging a violent civil war?
already the civil war had been prolonged due to outside interference (many countries bear that shame,including the US).

now let us consider if we DO go in to "punish" assad.which i think is likely.
what are the possible consequences?
could it be possible that russia,china and iran react?
what then?

do you see where i am going with this?
a diplomatic resolution may take more time.it may take some..you know..talking and patience,but the final outcome will benefit those innocents both you and i (and pretty much the world) AND the political stability in that region and all outlying players.

while a military resolution will create more casualties and deaths,many of them innocent civilians,and may possibly create a conflaguration of a world powers conflict.where the innocent body bags will begin to be counted in the millions.

am i being overly-dramatic?
possibly.
my point is the diplomatic resolution keeps innocent death counts low while a military resolution will only raise the death count and create more refugees.

so maybe i was not clear in my commentary because i guess i appeared that i didnt want the united states to do anything.
this is untrue.
i was just pointing to the utter hypocrisy of the political rhetoric.
and whatever moral credit america once possessed,it was spent many years ago.

so the best route to take BEFORE there is even talks of military action is diplomacy.even our staunches allies have refused to engage militarily,and yet what are we seeing?obama traveling the political circles to promote the march to further violence.

syria is no threat to the united states.
the humanitarian argument to fight violence with violence is a canard,its bullshit.
this has nothing to do with saving lives nor preventing further violence.

the international community needs to band together and put pressure to cease and desist.this is the moral path to take.
this is the path that will garner results quickly with far less bloodshed.


i fear this is not what is going to happen.
right now as i wrote this the obama administration is putting political pressure on all fronts.
i fear this is going to end badly.
i fear that this may domino and drag opposing nations to a conflict where the death toll will be catastrophic.

i hope i am wrong.

thanks for responding bc.i know we disagree politically on some issues and its always a pleasure discussing issues with you so i can see things from a different vantage point.

@enoch,

I think were we differ is the context from which we are looking at the conflict. You state a desire to see a political solution. Virtually every human on the planet would share that desire. You state a fear and desire to avoid military conflict, once again virtually all of us are agreed with you.

The trouble is I look at Syria, and the political solution was approached the most honestly, and productively while the opposition was mounting peaceful protests across the country. That effort towards a political resolution was ended alas by Assad's soldiers with military action. Pretty much exactly like his Father had before him. This time though it didn't end with a quick massacre pacifying the opposition but instead has escalated and progressed into the ongoing civil war.

From that context, I hear your call for a political resolution, and I feel it is at best wishful thinking and at worst cynical front to prevent any foreign protection of Assad's citizens from his armed forces. I hear your fears of military actions and the consequences they bring, but I see an existing and ongoing civil war already, and one which has in all probability seen the deployment of chemical weapons on civilian targets.

I can understand the fear of making things worse by getting involved, but just how many war crimes are you comfortable watching occur with NO reaction by the global community but talk? If we want to consider the expected actions of any world leader, from Obama through Putin through Assad, we can rest assured they will act in their own and/or their nations self interests. In Obama's case, he has an empowered public that can make his life difficult if he ignores them. That is not the position Assad is in. If Assad believes that chemical weapons will help him gain the edge in his conflict it is guaranteed he will use them. I deem it highly probable this recent attack was a test of what the world is willing to do in response, and if he doesn't think anyone will step up I fully expect him to continue.