Republican presidential candidates were bombastic in Saturday night’s debate on the issue of Iran in light of the most recent U.N. nuclear watch-dog report on the country’s nuclear weapons program.
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney railed against Obama for being weak on Iran. “If we reelect Barack Obama,” he pronounced, “Iran will have a nuclear weapon.”
When asked whether he would choose to strike Iran militarily, Romney said “absolutely,” so long as aggressive sanctions and covert war failed to end their nuclear enrichment.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released a report this week cobbling together uncorroborated intelligence from mainly U.S. and Israeli sources in an attempt to imply Iran may have a secret nuclear weapons program, although no direct evidence was offered. The political class and most of the media jumped on the opportunity to again portray Iran as on the verge of attaining nuclear weapons, as has been typical practice for war hawks for the past thirty years.
Newt Gingrich, former Republican Speaker of the House, openly advocated for increased covert terrorism against Iran. He suggested employing “maximum covert operations to block and disrupt the Iranian program including taking out their scientists, including breaking up their systems. All of it covertly, all of it deniable.”
By “taking out their scientists” Gingrich was referring to the current U.S.-Israeli strategy of assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists, incidentally quintessential acts of international terrorism. By reassuring listeners that all of these actions would be deniable, he was openly advocating for this presidential administration and the next to continue to lie about its foreign policy.
He also advocated “actively funding every dissident group in Iran.” Supporting with money an weapons domestic factions in adversarial countries – essentially supporting terrorism aimed at regime change – is a long-time activity of the U.S. government, but only recently has it been so blatantly explicit.
Rick Santorum agreed with Gingrich. “You know there have been scientists turning up dead in Russia and Iran, there have been computer viruses, there have been problems at their facility.” Here again, Santorum is referring to the concerted covert U.S. campaign of cyber-terrorism, commercial sabotage, targeted assassinations, and proxy wars currently underway in Iran.
“I hope that the United States has been involved with that. I hope that we’ve been doing everything we can covertly to make sure that program doesn’t proceed forward,” Mr. Santorum said. He then explicitly advocated for a preemptive unilateral strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, which it maintains are solely for civilian purposes, a claim for which no person or organization has presented evidence disproving.
“We should be working with Israel right now to do what they did in Syria, what they did in Iraq, which is take out that nuclear capability,” Mr. Santorum said, adding, ”Before the next explosion we hear in Iran is a nuclear one and the world changes.”
The feverish readiness for war or additional aggression against Iran broke only when Texas Representative Ron Paul insisted “it isn’t worth while” to go to war with Iran. “I’m afraid what’s going on right now,” Mr. Paul warned, “is similar to the war propaganda that went on against Iraq and, you know, they didn’t have weapons of mass destruction.”
Nothing screams "Republican Presidential Nomination Debate" like war, state-sponsored terrorism, and asinine pandering. Mitt the Snit wants to war on Iran? Grab a gun there Mr. Bad-ass and hop on an airlift. We'll call Tehran and let them know you're on your way.
I am stunned at the blood-curdling yahoos who just might become President with all it's attenuating disastrous results.
I wounder what the hypocrites would be saying if those very same words they uttered tonight against Iran and their call for outright murder and war crimes, were to be juxtaposed and were now spoken by Iranian politicians calling for the murder of American scientists and politicians, not to mention, regime change as well as advocating the bobming of the American nuclear facilities?The howls of indignation would reach to the high heavens and they would use that as a casus belle for instant war. Yet, they feel totally free to invoke that bellicosity against Iran as though it were their God-given right to do so and to vilify and attack whomesoever they want to anywhere in the world. Simply amazing and disgusting in its scope and sheer arrogance.
With the exception of the Texas congressman, the GOP candidates are all homicidal maniacs
The really scary part of this is that there are millions of Americans who are all OK with this kind of rhetoric. It's completely cool to go to war with Iran, for Israels sake.
They don't realize that Stuxnet and the assassination of Iranian scientists are all acts of war and would be justification for Iran to attack out assets wherever they can reach. Can you imagine the outcry if our nuclear scientists started turning up dead and all of a sudden, there was back-channel chatter between Iran and China about a computer worm that got loose and destroyed in the American energy grid control mechanisms? The bombers would be on the way.
And therein lies all of the hypocrisy. Idiots believing that while it's OK to kill someone on just a falsified wink and a nod it isn't kosher for them to do it to you.
Practically every aspect of US dealings with Iran is of the nature of being at war. One thing that has become evident, though, is that the hysterical "terror plots" that the FedGov is continually gaming in its ever-widening net of totalitarian tyranny are the mirror reflections of what its minions are doing abroad. So, for example, if there is a sudden "concern" for the "vulnerability" of the US power grid, that's a mirror reflection of a recently carried out FedGov/Zionist attack on the Iranian power grid. In the fevered brains of FedGov totalitarianists, the supposed inevitability of an Iranian response is used as the excuse for yet another "preventive measure" at home.
Not that it wasn't a false flag operation… but if the retarded used car salesman was an actual Iranian agent do we really have a right to complain in light of this…
By “taking out their scientists” Gingrich was referring to the current U.S.-Israeli strategy of assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists, incidentally quintessential acts of international terrorism. By reassuring listeners that all of these actions would be deniable, he was openly advocating for this presidential administration and the next to continue to lie about its foreign policy.
You will notice that the elites are terrified of Ron Paul. They gave him all of two 30 second questions in a whole hour. Yet he made the warmongering lunatics on stage look like fools. The more they talked the more insane they looked The elites of the Republican party are tanking the election. No sane person is going to vote for more war. Obama is going to run as the man who got Bin Laden and for bringing the troops home. The Republicans will be lucky to get 40% in such a scenario if Romney is the nominee. If it's Gingrich make that 25%. Ron Paul has the most activists by far. They are outraged by how he was treated and is being treated. They will never work for a pro war ticket. No one is going towork hard for Romney or Gingrich. In fact I think I can say right now that this nomination will go down to the wire and could end up in the final bloodbath of the Republican Party.
Exactly look like fools. … Problem is control of the media when you really have to dig to see what exactly is in the IAEA report and not enough Americans standing up to the fraudulent elements in it that are being pushed. Scott Horton keep it up.
Agreed the GOP are not fools they know that about 60% of Americans feel like they are Israel's hero and are willing to destroy the economy and hand over the constitution in the process. The GOP is going hype the Iran thing to make Obama look bad. If he does not go to war the GOP will say that he is soft on Iran and anti Israel. Obama will loose the apocalyptic swing voters, about 20 million strong. If he leads America into war we will pay for it with another trillion or so dollars worth taxes and dept. War means big personal gain for some congressmen and their supporters.
Another US army soldier killed in Kandahar on Friday, November 11, in an IED attack. The fifth US soldier to die in Afghanistan this month.
F-ck off with your dead Yanks.
They all just admitted that the US is a terrorist state. Of course we all knew that, but to here them state so catagorically is stunning. But of course as”we” are the good guys,it just can’t be can it ; )
Anyone who commits an act of terrorism is a terrorist. Period.
All persons, organizations, and states that commit acts of terror are terrorists. Period.
Probably the only way you can become worse than a terrorist is if you condemn terrorist acts by others, but commit them yourself – only despicable evil doers fall into this category.
From DailyPaul.com= News from On the scene at S.C.
http://www.dailypaul.com/186959/what-you-didnt-re…
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http://www.dailypaul.com/186838/tonight-cbs-news-…
Jessee Benton
http://blog.4president.org/2012/2011/11/ron-paul-…
I have yet to see one of these debates from beginning to end. I catch tidbits here and there. But from what I have painfully had to endure, what I could stomach, was not at all encouraging. It's as though we've gone back in time and are forced to relive this present hell except with more evil bobble heads calling for war.
Another Zionist beauty contest in which all the candidates (save one, or maybe 2 with Huntsman) show their voloptuous behinds to AIPAC.
auguring a flood of bloody santorum…..
Ron Paul managed to get a wpopping 90 seconds in the first hour of the debate that was the hour that was televised. CBS must not like the thought that the only anti-war candidate of either party is a libertarian leaning Republican.
Huntsman didn't come off as a complete hawk however, he still wouldn't be bringing all our troops home.
This latest debate fraud played out like Ron Paul had wandered into a board meeting of "Murder Incorporated". To think that these moral lepers could even be considered as Fairfax County Drain Commissioner, let alone PUSA, is chilling.
Ron Paul is actually a veteran. Romney is a Cheney class draft evader. Perry actually served in the Air Force. Cain, Bachmann, Santorum, Gingrich are all vile chicken hawks.
@ zouppie: If you take into account the CBS poll results that are currently tagged online here at Antiwar, it really isn't surprising, is it? If a majority of identified republicans, have no or little problem with 1) going to war with Iran based on little or no real evidence, 2) torture, 3) keeping that blackhole open in Guantanamo, 4) denying statehood to the Palestinians because Israel says so (and might have to answer to war crimes charges), 5) think it's hunky-dorry to assassinate American citizens without allowing them to have their day in court – well – there's more bad news in the poll but you get the point. The candidates reflect their constituencies – or say they do. It raises an interesting question though, where are the level-headed, non-ideologically corrupt, "elder statesmen" that used to be the bread and butter of the Republican party? Is the current layer of scum that has risen to the top, "IT"?
Imagine the outrage if Iranian presidential candidates spoke of attacking American nuclear facilities if they got elected! they’d probably be nuked off the face of the planet within the hour.
if sanity prevailed then none of these candidates (bar ron paul of course) would get anywhere near the levers of power after saying things like this.
Crazy talk is now the new normal, war is the new normal, contrast the rhetoric about war now with rhetoric during the year 2000 presidential campaign, george bush had to pretend to be anti war/intervention, now GOP candidates talk flippantly about starting a war that could easily escalate into a world wide bloodbath, which could lead to the end of civilization as we know it.
Bachman, gingrich, romney, perry et all belong in straight jackets and padded cells, not given the code to the nuclear football!.
You can place your bets on Romney being the next president of this country because Israel, AIPAC, the bought MSM and the stupid American population will make happen.
By law – read the treaties – and by article six of USC – war is illegal under US and international law. Military force may only be used in immediate self-defense or under the UN legal authority. Neither is present. Thus making threats of war sure looks like a criminal and "terrorist" act. When will the phony stooges arrest the other phony stooges?
These folks learned NOTHING from the invasion of Iraq. History repeats itself. Only Iran is a much more formidable opponent than Iraq. Plus, they have friends in China and in Russia. These Republicans are not only stupid, they’re dangerous to our nation. The “intelligence” is anything but, and Israel does not operate in our best interests and our best interests come first. See what Panetta has said.
I won't vote, but I'll put my money on Obama's re-election right now. It's the same as ever. There's really no choice and no compromise, and there has not been since Jackson was president.
I am not a fan of the Iranian government but we don't solve their problems by lying about Iran either.
Bad goverment can be caused by men and a woman with election ambitions as we saw with the majority of GOP candidates . Santorum, might as well give his citizenship to Israel, and their right wing faction at that. I don't remember Israel being one of the 50 states. The IAEI and the Israelis: Israel cheated against the Eisenhower administration and became a nuclear power by hiding it, and they are worried the Iranians will do the same thing. Scott Horton, on antiwar radio gives good interviews on the subject.
They talk like all this war is free. Americans, with exception (Ron Paul, Kunnich-Walter Scott, some tea party freshman Republicans, others ) can not get out of the cold war and become a strong economy again and shift their priorities. Why is this country on economic suicide? How is that Republican?
Yeah, so? How's this news? The GOP would tout war against their own mothers…if they knew who they were that is.
One of the Republican heroes is Bolton, who has advocated a nuclear first strike on Iran. If that isn't as bad or worse than a 1930s German Nazis, I don't know what is. FOX News seems to think he is a rational actor worthy of airing his views on a regular basis.
None of these chicken hawks ever served a day in uniform, with the possible exception of Perry, who flew transport aircraft in peacetime. Ron Paul is not only a veteran, he delivered thousands upon thousands of healthy babies. Maybe he's the only one who is sane enough to understand what a terrible thing it is to make someone lose their innocent child. His views on Prohibition II are pretty sane as well.
It seems that the class (the super wealthy) with the least proportion of military service is the class that advocates loudest for war. They have no shame. Perhaps they think they are somehow superior because they went to an elite school and because the Commander-in-Chief is a civilian. They know nothing of leadership, but plenty about how to be a coward or a sycophant.
Nothing the good Christuns in the GOP love more than a good war. Particularly, one in which they and their spawn don't have to fight in.