Ron Paul and General Petraeus

Eric Garris, April 10, 2008

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Ron Paul gets 5 minutes to question General Patraeus. Check it out.

A longer statement and questions will be submitted in writing and will be available within a day or so.

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Comments to “Ron Paul and General Petraeus”

Eugene Costa
April 10th, 2008 at 8:02 am

(1) What Mr. Paul says is true. His presentation is tentative and bumbling.

(2) Not only in relation to Mr. Paul and from what I have seen, there should have been more pointed questions, carefully phrased and presented in a minute, and then handed over to Petraeus and Crocker and pursued for the remaining four minutes with bulldog determination, exposing Petraeus and Crocker as the whores and dolts they are. Mr. Paul’s first question would have been sufficient–since Iraq and Hussein had nothing to do with 9-11, what have the Americans accomplished in Iraq and what is their real goal?

(3) I note that Obama’s presentation was well crafted and confident, but he too did not put Petraeus to the test, and Petraeus, showing contempt, refused eye contact and pretended to be
taking notes.

Eugene Costa
April 10th, 2008 at 8:13 am

By far the most effective, of what I have seen and in my opinion, was Wexler:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0ijHHd2oiQ

But he too was long-winded, and might have been more effective confining himself to a minute, followed by deconstruction of the sophistry with which Petraeus answered.

Leo J. Foley
April 10th, 2008 at 10:26 am

Betrayus is the fitting name.

Ron Paul’s questions to Petraeus « Keeping it Small and Simple
April 10th, 2008 at 11:24 am

[...] E. Danielsson @ 18:23 You can watch Ron Paul’s excellent questions to General Petraeus here. Of course, these are questions that the administration should be forced to [...]

jack
April 10th, 2008 at 12:10 pm

The reason he was so long winded is because once he gives the floor to Petraeus, he will never give it back.Thats how it is done, get everything in early because you will never get a staight answer back.

cfountain72
April 10th, 2008 at 1:00 pm

Dear Lord. I love that man, and admire his courage. But everytime he talks, it is like getting in a roller coaster with a blindfold on. He just has so much to say, yet he can’t find an efficient, effective way to get get it out.
Eugene, thanks for the link. It is funny how the poster put it up as a criticism of Wexler, yet almost all the posts below the video are in his corner.

Peace be with you.

Joe C
April 10th, 2008 at 2:12 pm

It’s a shame, because I woulda really liked to have heard detailed answers on each one of those questions from Patreus. And by “liked to have heard” I mean that those are some of the most important questions facing us today and we have a right to see them answered in detail, preferably on the front page of every major newspaper.

Also I would have liked to have heard Paul ask one of the early questions as his direct-to-P-daddy question, any one of them but particularly the “Why won;t the sunnis turn their guns against us and how is this progress?” or “If Iran is brokering the cease-fire and is an ally of a gov’t we support, how can they be our enemy over there?”

Patreus and the administration are just making stuff up for political and military ends (i.e. war with Iran) and someone needs to call them on it. Paul did but we’ll never hear the answers. Personally I feel they should be waterboarded until they’re willing to fess up but I won’t hold my breath.

8Ball
April 10th, 2008 at 2:13 pm

Whiners R US… 5 days left to give Uncle Suck his due.

Pat
April 10th, 2008 at 2:57 pm

Was I imagining things, or were there smirks on the faces of various people in the room while Rep. Paul was speaking? I can’t believe the arrogance of our ruling class. They don’t give a rat’s behind what their misadventures cost other people. Paul is right. The only reason we are in Iraq is that we don’t want to admit what a horrible mistake the whole thing was. And, of course, many politicians are making handsome profits from the war.

Rep. Paul was perhaps a little hesitant in some respects, but he can probably feel the contempt that the rest of Washington has for him. Not that he cares, but it still probably makes him feel like a Christian walking into an arena full of lions. Except these lions are more like hyenas.

michael
April 10th, 2008 at 3:50 pm

god bless amerika….lol

Martinx07
April 10th, 2008 at 6:29 pm

Those fools did not even give a straight answer, and yet, they took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, not to serve the lies for Bush and Co.

It takes a real military puupet to dodge a real question from what’s really happening over there. Thanks for nothing, Gen. Betrayus and Amb. Crocksucker. We better get the old generals we had been on ‘03, where they now realize Iraq has been a miserable failure since the initial occupation of the country.

Dennis Heretz
April 10th, 2008 at 7:46 pm

This is both sad and surreal. Here is a roomful of the “leaders” of this country, and only one of them is speaking the truth. Only *one* of them is stating truths that *any* rational person can see. And he is given just five minutes to give as many true utterances he can in five minutes flat, sort of like the guy at the end of the drug commercials who in five seconds tells all the horrific side effects of Blissium or what have you.

The rest are just spewing lies and nonsense, and while the one rational person is speaking, they all are smirking, and taking notes, and yawning, like they’re doing the old coot a favor by letting him speak. ‘Because you see, we’re a *democracy* and we value the free speech of all our citizens, so let’s give the old nut five minutes to rant.’

Poor Ron, he’s looking old, and a little tired, and he strikes me like Tiresias (though Tiresias was given respect). We need younger people to pick up his mantle and be as brave as he is, and speak the same truth to power.

Eugene Costa
April 11th, 2008 at 4:33 pm

“Well, we started to connect the dots, in order to protect the American people. And, yes, I’m aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved.”

George W. Bush

Impeachment time, Mr. Paul?

An opinion perhaps on the Constitutionality of “cruel and unusual” or the legality of the Geneva Conventions?

What was Clinton impeached for again?

Oh–and Padilla is an American citizen.

At any rate, Company operatives seem to be getting more sophisticated–with their specific, signed authorizations and all that.

With the price of oil at $112 per barrel, I hear scapegoat cheese is also hitting the roof.

Vincent
April 11th, 2008 at 6:23 pm

Ambassador Crocker should have stopped speaking after he said “I am not competent”.

Justin Raimondo's conscience
April 12th, 2008 at 12:12 pm

Speaking of Ron Paul, Dick Zimmer has just announced to run in New Jersey against Murray Sabrin, a Ron Paul Republican. SInce Raimondo was a fan of Zimmer in the 1990s’, are we going to be spared the smears that Zimmer is some sort of “neocon” since he is running against Sabrin?

Eric Dondero
April 12th, 2008 at 1:49 pm

Was this a Ron Paul filibuster. Just watched the video. Did the General ever get a chance to respond?

Larry Battis
April 13th, 2008 at 6:57 am

This is why the Military Industrial Complex and The Corporate Media Infotainmentplex buried this guy’s candidacy early on. He’s too American; far too much attention is paid to the constitution for Ron Paul to ever be attractive to the Money-Grubbing, Constitution Burning, Diaspora-Creating, Hypocritically-Godly, Internationally Loan-Sharking, Warring-on-Civilians, Crawl under slime on stilts Fascists, who have presently stolen control of this Nation from We the People. Ron Paul is intelligent, knows where the bodies are buried and he actually cares about America. That’s a very scary, out-of-control, proposition for our corporate masters.

Martinx07isacocksucker
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:03 pm

The old generals in 03, oh wait, you mean Petreaus? Considering in 03 he effectively waged counter-insurgency in Mosul with massive public-works projects? You’re the dumbass here. He didn’t dodge the question, his job is to manage the campaign in Iraq, not comment on foreign policy procedures for the executive branch and Congress. Ron Paul really made himself look like an angry child during this hearing.

Free of State » Blog Archive » FOLLOW THE LAKOTA - DECLARE YOUR INDEPENDENCE
June 27th, 2008 at 10:52 pm

[...] months ago, Congressman Ron Paul asked a top general, a man who is today the Central Command Combatant Commander, a question related to the United [...]

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