Story here:
I’m not sure who to Pit here – Paul, for being such a paranoid conspiracy-theory whacko; or the Bush Admin, for consistently behaving in a way that tempts me to believe Paul.
Let’s do both! 
Way too late. Even in 2002, there was a widespread expectation of a Bay of Camels incident.
(bolding mine)
Looks like Paul got the part of Larry, and Cindy, as usual will be playing Moe. Who is going to play Curley?
I don’t know if it’s true, but I won’t say it would be surprising. I don’t picture morality or ethics getting in the way of such a plan-- only logistics and likelihood of getting caught.
Bush Co. does not need any incident. His track record with Iraq was to simply declare that it was a threat to the USA, and then to invade. There is no reason to expect him to do anything different with Iran.
I’m trying to find where he actually did what the article says — the part about warning us of a staged attack. If someone could point it out, I’d greatly appreciate it.
I see where the article said he “clearly insinuated” that they “would not be above” doing it. But shit, that ain’t the same thing at all, even generously stipulating the alleged clarity. In the absence of a specific quote (with context, preferably) I’m not putting much stock in it.
Here’s a video of Ron Paul speaking back in January:
Here’s a report from May: Ron Paul Says Elements of Government May Stage False Flag as Pretext to Attack Iran
Google “ron paul” “false flag” for more.
Oh okay, Squink, thanks. Shit, I thought it was news. If he said something about a Gulf of Tonkin sort of thing, that obviously is not far fetched.
BrainGlutton, by my count this makes six Pit threads that you’ve started in the past few days. While there’s nothing wrong with any of the threads on their own, taken altogether it’s a bit much. You’re crossing over into Pit-as-blog terroritory.
I’m not going to give you an official thread quota (yet), but I will ask that you ease up on the number of threads you start.
Not a new suspicion. I heard people at the time point out the convenience for the Republicans of the anthrax attacks, how none were targeted at Republicans, and how there’s no evidence that they were from overseas. No evidence ( given who was running the government, of course not ) , but it’s the sort of thing they’d do.
And there’s evidence they knew something was coming before 9-11. How much and in what detail is the question.
Really, if any other government acted the way these guys have, no one would consider it odd to accuse them of staging attacks and similar misdeeds; it’s just that we are supposed to pretend the US government is above such things. No matter if it’s done them before, and no matter who’s in charge.
And no, screaming “conspiracy theory” isn’t a rebuttal, especially when it comes to people who are known liars and conspirators.
Why does it matter how many threads he starts if there is nothing wrong with any of them? If anything, he is picking up the slack from folks like me who don’t post a lot.
I could understand if he was posting a bunch of articles and abandoning them, but he seems to be participating in the threads, and I generally take a look at what he has posted.
Although the warning was worded politely, I still think it is ridiculous.
Not so much worried about a staged event, as about a deliberate misinterpretation. Staged events are too complicated, but a blip on a radar screen could be a torpedo boat, that could be moving into attack position, and, if it did, may very well have launched topedos that, thankfully, missed the mark. These Arabs are notoriously bad at that kind of thing, Saddam fired over 700 missiles at our planes and never even got close. Yeah, I know, Persians aren’t Arabs, we’ll sort 'em when we stack 'em up.
Still think Paul is being a bit paranoid. Not that it’s something I’d put past BushCo, but it should be obvious to them such a deception would be impossible to get away with in the current climate.
It’s nothing personal against BrainGlutton. We’ve always discouraged individual posters from taking up too significant a fraction of front page real estate. It just makes for better message board dynamics. To use the cocktail party analogy, we strive for mingling and interesting conversation from a range of viewpoints rather than a few people with megaphones drowning everyone else out.
Ok, Ron Paul is a nutjob, but…
It is certainly true that the US has a history of higly questionable pretexts for war, dating back long before the Iraq wars. Not phonied-up attacks per se, but seizing on convenient incidents and distorting them into “attacks” or “threats” against the US.
The Spanish American War and the sinking of the Maine – no actual evidence of the cause of the disaster, yet the drumbeat to “respond to an attack” that may never have happened.
Panama – a series of harassments of US military personnel and spouses, and the need to arrest the drug=dealing president.
Grenada – US medical students put at risk during a coup.
I think this kind of incident is what Paul is referring to, and frankly, it is virtually SOP.
IIRC, this is the slippery-slope that got Reeder. But you have to admit, this is what you could refer to as a “target-rich environment.” 
mutter…grumble…jackboots…mutter…dictatorship of the moderatariat…grumble