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McCain, Paul Differ on Iraq
November 28, 2007 8:52 PM
ABC News' Z. Byron Wolf and Ed O'Keefe Report: Senator John McCain, R-Ariz., played with populist fire during the Republican debate Wednesday night.
Segueing from an unrelated topic, John McCain, who has staked his political career on his support for the surge in Iraq and fight against global Islamic terrorism, turned to Paul, who was standing to his left and addressed him directly.
Watch the video HERE.
"Congressman Paul, I've heard him now in many debates talk about brining our troops home and about the war in Iraq and how its failed and I want to tell you that that kind of isolationism, sir, is what caused World War II. We allowed . . ."
McCain was obscured here by jeers and boos and cheers all at once from the crowed auditorium. Poor CNN Anchor Anderson Cooper had no chance against the audience.
But the Arizona Senator continued, "We allowed Hitler to come to power with that kind of attitude of isolationism and (Ron Paul is looking right at McCain and shaking his head 'No')
McCain: "And I want to tell you something sir, I just finished having Thanksgiving with the troops and their message to you is, the message of these brave men and women serving over there is, 'Let us win. Let us win.'
Cheers mixed with jeers and boos and applause rose up all over again.
In a 30 second response, Paul, who recently raised $4 million exclusively from online contributors, calmly asked McCain, "The real question you have to ask is why do I get the most money from active duty officers, military personnel?"
"So what John is saying is just totally distorted. He doesn't understand the difference between nonintervention and isolationism. I'm not an isolationist. I want to trade with people, talk with people, travel. But I don't want to send our troops overseas using force telling them how to live. We would object to it here and they're going to object to us over there."
It was not the first time the two men tangled.
Earlier, talking about fiscal responsibility, McCain, who has been outspoken against pork barrel spending, lamented Republicans who got into politics to change Washington, but "we went to Washington and Washington changed us."
Several questions later, Paul, absolutist in his views and almost in alone in Washington in his opposition to just about every spending bill said to McCain, "Washington didn't change me."
At a later point in the debate, McCain and Paul sparred again.
Recalling Iraq once again, McCain asserted, "We never lost a battle in Vietnam, it was American public opinion that caused us to lose that conflict."
McCain then said that the difference between Iraq and Vietnam is al-Qaeda's determination to attack the United States.
"They want to follow us home, they want Iraq to be a base for al-Qaeda," McCain insisted.
Dr. Paul engaged McCain once again, saying that whether or not the U.S. "never lost a battle" in Vietnam is "irrelevant."
"(Al-Qaeda) want to come here ... because of our military base in Saudi Arabia," Paul retorted.
"They come here because we're occupying their country just as we would object if they occupied our country," he added.
Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., took McCain's side in the Paul-McCain clash.
"I wish we lived in a world that Ron is describing . . . unfortunately, Ron, I don't believe that is the case," Tancredo said.
Read all the latest in political news from the campaign trail every morning in The Note.
November 28, 2007 in Thompson, Fred | Permalink | User Comments (119)
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McCain is all for war!! He is most like Hitler if anyone is to compare to Hitler and hasn't it been McCain stepping off all the planes with Bush during re-election time!
And for ABC to QUOTE "If we lived in a world like Ron Paul describes.." What if! What IF! We can live in a FREE world we can restore the constitution we can be free we can be proud we can trade we can have so much once we get ppl like McCain out of our government and once we change our Foreign policy when we start to wake up and say Hey America's Dollar is falling the ppl don't have jobs WAKE UP AMERICA RON PAUL will save our Constitution which is OUR FREEDOM!
Posted by: Brandon Howell | Nov 28, 2007 10:27:25 PM
The debate was rigged as usual, Ron paul revolution!
McCain is a joke. WAKE UP AMERICA!
Posted by: Tyler | Nov 28, 2007 10:27:34 PM
Prior to WWII a group of people who opposed any involvement in the war established the America First Committee. They used exactly the same arguments and reasons that are being used by the 'get out of Iraq' gang. Hitler could habe been stopped but we failed to. We thought that it could be avoided by diplomacy---the Munich Agreement---which only ensured further death and bloodshed. You are just recreating the 1930s.
Posted by: Gary | Nov 28, 2007 10:28:20 PM
McCain is the only one who knows how to secure. McCain is the only one who knows how to be a soldier. Vote for Ron Paul if you want to curtail and run. Vote for tripping over his mouth Guliani if you too have a hard time believing in the bible and living the word of God. Or you can stand up and be counted. McCain is the main for security. Always was, always proved himself in the previous administrations. And he is the only one who worked with BIPARTISAN on issues. He knows how to get the job done no matter who or what party is in control of the congress. He did it befor and he will do it again.
Posted by: angeles | Nov 28, 2007 10:29:12 PM
Isolationism is different from nonintervention.Just makes sense.I don't completely agree with Dr.Paul about our base being the*only* reason we are not liked,but our continued bullting isn't working.Is the surge really working?Mcain lost me then.And as a millitary man I would have expected him to know that our stance back in the late 30's ,early 40's did not cause Hitler's rise.
Posted by: whistleb4dawn | Nov 28, 2007 10:30:50 PM
Paul just proves that there is stupidity on both sides of the aisle when it comes to foreign policy. (There's just more of it on the Democratic side.)
Posted by: John Kantor | Nov 28, 2007 10:32:38 PM
I think McCain is just upset that Paul is outpacing him in contributions by 2-1.
Posted by: Eric | Nov 28, 2007 10:39:30 PM
America buried its head in the sand and pretended that the war in Europe didn't affect us. The Brits and French tried to appease hitler. All of the above were directly responsible for his rise and the eventual deaths of millions of people. We bear that responsibility. I was also in the service so I know something about war. We won militarily in Vietnam but were betrayed by the folks back home.
Posted by: Gary | Nov 28, 2007 10:46:20 PM
McCain. LMAO. If he wants to pick up his crumbling campaign he should immediately apologize for accidentally taking a sleep aid before the debate.
Posted by: JC | Nov 28, 2007 10:48:24 PM
jason and all other ron paulies. McCain is right there are similarities between Hitler and Saddam Hussein. And there are also similarities between the European appeasers and Ron Paul and his supporters. All you paulies seem to forget that Saddam hussein invaded Kuwait. Ron paul would've done nothing Saddam hussein after being appeased by Ron Paul would've invaded Saudi Arabia. Saddam as well as Hitler were both megalomaniacs. Thank god the republicans interceded. Anyway do you have any idea what Saddam Hussein's favorite book was? Mein Kempf writtem by Adolf himself. McCain understands history. We don't live in a la-di-da world.
Posted by: cisconchipper | Nov 28, 2007 10:53:14 PM
It was the Zionist who backed Hitler's party and contributed moneterily to it to win their election.You can read this on Google or Wiki. Not that it was the fault of USA that led to WWII. Our borders are here but our troops are overseas protecting other countries border.Bring them home . tThey are our kins. We do not want draft but McCain and likes want to continue overseas hunting expedition. Why can not McCain catch Osama who is in a cave?? He just want to whitewash truth from us,the taxpaying US common man.
Posted by: Tariq Ahmed | Nov 28, 2007 10:56:48 PM
America needs to pull all its troops from around the world. Pull all its money back. Let the rest of the world screw itself. After 9-11, I really don't care what they do. Guess what? I'm neither a fascist, a republican, a democrat, or a communist. Just a disgruntled American with my fingers on the voting machine. Grow up Republicans!
Posted by: mind!dagger | Nov 28, 2007 11:00:53 PM
When I read some of these comments I wished we still had the draft. Some people would benefit from serving their country in the military and learn a few facts of life. There are bad people out there who aim to destroy us as a nation. Let them have an unfettered base to organize and plan and they will eventually get us. Stick you head in the sand and pretend that we can just simply tiptoe through the tulips of life and you will find out what other countries before us have found out when they fell to a conqueror.
Posted by: Gary | Nov 28, 2007 11:01:21 PM
I wonder how many of the pundits slamming Ron Paul (and his "kooky" Constitution-loving supporters) have ever been to the Middle East, or have personal friends from any of those countries? I do, and from what my friends tell me, Ron Paul is spot-on accurate. Muslims are irate over generations of Western meddling in their affairs, theft of their resources, and military occupation of their homelands. No matter who you believe created the world (God or Allah), I'm pretty sure He did not intend it to be the personal plaything of the United States of America. By the way, blowback is real, it is used to great effect by our own intelligence agencies to destabilize regimes unfavorable to Western business influence, and it plays hugely into "why they hate us" overseas. But hey, that's just what some Iraqi friends of mine have said-- everyone knows they're all terrorists anyway. If you have a hard time imagining a foreign nation occupying American soil and imposing their laws and culture on us, just wait for it. On our present course, we're well on the way to becoming a second rate Puerto Rico to our Chinese landlords.
Posted by: h5mind | Nov 28, 2007 11:01:46 PM
Once the bar fight starts it’s too late to decide to go to church instead. The reasons we went to Iraq are irrelevant now, our troops are there. Now that troops are in harms way we have no choice but to finish the job. OBL has said that he will continue to attack the US until we give up Democracy, adopt the Islam religion and accept an Islamic government. That’s not acceptable. We need to get 199 % behind our troops and let them do the job they are trained to do. Once that conflict is over we need to pull out and let them run their own affairs. We also need to close bases in Japan, Germany and Korea. Those nations can easily afford their own defense. Our soldiers are needed here, not in some foreign land that can take care of themselves. ... In short, McCain and Paul are both wrong.
Posted by: Royce | Nov 28, 2007 11:02:31 PM
Like Hitler was our fault. Right. Come on McCain. McCain does not have the right temperment for the job. What McCain really said was "elect me and we will go to war with Iran". No thanks. Enough mistakes.
Posted by: ken | Nov 28, 2007 11:06:15 PM
Hello JC, Saddam was not worth the live of a single US army personnel- we lost over 3 thousands our troops to get rid of Saddam who was once helped by US to fight Iran. I support Dr. Paul . He is the most HONEST broker in this debate. Army personnel are contributing to his campaign more than McCain.We love our army.
Posted by: Tariq Ahmed | Nov 28, 2007 11:12:53 PM
Ironically, McCain's justification for invading Iraq is identical to Hitler's justification for invading England!
Posted by: Edward Mann | Nov 28, 2007 11:13:45 PM
Ron Paul is a loon. The media only keep him around for chuckles .. has he ever been higher than 3% ?
Posted by: Scott | Nov 28, 2007 11:13:57 PM
McCain's comment is so distasteful. Its a debate of issues...not a forum for confrontations. He really showed his nastier side....the kind I dont want to see in the Oval office. The other post is right, vote for him and its 4 more years of more and more wars.
Posted by: Joe | Nov 28, 2007 11:19:44 PM
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