It would well for Americans to familiarize themselves with the estimated short and long-term effects of a limited, regional nuclear war. What most people don't realize is that the smallest nuclear weapons can result not only in the deaths and long-term suffering of target populations, but in longer term ecological effects. Even a "contained" regional nuclear war could have disastrous effects on the global population:

Limited nuclear war would cause mass starvation for a decade

http://www.2020visioncampaign.org/pages/187/Limited_nuclear_war_would_cause_mass_starvation_for_a_decade

Carbonaceous smoke particles are transported by winds throughout the atmosphere but also induce circulations in response to solar heating. Simulations predict that such radiative-dynamical interactions would loft and stabilize the smoke aerosol, which would allow it to persist in the middle and upper atmosphere for a decade.

Climatic anomalies could persist for a decade or more because of smoke stabilization, far longer than in previous nuclear winter calculations or after volcanic eruptions.

And in the event a regional nuclear conflict escalated into a nuclear exchange among nuclear superpowers:

Studies of the consequences of full-scale nuclear war show that indirect effects of the war could cause more casualties than direct ones, perhaps eliminating the majority of the world's population.

The combination of nuclear proliferation, political instability, and urban demographics may constitute one of the greatest dangers to the stability of society since the dawn of humans.

Any person who proposes the use of nuclear weapons for any purpose should be treated as having zero credibility and rationality. In other words, they are insane. That includes the military and governmental leaders of any country including the U.S.

I suggest that you re-read the entry. It makes perfect sense.

1. He does want to make a bomb.

2. He does mean what he says about Israel.

I also think Paul is discussing the fact that the U.S. media and government picks and chooses what it wants (us) to believe.

Leaving the eternal war between Israel and its neighbors aside, there is no way a nuclear weapons program in any Middle Eastern nation could be anything but a deterrent. A nuclear war in the Middle East is suicide, no matter who starts it (even us).

Democracy is social contract. Once the terms of that contract are violated, all bets are off.

When I hear words like "terrorist operative", "unlawful enemy combatant", "terrorist aliens", "extralegal", "Commander in Chief" and "war on terror" what I hear has nothing to do with national security and everything to do with dictatorial power. I see these words as part of an effort to change the terms of the social contract as established by the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and other like-minded national and international treaties and agreements. These documents are the very documents by which we established this country as a sovereign nation. They are our original proclamations of self-rule, the words that we used to proclaim to the world that we were not only a nations of laws, but a democratic nation of laws.

If we do not abide by these documents, then what documents, what rule of law do we abide by?

I ask myself on a daily basis if America is even a democracy at this point.

Let's see . . .

You can vote (if you are not excluded as a result of race, physical location, criminal record or political party), but even then you can never be certain that your vote was counted.

You can get up in the morning, go to work, come home, go shopping, buy things, have a family, have a hobby and live your life as though you were in a democracy as long as you don't break any laws. But in some cases you have no way of knowing whether your disagreement with the government or other acts of dissidence will be interpreted as breaking the law. And you have no way of knowing who is keeping track of you, who you talk to, where you go, what you do and for what purposes. And you have no way of knowing if your life or livelihood will be negatively effected as a result of your political opinions or actions, even if you are a federal prosecutor charged with making sure that doesn't happen.

You can travel outside the country as long as you understand that by doing so you run the remote risk of being picked up at an airport or on the street and taken away somewhere where you might be tortured and denied the right to communicate with your family or anyone else.

You can do or say almost anything you want if you are affiliated with a particular political party, or have sufficient wealth or other form of privilege normally belonging to what used to be called the aristocracy. You can even be called a hero after being convicted of lying about your involvement in outing an undercover CIA agent who was responsible for keeping track of WMDs in an effort to keep America safe.

So, are we a democracy? Less and less. My personal opinion? On a scale of 1-10, I would place us at about a 3. No habeas corpus. No trial by jury. No freedom to assemble publicly outside a "free speech zone" when it really matters. No lots of things. But plenty of fear. All day long every day, 365 days a year.

It appears that George Bush is no longer considered a disaster in terms of U.S. politics, but is now regarded as a disaster in terms of world civilization.

From Sidney Blumenthal following the G8 summit:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/06/14/bush_foreign_policy/?source=newsletter