Paul Approves Eichmann Capture?

In a mostly overlooked statement in yesterday night’s debate, Ron Paul seemed to approve the capture of Adolph Eichmann, although it caused at the time an international crisis for Israel’s violation of Argentine’s sovereignty. The capture is clearly forbidden under Paul’s purist- isolationist doctrine. It goes to show that a presidential campaign corrupts (from a strictly libertarian stand point) even purists like Ron Paul.
While criticizing the killing of Osama Bin Laden - for violating Pakistani sovereignty and not reaching out to the Pakistanis to hand him over – Paul pointed to the capture of Adolph Eichmann, to prove that a life capture is plausible.  
Here are parts of the exchange:

BAIER: Next round of questions is on foreign policy. And we’ll begin with Congressman Paul. In a recent interview, Congressman Paul with a Des Moines radio station you said you were against the operation that killed Osama bin Laden. You said the U.S. operation that took out the terrorist responsible for killing 3,000 people on American soil, quote, showed no respect for the rule of law, international law.

PAUL: Well, you know, I can’t say — his colleague was in Pakistan, and we communicated, you know, with the government of Pakistan and they turned him over. And what I suggested there was that if we have no respect for the sovereignty of another nation that it will lead to disruption of that nation…

If somebody in this country, say a Chinese dissident come over here, we wouldn’t endorse the idea, well, they can come over here and bomb us and do whatever. I’m just trying to suggest that respect for other nation’s sovereignty — and look at the chaos in Pakistan now. We are at war in Pakistan, but to say that I didn’t want him killed…

PAUL: I would say that if you do your best and you can’t do anything, yes, we had the authority, we voted for it, you got it from the congress, you do it. I just didn’t think they had gone through the process enough to actually, you know, capture him in a different way.

I mean, think about Saddam Hussein. We did that. We captured him. We tried him. I mean the government tried him and he got hung. What’s so terrible about this?

This whole idea that you can’t capture — just a minute. This whole idea you can’t capture people…

BAIER: but you voted against the war in Iraq.

Paul (the transcript mistakenly attributes that comment to Baier – OP): Adolf Eichmann was captured. He was given a trial. What is wrong with capturing people? Why didn’t we try to get some information from him? You know, we are accustomed to asking people questions, but all of a sudden gone, you know, that’s it.

So I would say that there are different ways without trying to turn around and say, oh, for some reason this doesn’t mean he’s supporting America.

Dr. Paul refers to Eichmann and seems to agree with the capture. Fact is that the operation was disapproved by a UN Security Council resolution 138, with US support, for violating Argentina’s sovereignty.
One have to wonder if Dr. Paul decided to pander on a holocaust issue, after being criticized for saying that saving the Jews from the holocaust was “non of our business,” much like he seemed to pander to the African American community, by saying that racism exist in the Justice system and drug laws, to cover-up his racist newsletters.
One thing is clear: even Ron Paul deviates from his purist ideology when running for president. It is time for ardent libertarians to find a new purist candidate.


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