“Again, the simple ‘we exercise influence in the Mideast so they hate us’ does not validly describe history or human affairs.”
This I would agree with and you all make good points. I guess each past war needs to be judged on a conflict by conflict basis, and my opinion is that there are many past conflicts we should perhaps not have been in and that much of our government’s foreign policy and ‘grand schemes’ have been counter productive.
But I also think the US could have been more aggressive in past conflicts, if we are going to war we need to go to full war. But this piddle paddle here and ‘support’ and ‘advisors’ and arments and money etc... and cia undercover stuff as a nation building exercise is not a good idea. Someone on another thread termed the ideal, ‘ferocious isolationism’, a term I sort of like, as it distinguishes from a more liberal, ‘reckless pacifism’.
And you’re right, most of the hate from the middle east stems from their governments, governments much more oppressive than ours. Paul did not address this, and perhaps he should have. But even if there is far more blame lying over there, it is still worthwhile to look to improve on our own contributions to the problem. So, I still think there is good truth to what he said, moving in that direction, returning at least somewhat to the roots of isolationism, even if not all the way would surely generate positive results.
Wrong! ALL of the hate from the middle east stems from a religion that demands the World be subjugated to it. Those governments you refer to merely oppress their "subjects", just as we would be subjugated, based on the tenets of that religion.