“We went after Japan only after they attacked us, and Germany only after they declared war on us.
When did Iraq attack or declare war on us?”
That’s why I used the cauldron spilling over metaphor, because the parallel exists on a more general level than with a comparison of particular events or individuals.
The point is that entities external to us are the cause of problems taking place internally (both actualized and impending terrorist attacks). Therefore we must act in the external theater. This is precisely what happened in WWII.
Had we not taken out Saddam, his actions would have led to terrorist attacks against us increased both in frequency and intensity.
Italy never attacked America either, but when war broke out a lot of us ended up fighting and dying there.
“When did Iraq attack or declare war on us?”
9/11/2001 They gave money and training to the terrorists.
Which is of course not an answer. The point remains that the US did not enter WWII until we were either attacked or war was declared on us.
The point is that entities external to us are the cause of problems taking place internally (both actualized and impending terrorist attacks). Therefore we must act in the external theater. This is precisely what happened in WWII.
What sort of doublespeak is this?
The "external entities" have reacted to decades of US intervention in their internal affairs, which can be traced back to the CIA's removal of Mozadek in Iran back in 53.
Paul's point was that our interventionalist foreign policy handed them what they consider to be the justification for their attacks on us.
It does not take a rocket scientist to understand that had this country been invaded and occupied by a foreign power, that a resistance movement such as the world has never seen would take place. Why would the Middle East be any different?
Frankly, it doesn't appear that you have a clue of what happened in WWII. First off, Pearl Harbor was not a "actualised and/or impending terrorist attack" it was an attack from an organised foreign army. Had Germany not declared war on us, and not interviened in the Pacific war with Japan, it is unlikely that the US would have gotten involved in the European theatre of operations. That was the premise for Newt Gingrich's book 1945
There are few parallels to WWII in the supposed "war on terror". There are however, plenty of parallels to a place called Vietnam.