Posted on 05/18/2007 8:13:13 AM PDT by traviskicks
Quixotic presidential candidate Ron Paul landed himself in a bit of hot water - make that a boiling cauldron - for remarks he made in last week's GOP debate suggesting that America's containment of Saddam Hussein led to 9/11.
Responding to a question about whether Paul was blaming America for the 9/11 attacks, he stated: "They don't come here to attack us because we're rich and we're free. They come and they attack us because we're over there."
Mayor Giuliani interjected in high dudgeon sending the crowd, and later conservative pundits, to their feet. But what Ron Paul said is, in fact, utterly uncontroversial and utterly true. Nowhere did Paul suggest ala Ward Churchill that the U.S. deserved to be attacked, he merely sought to explain the motives of those who attacked us. His explanation was certainly incomplete and a bit ham-handed, but it was not inaccurate or blatantly false.
In fact, if Ron Paul was "blaming the victim" as Mayor Giuliani indignantly implied, then he is in the company of such notorious America-haters as the current President of the United States, the former Assistant Secretary of Defense, the editorial boards of the Weekly Standard and Wall Street Journal, and many, many conservative pundits and intellectuals.
Cause & Effect
In a now famous November 6, 2003 address, President Bush explicitly linked U.S. policy with the rise of Islamic terrorism:
"Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe -- because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty. As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment, and violence ready for export."
This "accommodation" takes many forms, from the generous subsidies to the Mubarak regime in Egypt to the protection of the Saudi "royal" family and other Gulf potentates, first from Saddam Hussein and now from Iran.
In fact, the entire neoconservative argument for "regional transformation" rests on the notion that the prevailing political order in the Middle East - a political order sustained by American patronage and protection - has nurtured the conditions for bin Ladenism and must therefore be overturned.
Paul Wolfowitz - hardly a blame-America-firster - defended the removal of Saddam Hussein explicitly on the grounds that it would assuage one of bin Laden's grievances. In an interview with Vanity Fair the former Assistant Defense Secretary said that U.S. forces stationed in Saudi Arabia had "been a source of enormous difficulty for a friendly government. It's been a huge recruiting device for al Qaeda. In fact if you look at bin Laden, one of his principle grievances was the presence of so-called crusader forces on the holy land, Mecca and Medina."
Wolfowitz was correct, of course. In a 1998 fatwa signaling his jihad against America and the West and in interviews, bin Laden cited the stationing of troops in Saudi Arabia (necessary for containing Saddam) and the supposed depredations visited upon Iraq by the U.S. through sanctions and the no-fly-zones among his principle grievances. More significantly, America's support for "infidel" regimes led bin Laden to conclude that only by striking the "far enemy" (the U.S.) could he sufficiently weaken American support for the "near enemy" regimes of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, making them easier targets. This initially put him at odds with his number two, Ayman al Zawahiri, who wanted to focus the jihadist firepower on Middle Eastern governments.
On a more transactional level, American support for anti-Soviet forces in Afghanistan is widely understood as have playing an instrumental role in the formation of al Qaeda. Pakistan's intelligence service routed American arms and Saudi money to radical forces in Afghanistan to beat back the Soviet invasion. The beneficiaries of this covert subsidy included Osama bin Laden and many of the "Arab Afghans" volunteers who would later form the nucleus of al Qaeda.
Lastly, opinion polls in the Middle East routinely portray a region bristling against American policies and influence (though not, it should be noted, with unrestrained hostility for Americans as a people). Throw in radical Islamic teachings, which reinforce the need to cleanse "holy soil" of any infidel influence, and you have the toxic stew from which al Qaeda sips.
Different analysts weight these two factors - radical theology and nationalistic umbrage - differently. I've argued earlier that this interpretative divide is largely fictitious, that radical Islam is both a reaction to American policies and an expression of Islamic fundamentalism. But it is simply counter-factual to suggest that America's Middle East policy has played no role whatsoever in the terrorist threat we're now confronting.
So why was Paul savaged?
I believe it's because many conservatives, especially since 9/11, have become increasingly unwilling to internalize the simple maxim that government actions have consequences - many of them unintended, some of them negative. Conservatives are rightly skeptical of grand government initiatives aimed at curing various domestic ills. Yet some have become convinced that the same bureaucrats who cannot balance the budget will nonetheless be able to deftly manage the political outcomes of nations half a world away. The tendency is so acute that it led the libertarian blogger Jim Henley to wryly observe that for some "Hayek stops at the water's edge."
Furthermore, understanding why bin Laden struck at America is not the same as excusing the murderers of 9/11 anymore than observing that Hitler desired Lebensraum excuses his invasion of Poland. Knowing your enemy is the all-important first step to defeating him.
Indeed, Paul has done the debate a fundamental service by raising the complex issues of cost and benefit when it comes to America's Middle East policy. You can argue, as former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski did, that a few "stirred up Muslims" was worth the price of driving a defeated Soviet Union out of Afghanistan. You can also argue, as the Bush administration has done, that 9/11 was not a serious enough event to merit a substantial rethinking of our relationship with Saudi Arabia. You can even claim that more, not less, intervention in the Middle East is what is required to bring about needed change.
What you cannot seriously argue is that the world is a "consequence free" zone in which U.S. actions can never catalyze harmful reactions.
American policy cannot be held hostage to the umbrage of religious fanatics, but we should pursue our policies with the clear-eyed understanding that government is a blunt instrument and that bureaucrats in Washington are not all-knowing sages capable of fine-tuning events and people in far away countries to precisely accord with our interests.
Indeed, beneath his awkward syntax, Ron Paul was making a serious point: that less intervention in the Middle East would ultimately improve American security. If Mayor Giuliani disagrees, he should at least explain why.
How did you get all that from the one sentence I posted. Perhaps you're the one with "issues."
If you have a point of contention with something I posted, why don't you just address it yourself, instead of pinging other people for help?
| Action | User | Date/Time |
|---|---|---|
| Append keyword "loser" |
MNJohnnie |
05/19/2007 3:02:43 PM CDT |
| Append keyword "binladensbitch" |
MNJohnnie |
05/19/2007 11:59:49 AM CDT |
| Append keyword "nut" |
B. Chezwick |
05/19/2007 2:34:37 AM CDT |
| Append keyword "ronpaul" |
traviskicks |
05/18/2007 1:17:45 PM CDT |
| Append keyword "godblessronpaul" |
traviskicks |
05/18/2007 1:17:44 PM CDT |
| Append keyword "paulbearers" |
AmishDude |
05/18/2007 12:12:22 PM CDT |
| Append keyword "liberaltarians" |
presidio9 |
05/18/2007 11:19:11 AM CDT |
| Append keyword "nutjob" |
finnman69 |
05/18/2007 10:51:42 AM CDT |
They were from the Amal movement, pre-Hezbollah.
You're the one making the argument that the Iranians would have attacked Camp LeJeune, not me.
I have never stated such, you idiot!
I asked about whether or not we had troops in Saudi at the time of the 1983 barracks bombing. Instead of answering directly, you set up strawman after strawman hoping I would take the bait.
I'll ask again. If we were in Lebanon and it was a Lebanese that blew up the barracks, if there was so much resentment for us being there, then why did the Lebanese need to be told by Tehran to do the act? Why did Tehran need to tell them to blow up Americans if there was "so much" resentment toward us then?
I asked you specifically for a document or newsstory that showed the resentment you maintain existed by the Lebanese for us being in Beirut at the time of the Barracks attack.
You either could not find same or didn't bother to look for same. I'm surprised you, with your vaunted superior intellect, could not have done so.
You insist by your words that there need be no ulterior motive on the part of Iran to cause this kind of crap to happen. I'm calling Bullshit on you for this, you ignorant twit.
Duh!
So if it's not personal freedom and the Constitution you're wanting to conserve, WHAT IS IT you want conserved? The new, modern socialist or fascist state? A different brand of authoritarianism? What?
Very well said, thanks for saying it here...
True...but one cannot be Conservative without it.
Of course, that is what many FReepers believe. Or, their are some who understand this, but think that if you mention it you are a traitor.
what a really great article. BTTT!
I see conservativism and libertarianism as overlapping categories. They are not identical. I find Paul appealing for his conservative positions and those positions that are both conservative and libertarian, such as limited government (especially on the federal level), no federal income taxation, and deferring to the reserved powers of the states and the people (USC Amendment X, etc...).
I love it when people call Ron Paul a “libertarian”. It means he believes in liberty.
“with LIBERTY and justice for all”
If you’ve ever said the pledge of allegiance, then you my friend, are a libertarian too!
Seems to me you are limiting your response to the situation in Iraq, if you are then you are wrong. Ron Paul said what he said, but it was in reference to our Foriegn Policy in the Mideast for the past several decades.
Apparently you have chose to ignore this detail and historical fact. But keep trying to justify this illegal war with nonsense and twisting of words.
Ron Paul and the most of the GOP are not conservatives.
It's also simply incorrect to state that our foreign policy has nothing to do with how high up we are on their priority list of enemies.
That's not saying we deserve their enmity...it's saying that when we oppose evil, we should expect evil to push back. 9/11 was evil pushing back. No earth-shattering revelation there.
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