Posted on 05/18/2007 7:52:44 AM PDT by Reagan Man
It was the decisive moment of the South Carolina debate.
Hearing Rep. Ron Paul recite the reasons for Arab and Islamic resentment of the United States, including 10 years of bombing and sanctions that brought death to thousands of Iraqis after the Gulf War, Rudy Giuliani broke format and exploded:
"That's really an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of 9-11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don't think I have ever heard that before, and I have heard some pretty absurd explanations for Sept. 11.
"I would ask the congressman to withdraw that comment and tell us what he really meant by it."
The applause for Rudy's rebuke was thunderous -- the soundbite of the night and best moment of Rudy's campaign.
After the debate, on Fox News' "Hannity and Colmes," came one of those delicious moments on live television. As Michael Steele, GOP spokesman, was saying that Paul should probably be cut out of future debates, the running tally of votes by Fox News viewers was showing Ron Paul, with 30 percent, the winner of the debate.
Brother Hannity seemed startled and perplexed by the votes being text-messaged in the thousands to Fox News saying Paul won, Romney was second, Rudy third and McCain far down the track at 4 percent.
"I would ask the congressman to ... tell us what he meant," said Rudy.
A fair question and a crucial question.
When Ron Paul said the 9-11 killers were "over here because we are over there," he was not excusing the mass murderers of 3,000 Americans. He was explaining the roots of hatred out of which the suicide-killers came. |
Lest we forget, Osama bin Laden was among the mujahideen whom we, in the Reagan decade, were aiding when they were fighting to expel the Red Army from Afghanistan. We sent them Stinger missiles, Spanish mortars, sniper rifles. And they helped drive the Russians out.
What Ron Paul was addressing was the question of what turned the allies we aided into haters of the United States. Was it the fact that they discovered we have freedom of speech or separation of church and state? Do they hate us because of who we are? Or do they hate us because of what we do?
Osama bin Laden in his declaration of war in the 1990s said it was U.S. troops on the sacred soil of Saudi Arabia, U.S. bombing and sanctions of a crushed Iraqi people, and U.S. support of Israel's persecution of the Palestinians that were the reasons he and his mujahideen were declaring war on us.
Elsewhere, he has mentioned Sykes-Picot, the secret British-French deal that double-crossed the Arabs who had fought for their freedom alongside Lawrence of Arabia and were rewarded with a quarter century of British-French imperial domination and humiliation.
Almost all agree that, horrible as 9-11 was, it was not anarchic terror. It was political terror, done with a political motive and a political objective.
What does Rudy Giuliani think the political motive was for 9-11?
Was it because we are good and they are evil? Is it because they hate our freedom? Is it that simple?
Ron Paul says Osama bin Laden is delighted we invaded Iraq.
Does the man not have a point? The United States is now tied down in a bloody guerrilla war in the Middle East and increasingly hated in Arab and Islamic countries where we were once hugely admired as the first and greatest of the anti-colonial nations. Does anyone think that Osama is unhappy with what is happening to us in Iraq?
Of the 10 candidates on stage in South Carolina, Dr. Paul alone opposed the war. He alone voted against the war. Have not the last five years vindicated him, when two-thirds of the nation now agrees with him that the war was a mistake, and journalists and politicians left and right are babbling in confession, "If I had only known then what I know now ..."
Rudy implied that Ron Paul was unpatriotic to suggest the violence against us out of the Middle East may be in reaction to U.S. policy in the Middle East. Was President Hoover unpatriotic when, the day after Pearl Harbor, he wrote to friends, "You and I know that this continuous putting pins in rattlesnakes finally got this country bitten."
Pearl Harbor came out of the blue, but it also came out of the troubled history of U.S.-Japanese relations going back 40 years. Hitler's attack on Poland was naked aggression. But to understand it, we must understand what was done at Versailles -- after the Germans laid down their arms based on Wilson's 14 Points. We do not excuse -- but we must understand.
Ron Paul is no TV debater. But up on that stage in Columbia, he was speaking intolerable truths. Understandably, Republicans do not want him back, telling the country how the party blundered into this misbegotten war.
By all means, throw out of the debate the only man who was right from the beginning on Iraq.
I knew my days as a Republican were over once I had so many so-called "conservative Republicans" telling me that the enforcement of United Nations mandates was a legitimate reason for the U.S. to launch a major military campaign halfway around the world.
I can have an opinion on anything I wish, dear. It was a stupid statement to make, and going back now and trying to say what he meant is just so ‘John Kerry’.
What you presented is meaningless to the argument we are making. In Iraq we must stay and win, or we will face consequences that are worst than any nightmare we can imagine.
And if the information you cited is an accurate representation of what Iran's world view is, then why the hell did the U.S. topple Saddam Hussein instead of leaving him right where he was -- to enable him to keep Iran under control as he had done throughout the 1980s?
We know their motivation, Islamic domination of the region and eventually the world and we stand in the way. bin Laden is still highly pissed about 1492.
I think it had something to do with preventing the next 9/11, “slam dunk” and things like that. Check Pres. Bush’s speech in ‘03 where he provided a laundry list of reasons — it is above my pay grade.
BUMP - GO RON GO - BUMP
Thank you.
the biggest mistake the west ever made was giving these tent dwelling nomadics technology and developing their oil industry.
AQ is merely the latest in 1,400 year old tradition of islamo-facist movements which seek to destroy anything standing in their way of their message.
In my opinion is that we already won Iraq.
1. WE know Saddam is dead and so is his party.
2. WE ensured that there are no WMDs. If Iraq possessed them, they have been destroyed or moved to another country. They don’t have the ability to make more.
3. WE have ensured that Free Elections have been held.
4. WE could have easily left declaring victory with the expressed written orders that if someone like Saddam comes back into power we will shock and awe them again.
WE won the ‘war’. EXCEPT
Now that we are sticking around we face similar threats that the soviets faced in Afghanistan. The Iranians are funneling weapons to our enemies, undoubtedly backed by the Russians in this effort. Al Queda is acting in concert with stated Iranian objectives, providing the cannon fodder extremists who sometimes (sadly) get to blow up an American solider.
Until Iran is taken off the map we will simply be bleeding ourselves in Iraq. We in effect are wasting time, money and blood by thinking we can win, when we already won in Iraq.
There is no reason for Iran to exist in this world in it’s present state. The UN is busy creating sanctions and passing resolutions while Iran continues to proxy attack us, abduct and parade our allied marines around. Russia will never support a resolution for use of force against Iran. We will never get a resolution passed to do this. If we do attack Iran we will use current UN resolutions to justify military force in Iran and we will not declare war, similar to what we did in Iraq. The UN will not support the action, because they are useless corrupt idiots.
You are right that we need to win and that the stakes are high, but hunkering down and staying in Iraq is not the way to win, nor is justifying anything we do with UN text as we did and continue to do in Iraq.
Lest we forget “Shock and Awe” was an incredible display of power, we have it, we use it and we can use it against any dictator or nation on this earth with great success, including Iran. But by sticking around and being drug down into the mud with the stoneage backwards Muslim extremist cockroaches it has become shock and awe...sh!t.
A bit more history which was left out of this story you’re citing:
In 1980, Jimmy Carter sent his National Security Advisor Zbiegnew Brezinski to Amman Jordan, where a message was conveyed to representatives of Saddam’s regime that the U.S. would not look unkindly upon Iraq, if Saddam were to attack and annex disputed territory claimed by (and then occupied by) Iran.
Why would Jimmy Carter do this? Very simple: he knew already that he had royally screwed the pooch by stabbing the Shah in the back, allowing the Assahollah Khomeini to seize power, and he knew all too well that he was exposed as utterly impotent in resolving the hostage crisis, which would ultimately last 444 days. Carter was hoping, in his usual ignorant and clumsy manner, to put pressure on Iran by instigating a conflict between Iran and it’s neighbor Iraq.
And Carter was successful in a way that any genocidal tyrant would have been proud of, he ended up provoking the eight year Iraq/Iran war in which hundreds of thousands of people died, many of them children (those children indoctrinated, trained, and encouraged to be human mine sweepers by the Iranian thugs, one of them coincidentally by the name of ‘Amadinejad’, sound familiar?).
By the time the Reagan Administration had mercifully delivered America from the buffoon from Georgia, Iran was already wiping the deck with Iraq, and there was a very real possibility that if Iraq fell to Iran, that the Ayatollah and his crew would end up sweeping the entire region, which would lead to Iran becoming the dominant power AND controlling the flow of oil to boot.
As your article points out, the Reagan Administration did not view the collapse of Iraq as being beneficial to U.S. interests, and the U.S. indeed gave support to Iraq.
But get this straight, and get it right:
NONE of that would have been necessary had the abysmal amateur president, aka Jimmy Carter, not thrown the entire Middle East into chaos with his foolish notions of ‘playing the peacemaker’, and in contrast, he did more to bring about the current global jihad the West is facing than any other human being on the planet.
When Reagan was sworn in, our hostages may have been released, but thanks to Carter the Middle East was left in the lap of the new Administration with nothing but bad choices all the way around.
The alternative to NOT assisting Iraq at that time?
Connect the dots, “and get back to me”.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-rlc/1835783/posts
You can alway say the policy caused it because it's true but also not the question... the question is, is the policy right?
If we set a policy of becoming Muslim and join there Jihad the would love us ... but is that the policy we want?...No OK So we set a policy based on the assumption if we don't bother them... they won't bother us.... has that in the past, prove to be a good assumption ...no... has that in the past, prove to be a good assumption with Islam... no... has that in the past, prove to be a good assumption with militant Islam?...hell no
So how about if they don't bother us.... We won't bother them... problem is they have a habit of uses these times of peace to prepare for the next time to bother us...
Of course you can say it not us it our friends (Israel)
Well has Israel try the same policy if we don't bother them... they won't bother us... yes... did they get the same results as us... yes....
Well maybe in just Jews... if we "Christian" just were not friends with Jews...then militant Islam would not bother us...
But Hindu and Buddhist are not and particular friends of Jews and Christians yet militant Islam seem to bother them... so maybe being a Jews or Christian is not the issue for militant Islam ... maybe militant Islam issue is with anybody thats not militant Islam... because militant Islam seem to even have issues with non militant Islam (hell militant Islam has problem with other branches of militant Islam ...
So you can alway say the policy caused it because it's true ...If we set a policy of becoming Muslim and join there Jihad the would love us ... but is that the policy we want?... We say No so it our own dam fault...
It is kind like saying a women saying "no" to :putting out" is the reason the women got raped and therefor it's her own dam fault
Pat Buchanan is just the paleo “conservative” version of wRong Paul.
It’s nice to see another good column from Pat. I hope he is wrong about the Republicans, but given the way many liberal Republicans are attacking Ron Paul, it does not look that way.
In fighting for our freedoms by following down a path that is detrimental to our Liberty, we risk turning into a post WWII England. We become less safe and less free. This is the very same thing that F. A. Hayek warned against in his “Road To Serfdom”. Madison, Jefferson, and Washington all warned against this as well.
Good to see ya around. I don’t post here much anymore. Below is the text, found during a search at the Library of Congress website of the 107th Congress, of the bill you’re talking about:
107th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 3076
To authorize the President of the United States to issue letters of marque and reprisal with respect to certain acts of air piracy upon the United States on September 11, 2001, and other similar acts of war planned for the future.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
October 10, 2001
Mr. PAUL introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on International Relations
A BILL
To authorize the President of the United States to issue letters of marque and reprisal with respect to certain acts of air piracy upon the United States on September 11, 2001, and other similar acts of war planned for the future.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `September 11 Marque and Reprisal Act of 2001’.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
The Congress finds the following:
(1) That the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 upon the United States were acts of air piracy contrary to the law of nations.
(2) That the terrorist attacks were acts of war perpetrated by enemy belligerents to destroy the sovereign independence of the United States of America contrary to the law of nations.
(3) That the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks were actively aided and abetted by a conspiracy involving one Osama bin Laden and others known and unknown, either knowingly and actively affiliated with a terrorist organization known as al Qaeda or knowingly and actively conspiring with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, both of whom are dedicated to the destruction of the United States of America as a sovereign and independent nation.
(4) That the al Qaeda conspiracy is a continuing one among Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and others known and unknown with plans to commit additional acts of air piracy and other similar acts of war upon the United States of America and her people.
(5) That the act of war committed on September 11, 2001, by the al Qaeda conspirators, and the other acts of war planned by the al Qaeda conspirators, are contrary to the law of nations.
(6) That under Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution, Congress has the power to grant letters of marque and reprisal to punish, deter, and prevent the piratical aggressions and depredations and other acts of war of the al Qaeda conspirators.
SEC. 3. AUTHORITY OF PRESIDENT.
(a) The President of the United States is authorized and requested to commission, under officially issued letters of marque and reprisal, so many of privately armed and equipped persons and entities as, in his judgment, the service may require, with suitable instructions to the leaders thereof, to employ all means reasonably necessary to seize outside the geographic boundaries of the United States and its territories the person and property of Osama bin Laden, of any al Qaeda co-conspirator, and of any conspirator with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda who are responsible for the air piratical aggressions and depredations perpetrated upon the United States of America on September 11, 2001, and for any planned future air piratical aggressions and depredations or other acts of war upon the United States of America and her people.
(b) The President of the United States is authorized to place a money bounty, drawn in his discretion from the $40,000,000,000 appropriated on September 14, 2001, in the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Recovery from and Response to Terrorists Attacks on the United States or from private sources, for the capture, alive or dead, of Osama bin Laden or any other al Qaeda conspirator responsible for the act of air piracy upon the United States on September 11, 2001, under the authority of any letter of marque or reprisal issued under this Act.
(c) No letter of marque and reprisal shall be issued by the President without requiring the posting of a security bond in such amount as the President shall determine is sufficient to ensure that the letter be executed according to the terms and conditions thereof.
Ron Paul’s comments that US foreign policy leads to dislike of us overseas is absurd. Gulliani is right, everyone knows that Bin Lauden attacked us only because he hates our freedom. It makes more sense that he was enraged by the thought of hot dogs and apple pie than of foreign policy.
Besides, if the “big stick” policy of the neo-cons in Washington isn’t approved of overseas. So what? As the world’s only Superpower we can just beat ‘em down.
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