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.
What will happen if we leave before we achieve victory?
The terrorists whether they are Al Qaeda or the Iranian and Syrian terrorist regimes or a combination of all of them will not only control Iraq but the whole Middle East and with it come consequences to the US and the West that is worst than our most horrible nightmares. The islamic terrorists will be emboldened beyond imagination. The islamic terrorists will use the hundred of billions of dollars from oil revenues to conduct terrorists attacks that are hundreds of folds more horrible, more deadly, and more destructive than the 9/11 terrorists attacks, including the use of nuclear weapons. They will also use the oil weapon to blackmail the Western and the world economy for many years to come.
If some terrorists dwelling in camps in Afghanistan with a limited budget and few volunteers were able to do 9/11 terrorist attacks, killed 3000 people and caused one trillion dollars in economic losses, imagine the incredible horrors that the terrorists can inflict on us if they control the whole Middle East and it vast revenues.
Any person who has a shred of patriotism and a basic common sense will realize that we simply cannot afford to leave Iraq before we defeat terrorism there.
While RudyTooty is getting all righteous about Ron Paul’s absurd babblings, it needs to be pointed out that due to Giuliani’s lax enforcement of immigrations laws while Mayor of NYC, that he actually made it easier for some of the 9/11 hijackers to work, live and prepare for their dastardly attacks right in the heart of Brooklyn.
In some ways, it would not be too much of a stretch to define Rudy as the ‘20th hijacker’, as he helped to make the attacks possible through his own incompetence, negligence and malfeasance.
Rudy was right - Ron was pandering to the lefties using the enemy’s talking points.
Had our own government not passed laws against American companies to force them to stop drilling here and crippled our own oil industry, we would not even be in the middle east for oil.
Paul was factually correct, but who cares, we are there and in a fight. Let’s win the fight and then play the blame game later. Finger pointing now is not helpful, in fact it is down right stupid.
If Rudy was right then he would have to have some knowledge that no one else has.
We did not start this war. We cannot stop this war. But, we have chosen the battlefield.
If we withdraw from this engagement of our choice, then the next choice of battlefield will be theirs.
Did you like their last choice?
I don’t really care about their grievances. I just want to instill such fear that parents will kill their own children rather allow them to participate in terrorist actions...
Don't care what Ronnie 'meant by' this. It was an idiotic statement.
Yep, he was. But even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Exactly. However, too many, for a variety of reasons and agenda, prefer to focus on what got us there. We are beyond that point and should be focused on the things you cite.
I hate that you used that line on Rudy.
But - damn - that’s a great line.
I’m taking it.
I think that you just jumped it with your blame Rudy for 9-11 post. 9-11 was a Clinton masterpiece.
Rudy sucks as a candidate but let’s be reasonable okay?
Pat Buchanan is an isolationist nutball who jumped the shark in the mid 1990’s. Libertarians should rarely be taken seriously when it comes to foreign policy.
Of course Ron Paul was correct. He just restated what every US intelligence expert has stated many times...that AQ exploits widespread Muslim dislike of US policies in the middle east. There is zero evidence for Rudy's position that we were attacked because Muslims "hate our freedom."
That is not to say the AQ's onjections to US policies mean we must abandon them...but we need to know that the threat of terrorism is a cost of those policies. This ridiculous "they hate our freedoms" line seems designed to try to convince Americans that there is no cost to foreign interventionism
As part of its global power position, the United States is called upon frequently to respond to international causes and and deploy forces around the world. America's position in the world invites attack simply because of its presence. Historical data show a strong correlation between U.S. involvement in international situations and an increase in terrorist attacks against the United States
--The Defense Science Board 1997 Summer Study Task Force on DoD Responses to Transnational Threats
What does Rudy Giuliani think the political motive was for 9-11?
Why does there need to be a political motive to answer a Fatwa calling for the deaths of Americans everywhere? What happened to "lock and load" Puchanan? The islamo-facists are coming for him and he is looking for a political answer.
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
No. just more mis-interpretation.
Those "same" 2/3 polled just recently by CBSNews poll responded
When asked specifically about removing Saddam Hussein from power, 64% answer that the U.S. should have removed Saddam Hussein, but only 32% now say it was right to remain in Iraq to help the country build a new government there. 32% believe the U.S. should have removed Hussein and then left Iraq soon after that, and 34% that the U.S. should never have gotten involved in Iraq in the first place.
the primary focus of the debate is "nation building" and the role of the US in doing so. What does this mean for PJ Puchanan and Ron Paul? more disinformation and propaganda for the isolationist extremists still hanging on to Republican party sentimentalism...
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