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 think Rooty`s outburst of indignation at Paul’s dumb remarks was a planned stunt. Rooty couldn’t control himself. He was looking for a bigtime soundbite and he got it. Too bad none of the other candidates were smart enough to call him on it.
This idea that Rooty was some type of hero after 9-11 is pure fallacy. The firemen, policemen, port authority employees and others were the real heroes of 9-11.
Since 9-11 Rooty has built a huge fortune and fame on what boils down to nothing more then pure mythology.
Actually, we are not really in the ME for oil, and never have been. Its a plausible sounding explanation that lends itself to leftist conspiracy theories, but we get most of our oil from three countries: The US, Mexico, and Canada.
Admittedly, if we drilled ANWAR, we could eliminate the ME from the equation entirely, but those countries would still be full of well-funded terrorists who wanted to destroy us, so that probably wouldn't be a very wise idea.
Well it's a fact that the goal of Muslims is to force all non Muslims to become Muslims. And their goal conflicts with our goal of preventing that from happening.So, what are we going to do about it? Just give up and go home and wait for the inevitable, or stand up and fight.
Was it because we are good and they are evil? Is it because they hate our freedom? Is it that simple?
It's amazing how many conservatives think that it is because of our (relative) freedom, and that we are hated simply because we are the "good guys".
By the same logic, the Union were the "good guys" in the Civil War - and Free Republic is full of neo-Confederates who haven't forgiven them 150 years later.
Try to change a people's way of life at gunpoint and you will be hated by the majority of those people, no matter how noble your motives. US military action should be limited to the elimination of threats to the US - which is all Ron Paul was saying.
The nation-building stuff was stupid under Clinton and it's stupid under Bush...and it would have been equally stupid in Germany and Japan had we not imposed ten-year-long military regencies on both nations and hanged anyone who didn't like it.
>While Rudy Tooty is getting all righteous about Ron Paul’s absurd babblings....<
Ron Paul was semi-correct. Bill Clinton did order selective bombings in Iraq, but those bombings did not continue for ten years.
Nope as I said, we stay and fight, I just wish we drop the PC rules of enagement and wage the war the old fashioned way.
OK. I know a guy who is mad at you and he's going to hurt you unless you give me $100.
So give me $100.
I promise I won't turn around and ask for $1000 later.
Ron Paul was only right in the sense that the Islamists hate us for existing. Maybe he can start the appeasement parade.
Then you should ring up Jeb Bush because some of them lived in Florida during their training as well.
That quickly ended the interview.
Agreed.
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.
Not the fact that he said it at all. That's true. He did say it. The lie is the argument itself.
Usama Bin Laden does not care one iota about Saudi Arabia, Iraqi people, the Palestinians, Kyoto, western racism, or the conquest of Andalusia.
Al Qaida is a growing force worldwide because it's a parasite. It latches on to already existing conflicts, and draws their partisans into his ranks. From the jungles of the Philippines to the Sudanese plains to the hills of Chechnya to the streets of London. Bin Laden exploits regional conflicts, then offers them a worldwide religious context, and the resources of al-Qa'ida, to help fight their personal battle. AQ grants the power to fight back, allies to help them, and the conviction that God Himself is on their side.
Few Muslims would ever subscribe to al-Qa'idas' core philosophy on it's own. It's far more ugly and twisted than Wahabbism itself. But people fighting for their land, families or culture can become open to some very ugly and twisted things. Bin Laden knows this, and seeks out to these groups. He subverts their desperation and passion, and rechannels it against his enemies.
So is Ron Paul wrong in saying that UBL claimed the Iraq/Saudi rationale for declaring war? Not at all. He did claim it. Ron Paul is wrong because he takes it at face value, which is exactly the wrong way to look at it. If don't understand that UBL doesn't actually care about the specific grievances it claims, you're buying into the sales pitch, without understand the threat al-Qa'ida actually poses.
Iraq is a recruiting tool to Bin Laden, nothing more. If we leave, he'll find another. If we win, he'll find another. But what he won't do, ever, is stop. That's why Paul is wrong. Isolationism is absolutely no defense against AQ's Salafist goals.
"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.
Well that and they hate our easy access to ATMs. I know because Fox News and Sean Hannity told me. And instead of reading factual documentation, and having an understanding of history (past 1980), I'll just take their word for it....
Unfortunately too many people really think like that. To them St. Rudy was right and it's inconceivable that other nations may not always agree with our foreign policy
Please, no personal attacks.
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