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 hate to break this to you, but that's really been the case at ALL times.
Reagan Man:
Agreed
So, we agree, we must fight the terrorists on their home ground in the middle east.
Why can't we also fight them world wide as Paul advocated?
HR 3076 September 11 Marque and Reprisal Act of 2001 (Introduced in the House); October 10, 2001 by Ron Paul
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/sept_11/hr3076_ih.htm
Ah yes, another lovely Buchanan thread, where facts are thrown out the window by hysterical FReepers in favor of the usual ad-hominems and Buchanan name-calling.
Of course it was.
It's the equivalent of grasping desperately at vines when you're sinking in the quicksand.
Rudy has no credibility on the WOT as well as all the other issues.
I can’t be certain, but things might have turned out better if Bush had asked for and the Congress granted him an official declaration of war. Of course then we would have been obligated to fight the battle for Iraq like it was a real war. The invasion was a huge success. The aftermath has been a difficult nut to crack. Its been handled with too much poltiical correctness. The US military is not a police force or a nation building contingent. Nor is it meant to spread “democracy” to the Islamic world. The US military is desgined to fight battle and win wars. Hopefully before Bush leaves office, we can get achieve some sort of success. I’d still like to see a strong and sizeable US presence left in Iraq for years to come. This WOT is gonna last a long time.
Right. But the U.S. military hasn’t fought a “real war” since 1945, so I don’t know why anyone would have expected this one to be any different.
Ron Paul's defenders are citing the likes of Scheuer and the 9-11 Omission. Not the best way to make their case.
A "well-known Arabist"? No...he doesn't believe that the USA is "controlled by ZOG"
What he does believe is that one-sided support by the US for Israel is a policy that undermines what should be the only foreign policy objective of the US (protecting it's citizens). I have never gotten the impression that Scheurer cares much one way or the other about Israel or the Arab world and what they do in their battle against each other...other than to the extent that it effects American interests...which is how it should be for every American and every American government official. But that more Americans focused only on the interests of our own country
He is critical of the power of the Israeli lobby...not because its Israel...but because it should trouble every American that there are powerful lobbies in Washington pushing the agendas of foreign nations. He's also been critical of the power of the Saudi lobby
Oh yeah, he’s right on this one but not on much else.
We’re in basic agreement on this one.
Although I did like the way Bush41 used overwhelming force to win the Gulf War. I know —— we didn’t go far enough for some. But that wasn’t the original objective. I think it was a smart move at the time. Historic hindsight is always 20/20.
I realize it’s quicker and easier, not to mention more fun, to insult people with whom you disagree, but I’ll ask anyway.
Please tell us on which points Buchanan is wrong, and why.
If you “don’t care” what the statement meant, how can you have an opinion on it?
Yeah, God forbid our foreign policy be conducted Constitutionally.
Such as??
He would need to have a direct line to Bin Laden.
Well, whether Ron Paul was partially right or not, his rhetoric was incoherent at best. I agree with Paul’s call for limited government and real tax reform. But the way he communicates his position on Iraq, is very troubling. I doubt he’ll be invited to any future debates.
More importantly in the long term. Rooty was given a huge soundbite success, one that he planned but didn’t deserve. Rooty was getting blasted on almost every issue. He needed something to obfuscate that truth and was handed it on a silver platter by Paul.
Everyone should read this article:
The textbooks paint an alarming picture of a regime that divides the world between "good" and "evil" forces that are destined to clash until a victory is reached. Since the evil and arrogant West seeks to destroy Iran, a war is inevitable. Iranians are hence tasked with a religious mission of fighting "evil" until the latter's final eradication, or, until the "good" camp is wiped out. In Ayatollah Khomeini's words, reproduced in an eleventh-grade textbook: "Either we shake one another's hand in joy at the victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life and martyrdom.
The Iranian school textbooks reveal a frightening vision of an extremist regime that prepares its school children for another such episode -- an Armageddon-like global war against the West.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20070214-093525-3000r.htm
The Ayatollah's words make it quite clear what they think -- either they win or they win anyway.
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