Posted on 08/01/2007 1:07:53 PM PDT by SJackson
There has been much brouhaha over the quarrel between Rudy Giuliani and Ron Paul which occurred during a recent debate between Republican candidates. The topic turned to the overriding issue of transnational terrorism, where Mr. Paul went unfettered: “Have you ever read about the reasons they attacked us? They attack us because we’ve been over there… I’m suggesting that we listen to the people that attacked us and the reason they did it. And they are delighted that we’re over there…”
There is nothing morally ambiguous in opposing war or holding non-interventionist views. In fact, the sincerity in this Libertarian man’s position is admirably consistent, as compared to those in Congress who advantageously support or oppose an incursion depending on its popularity or degree of difficulty. But the folksy and seemingly charming Paul espouses inconsistency and amorality in claiming “they,” the Jihadists who toppled our greatest buildings, “attacked us because we’ve been over there”–– there being the Middle East –– while concluding “they’re delighted that we’re over there.”
What are we to make of this abject damned-if-we-do-damned-if-we-don’t declaration? Representative Paul was not misunderstood or taken out of context, as his rabid supporters may claim. Anyone with a modicum of familiarity with his work could pinpoint where he is coming from the moment he opens his mouth. He has subsequently defended, reiterated, elaborated, and expanded on this central thesis of his, which I feel needs to be addressed under the auspices of a few counterpoints.
First, his policy prescription, which is based loosely on not pissing off al Qaida for fear of blowback, is as foolhardy as it is irreconcilable with itself. If we intervene overseas, his logic suggests, the havoc we may cause will rile up the proverbial hornet’s nest. And yet, at the same time –– as evidence that we ought to withdraw –– Paul and his kind quote our adversaries, which boast they relish our presence to quench their blood thirst. This jejuneness recurred during a love fest with Bill Maher, where, in cataloging the terrorists’ gripes against us and our past faults, Mr. Paul listed “supporting Osama bin Laden (against the Soviets).”
So, sir, which is it? Is it our opposition to Islamists which earns their wrath, or our assistance to them? I’ll let you have one, but you’re not getting both. This incompatibility raises the corollary question: Should or should we not continue on, uninterrupted, with a policy that displeases our opponents? What about a policy that pleases them, which has also proven to be inefficient? Paul never directly addresses this query, although he does seem to blame the cause of Wahhabi violence on our resistance against it.
In this, Paul is playing considerably well to the lowest common denominator of his Antiwar.com base (of which he is a regular columnist). Can the congressman cite one historical example –– from Alexander at Gaugamela, to Martel at Tours, to Chard at Rorke’s Drift, to Tommy Franks at Kabul –– where two military rivals actually agreed with the opposing policy of their enemy? Is the presidential hopeful implying there is something less preferable, for instance, than to know that America’s mortal enemies - like Dr.Ayman al Zawahiri - contest what we have been up to? Would not his concurrence with our policy be grounds for self-rumination and self-scrutiny?
It is well within the realm of legitimacy to put these silly propositions, and the concepts they propagate, under scrutiny. Simply take a Charley Reese –– “Every time our guys kick in a door, shoot somebody or arrest a ‘suspect,’ we simply create more enemies” –– or a Richard Clarke –– “Our presence provides motivation for people… to become anti-American terrorists” –– and marvel at their banality. Just how can someone think in this inanely truculent manner? This is utter masochism, the creepiest form of sadistic thinking; they are to international relations theory what kinky deviants are to sex therapy: hard to explain, a little weird, and self-flagellating.
By behaving like so, this cluster of pundits ends up practicing what they preach against: hubris and unfair clumping of “the other.” One gets the gut impression they feel that Islamic terrorism is about everything but itself, promoting an increasingly self-centered worldview where everything is a reaction to American ills. Just what is it about arming needy Muslim Afghans, or protecting Muslim Kurds, or liberating Muslim Kuwaitis, or bombing Christian Serbia to save Muslim Bosnia that so irks al Qaida?
It is the height of generalization to assume that all Middle Easterners who oppose American foreign policy are little terrorist tacticians in the making, with the wherewithal, and equipment, and desire to start plundering innocents. Conflating every upset Muslim –– every Arab with a differing opinion –– as a “future enemy” is not only a soft bigotry of low expectations, showing tempered scorn for all “those people,” but it is a ludicrous request for U.S. policymakers to abide by. What sovereign state happily handcuffs itself like this? What other segment of the world’s population do we try to avoid angering so much?
Anyone who has translated Jihadist literature, listened to state-run Arabic media, read Quranic verses, or studied the socio-political aspects of Wahhabi and Salafist culture should come to realize that those who kill off dissidents and human rights activists in their homelands do so for a reason. And just because there is a reason does not lend credence or legitimacy to their motivation one iota.
The pestilence is clear to anyone who opens their eyes: the hoodlums that kill civilians in Iraq are the same ideologues (if not members of the same networks) who ban television in Afghanistan, and murder feminists in Pakistan; jail singers for their fame in Saudi Arabia, and conduct honor killings in Hamastan (Gaza); criminalize holding hands in Iran, while rejecting political, economic, and cultural connectivity. They are the same people who openly ridicule democratic constitutionalism and declare Allah’s word, which advocates the slaughter of nonbelievers, as the holy and unalterable directive –– and that is their law, their final commandment, their parliament, their Bill of Rights.
Wake up. They oppose what we do because they cannot stand who we are. And they cannot stand who we are because a large chunk of the populace they vow to subjugate either loves, appreciates, or is, at the very least, intrigued with who we are. This is nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to hide from, and certainly nothing to blame ourselves for –– lest we concur with Ron Paulism. Punks like bin Laden have rebuked us for not addressing campaign finance reform and global warming; “philosophers” like Sayyid Qutb chastised us for our football, our high school wrestling, our vanity, our watered lawns, our “brutish” males, our “seductive” females, our dances (Chubby Checker’s The Twist?), and oh yes, our not believing that true freedom can only occur in a state of complete submission to the supernatural.
Paul should elaborate on whether he does or does not consent with the Jihadist grievance, because frankly, I find it moronic –– and believers in protecting and promoting free societies should grow, as I have, to loathe the Jihadist as much for who he is as for what he does. By explaining away the destruction of this or that structure demolished by these lout assassins –– a tower in Argentina, a U.N. or parliamentary building in Baghdad, an office in Tanzania, the World Trade Center, etc. –– and by attempting to get inside the logic of the murderers and kidnappers of humanitarians, cerebral short-comers like Ron Paul end up hoisting their avowed foe’s banner, in a sense playing ventriloquist for the very people that swear to kill them.
No doubt such men –– Mike Gravel, Richard Clarke, Charley Reese, etc. –– generally mean well, and in theory oppose Islamist intimidation and violence; they just unfortunately participate in the therapeutic exercise of speaking on behalf of it. One can only scoff when someone cites a comatose catatonic like Michael Scheuer as a legitimate voice of reason. Scheuer promises, “We’re being attacked for what we do in the Islamic world, not for whom we are or what we believe...” This on the heels of Congressman Paul claiming, “The whole peninsula is holy land to them,” and our presence “provides a tremendous motivation for them to come after us.” There it is again: “we,” “what we do,” “motivation for them.” Oh, play me the world’s smallest violin…
Do they not see the xenophobia in al Qaida’s whines? For what reason are we disallowed from entering their “holy” land, after all? Why must I refrain from touring Mecca, for instance? Why are nonbelievers exempt, in a racist and prejudiced manner, from the trespass of certain terrains? Is Paul truly conceding to the theocrats that their preferred real estate fall under religious dominion, that a particular piece of land fall under the authority of a certain theology, that Islam itself be granted territorial sovereignty? And if it is our color and creed which prompts their hatred of our company, is that not abhorrence for “who we are” and “what we believe,” Mr. Scheuer?
Nobody else on the planet would get away with this excuse, and we shouldn’t allow al Qaida to get away with it, let alone by quoting them empathetically. To offer a final counterintuitive, perhaps it is they, the head-loppers, who ought to fear what we think of them, more so than they of us? Perhaps with each nun or businessman or journalist they kill, with each movie or opera or cartoon they demand be shut down, with each design of architectural ingenuity and labor they disintegrate, they are simply “creating” more Western enemies, more “blowback” against their cause? Perhaps with enlistment and retention rates amongst the branches, the terrorists’ actions are helping “recruit” Marine and Green Beret and SEAL adversaries? Perhaps the tenets of self-critique ought to be aimed more at undoing failed policies that help our opponents, not harm them?
Maybe, just maybe, Congressmen Paul, getting the Jihadists in a frenzy is not such a bad thing?
I wouldn't vote for Ron Paul unless he was the only patriot running(for something)..
But he is a patriot and right on most things.. no RINO..
He is more libertarian than republican but no democrat..
RINOs are democrats.. democrat meaning for a democracy instead of a Republic..
America is NOT a democratic republic, it is a constitutional republic.. and NOT a DEMOCRACY.. RINOs are for a democracy.. far too many republicans are in fact democrats.. Thats why Washington D.C. is Mob Rule.. All democrats and not a few republicans(RINOs) are democrats.. RINO is an extremely accurate word..
Ron Paul has many many things in common with "true" republicans.. i.e. those for a constitutional republic and spit on democracy as mob rule and tribal governance..
Dream on with your neomarxist crapOla.
I worked for Reagan when he first ran for gov. so according to you, this is bad neocon stuff.
I will take Reagan anyday over a total idiot like Ron Paul
Was I in Iraq for Clinton’s draft dodging? What the heck are you talking about? Do you feel any obligation to make sense?
Yet you're the one that posts multiple times on Ron Paul threads.
Someone's underoos are in a bunch, obviously.
If Paul ain't going to win the nomination, then why worry about him then?
So you do wear them then, right?
Instead of incessantly bashing someone who supposedly "can't win", why don't you redirect what I loosely refer to as your intelligence to other things.
Dude, you are too weird.
Your view of Giuliani is a little Messianic, jude; no one man deserves all the credit for New York's post-Dinkins improvements (at the risk of drawing FReeper fire for giving Bill Clinton any credit for anything, is it not possible that Clinton's "triangulated" Conservative-inspired Welfare Reform -- over which his Old Progressive Labor Secretary, Robert Reich, quit the Administration -- had positive effects on New York City's welfare rolls for which Giuliani can take little credit?)
That being said, I will admit that Giuliani's "Quality of Life" focus on Law Enforcement -- repairing the "Broken Window" effect -- was the right focus at the right time, and helped to restore the City's pride and vigor.
However, even in that, you have to take the bad with the good -- Giuliani's "Police Uber Alles" callous disrespect for civil rights (exactly what crime was Amadou Diallo guilty of, again?), his authoritarian style of governance, his blatant Nepotism in City administrative appointments.... Mussolini was lauded for having "made the trains run on time", and perhaps Rudi did the same for NYC (or at least took the credit for it); but do we really want an American Mussolini?
He's on my s--t-list, however, after advocating pre-emptive nuclear strikes on Iran in the last Republican debate. Ironically, that debate was the one which cemented my respect for Ron Paul, even though I think his foreign policy is wrong. He is at least asking the right questions.
The notion of Pre-emptive Nuclear Attacks against Iran is madness -- absolute madness. Whatever the arguable merits of the Hiroshima bombing in terms of ending World War II, I don't believe that the subsequent Nagasaki bombing (which annihilated the very heart of Christianity in Japan) was morally justifiable.
America already has the dubious distinction of being the only Nation to have ever employed Nuclear Weapons in wartime. Even assuming that Hiroshima, at least, was justifiable -- do we also want the dubious distinction of being the first country ever to employ Nuclear Weapons in a First Strike?
Just War Morality has to come into play here, somewhere. (And if you want a Candidate who has studied the Christian Theory of Just War and believes in 2,000 years of Christian Theology on the subject -- Vote Ron Paul).
Both of which have isolationist-type priciples. Both are way too non-interventionist for me.
I FIRMLY believe that Offense in war is the best Defense. And international relations is really just war at a different level.
Care to specify which particular principles (the ones that Ron Paul actually supports) you object to?
I FIRMLY believe that Offense in war is the best Defense. And international relations is really just war at a different level.
No less an "isolationist and Libertarian shrill" </sarcasm> than Tom Clancy has described international relations as "F#&@!^g other nations" in his novels.
Occupation duty and 'nation building' doesn't even vaguely resemble "Offense". The lesson of Vietnam is that one can not fight a prolonged insurgency war on the insurgent's 'turf'. That's especially true now with the US Military as a shadow of the military of the Vietnam era, or the Reagan buildup in the 80's. We simply can't fight an insurgency war of attrition.
Those 'assets' are going to be needed elsewhere.
My post #227 doesn’t even mention Iraq. Please try to stay on subject.
You left out the Coast Guard...remember, some them were deployed to Vietnam during that time, as their particular expertise was needed.
To Point:
Last i saw, the military doesn't determine their own deployments...The civillian-controlled Executive branch, and ultimately the President makes that determination.
That's not "to point" at all. When you say "what's real convenient for them is that they can do that with the lives of Other People's kids," you insult their intelligence: they volunteer for the armed forces KNOWING what their service entails.
Your rhetoric is right out of Charley Rangel's mouth, except that these are not hapless draftees, and you are adopting the talking points of a rabid dog lying leftist hack.
Soooo... peace, to you, is really just "war at a different level"?
Is that right? Chaplain?
It would help if you address what was actually posted.
i’m sorry that for what ever reason, you’re confused.
Been there, done that, got the scars to prove it.
i don't see how you derive your conclusion (you insult their intelligence:) from the fact that they're volunteers.
The military is not the subject in my statement.
Your rhetoric is right out of Charley Rangel's mouth, except that these are not hapless draftees, and you are adopting the talking points of a rabid dog lying leftist hack.
Lots of time, MOST of the time, Charley is just doing partisan polital Rangeling </bad puns>
His support for RKBA issues will match up with any Conservative out there.
Again, how troops got to be troops was never the issue, much as you'd prefer to believe otherwise so as to knock down yet another obscure strawman.
Simple: the only way your argument makes sense is if they volunteered for the military somehow not realizing they would go to war. That's absurd.
Again, how troops got to be troops was never the issue...
That's precisely the issue. This talk about "sending other people's kids to war" is only remotely valid as a criticism when the force is conscripted. Otherwise, your point is gibberish.
No, the proposition you just made here is absurd. That is a total non sequitur. The decisions of the Administration and President that sends the troops is not at all relevant to troop status (draftee, enlisted).
That's precisely the issue. This talk about "sending other people's kids to war" is only remotely valid as a criticism when the force is conscripted. Otherwise, your point is gibberish.
Absolute nonsense.
The troops remain "other people's kids", whether they enlisted or not.
Comments such as yours devalues their lives and service.
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