It’s not the first time he’s gone complete bat guano insane, and one of the reasons why he will NEVER be the GOP presidential nominee
(The Hill) Ron Paul said that American policymakers were at least partially at fault for the country being attacked on 9/11 during a discussion of foreign policy on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday.
Paul argued that the American military presence in Saudi Arabia -rather than ideological differences or anger over American prosperity -were motivation for the September 11 hijackers.
“Just remember that immediately after 9/11, we removed the base in Saudi Arabia, our policies definitely had an influence,” Paul said. “To argue the case they want to do us harm because we’re free and prosperous I think is a very dangerous notion, because it’s not true.”
To some tiny degree, he has a point: Osama Bin Laden used the US presence in Saudi Arabia as a pretext for wanting to hate America and pushing his version of fundamentalist version of Islam. Most of the others in al Qaeda couldn’t have cared less, they just wanted to strike America and the West, pushing their version of Islam. That said, it doesn’t excuse a plot to attempt to kill 50k Americans. Paul uses this line of reasoning to blame America, as he’s dine many times. He won’t divorce himself from the 9/11 Truthers who support him, and his policies of blaming America and isolationism are plain idiotic.
If he’d learn to keep some of his inner monologue inside his head, he’d have a shot. He can’t, and he will never be the GOP nominee.
More: Smitty at The Other McCain writes:
Let me form my objection to Paul as a question: when should you ever take your enemy’s propaganda at face value? When they are Commies? Nazis? Radical Muslims waging explosive jihad?
Read the whole thing.
This is why I can’t get on board with Paul. He INSISTS on fighting these stupid fights to prove that he is somehow an ‘all around thinker’ and not ‘tied to America’. That’s why the Left love him so much. Paul could be hammering Obama on deficits, wars, corruption, the Mexican border, the economy, skyrocketing gas/food/oil prices, disastrous foreign policy, etc.
But what does Paul do? He goes waaaaayyy out to Left field to align himself with the ‘America ain’t so great’ crowd.
Ron Paul has been saying the same thing since 2007 when he confronted Rudy Giuliani. This is nothing new. Yet he’s at 19% or 20% in the polls in Iowa. And 17% in New Hampshire. And his support hasn’t wavered.
The truth of the matter is that our foreign policy incites recruitment for terrorist groups. As long as we’re over there, these groups can recruit members easily. Hence the soldiers who were killed in Lebanon by suicide bombers in 1980’s. We had no business going into Lebanon just as we have no business being bodyguards for the Saudi Royal Family. We’re 15 trillion dollars in debt, China isn’t loaning us anymore money, and we’re only heading towards economic collapse. If we’re going to defend this country and keep ourselves from going down like Greece, we need to drastically change our foreign policy abroad and our domestic policy at home.
[…] at face value? When they are Commies? Nazis? Radical Muslims waging explosive jihad? Teach is just a little less gentle in objecting to Ron Paul.The remark about 900 bases in north of 130 countries is equally worrisome. […]
Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz agrees with Ron Paul:
“There are a lot of things that are different now, and one that has gone by almost unnoticed–but it’s huge–is that by complete mutual agreement between the U.S. and the Saudi government we can now remove almost all of our forces from Saudi Arabia. Their presence there over the last 12 years has been a source of enormous difficulty for a friendly government. It’s been a huge recruiting device for al Qaeda. In fact if you look at bin Laden, one of his principle grievances was the presence of so-called crusader forces on the holy land, Mecca and Medina.â€
Source: Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz Interview with Sam Tannenhaus, Vanity Fair (09 May 2003)
What about the places where we DON’T have a military base and there is a strong anti-American presence and terrorists are being recruited? I have a problem with the sheer number of military bases we have but I also have a problem with this ‘isolationist’ policy idea so that people won’t be mad at us. Those are Muslims, they’re mad at everyone and everything. They can’t even stand each other. It’s a religion of perpetual outrage. I think the better idea would be to keep some of the bases and stop the pussyfooting around. If we get hit for any reason, we hit back 100 times as hard. And fast. Then let them think about doing it again.
I don’t blame Ron Paul for his wacky foreign policy pronouncements, just the rogue minority of brain cells that control his vocal chords.
In the near term, our foreign policy may have been part of the reason Al Qaeda attacked us. However, radical Islam’s stated goal is world domination.
We are on the menu regardless of anything we do or say.
C’mon, William…Ron Paul leads a lot of young Troofers.
[…] Commies? Nazis? Radical Muslims waging explosive jihad? Teach is just a little less gentle in objecting to Ron Paul.The New NewtWell, […]
Have you ever traveled in the Mid East? If you had, you would find that they are not wild about the idea of us coming over there and telling them what to do and using our military in the manner that we have. What would you do if the US took over your country? They did that in 1860 and we fought them until they started killing our wives and kids.
First of all, non interventionism is NOT the same thing as isolationism. North KOrea is an isolationist country. They don’t have open trade with countires. They don’t allow people in or out. There is no free exchange of ideas woth people in other countries. Switzerland however who our founding fathers called “our sister nation” and who they in large part modeled our foreign policy after is a non interventionist country. They do have open trade. They do allow people to come and go. They do have a free exchange od ideas. In fact it was Switzerland who helped get the hikers in Iran released.
Second. Our founding fathers advised against meddling in the affairs of other countries and fighting wars that had no legitimate value relative to our national security. How do I know this? I READ Dammit!
Let our answer be this: America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity.
She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights.
She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own.
She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart.
She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right.
Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.
But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.
She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.
She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.
She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.
She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.
The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force….
She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit….
[America’s] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.
When John Quincy Adams served as U. S. Secretary of State, he delivered this speech to the U.S. House of Representatives on July 4, 1821, in celebration of American Independence Day.
I have always given it as my decided opinion that no nation had a right to inter-meddle in the internal concerns of another; and that, if this country could, consistent with its engagements, maintain a strict neutrality and thereby preserve peace. George Washington – Letter to James Monroe, August 25, 1796
Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all. …The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. George Washington – Farewell Address, September 17, 1797
Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none should be our motto. Thomas Jefferson – First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801
If there be one principle more deeply rooted than any other in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) Letter to William Short, 1791
We certainly cannot deny to other nations that principle whereon our own government is founded, that every nation has a right to govern itself internally under what forms it pleases, and to change these forms at its own will. Thomas Jefferson – To Thomas Pinckney, December 30, 1792
Europe, by her arms and by her negotiations, by force and by fraud, has extended her dominion over them all, Africa, Asia, an America have successively felt her domination. The superiority she has long maintained has tempted her to plume herself as the Mistress of the World, and to consider the rest of mankind as created for her benefit.*
Alexander Hamilton on Colonialism, The Federalist Papers 1787
My ardent desire is to keep the United States free from political connections with every other country, to see them independent of all and under the influence of none. George Washington (Letter to Patrick Henry, October 9, 1795)
Third. Since Article I, section 8, clause 11 of our Constitution requires that Congress declares war which we haven;t done since WWII, ALL the wars since then have been illegal started by progressives from either of the two major parties starting with Wilson.
Fourth. MOST of the American people want nothing to do with policing the world, and sticking our noses into the business of other countries and Ron Paul taps into that sentiment. In fact that sentimant is older in the American mindset than apple pie and baseball.
I don’t have friends who are Kuwaities or Saudi’s or whatever and I certainly wouldn’t want to lose my life or my limbs to save them. Even more so, I wouldn’t want to see my kid come home in a body bag to save a Kuwaiti. Iraq NEVER attacked us or threatened us and subsequent to the Gulf War we set up bases in Saudi Arabia which set the Muslims off all over the world. That is when bin Laden declared jihad against us (I know because I read his declaration of jihad). As a result were all the attacks from the 1993 WTC bombing to the Kohmar Towers to the USS Cole to the embassay in Nigeria to 911. Who else agrees with this besides Ron Paul and the founding fathers? Michael Scheuer who created and ran the bin Laden unit for 12 yrs and also spent 22 yrs in the CIA fighting terrorists. Along with him most of the intelligence community assaigned to counter terrorism efforts. Along with them most of the people who know the truth and can still think.