Maybe this title will get more attention than my last Ron Paul article title. Not only am I a terrible point whore but I think this Ron Paul fellah is fascinating and I'm watching him closely. He isn't the "usual" politician. He says things that aren't "politically correct" from the right wing corners.
Here's the meat of it:
Pointing out that U.S. foreign policy is the root cause of the anger and hatred that has engendered terrorism against the United States, including the 9/11 attacks, Paul suggested that America would be better off ending the U.S. government’s role as world policeman as wells its longtime policy of interventionism. He pointed to Vietnam as an example of where 60,000 American men died in a senseless war while today Americans are instead peacefully investing and trading with the Vietnamese despite their communist regime.
Paul mentioned Iran as an example of blowback from U.S. foreign policy. In the 1953 coup the CIA secretly engineered the ousting of the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, who had been selected Time Magazine’s Man of the Year. In his place, the CIA installed the shah of Iran to keep oil in the hands of British Petroleum. The shaws secret police proceeded to terrorize, torture, jail and kill the Iranian people for the next 25 years, with the strong support of the U.S. government. As the Iranian people discovered the U.S. government’s role in all this, their anger and rage ultimately erupted in 1979 with the Iranian Revolution and the taking of the U.S. hostages.
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Comments: 33
And it doesn't even matter so much if he's correct or not in his accusations, just as long as the debate is allowed to happen. 9/11 especially shouldn't be so sacred that we all can't talk about it from all sorts of angles - god knows our world changed so much from it.
And he has pointed out that we don't need military bases in Japan, Germany, or South Korea anymore (he said the Koreans will work out their own thing).
His logic makes sense... whether you choose to like him or not.
I'll try and locate a copy. It's worth reading.
I remember when Clinton was so close to negotiating peace in the mideast before Bush took the reigns. Bush's first action was to say that Clinton's peace initiative wasn't a priority. That was the tipping point for the 9/11 attacks.
It was a Roosevelt who orchestrated the overthrow of Iran's democratically elected government for the CIA.
S0 - Peter - will Ron Paul be the spoiler Nader was? Are we destined to have Guliani for President because the Democrats can't align behind one candidate? We live in interesting times (<- we are cursed)
Lets also remember that the US went to war to protect a Muslim population in Kosovo, that The US has opposed Russian incursions into Chechnya and Afghanistan. The US has been pressing for admission of Turkey into the EU, despite most Europeans reluctance, and has chastised France for prohibiting Islamic clothing in school.
I know it is very fashionable to attribute Islamic fundamentalist terrorism to a reaction against American imperialism and zionism. Sounds logical. But if you read what these guys say to each other, it is clearly not true.
The right wing Muslims are a horror to civilization. They are responsible for themselves.
But we helped push them that way. Now with war in Iraq we have chased away all the liberal and moderates in that country (like we did in Iran and Vietnam).
You CAN make bad things worse.
Some just bite a lot sooner than others.
But we have been messing with the Middle East for DECADES, now. We should have always only had diplomats and humanitarian workers there. Period. That's all. I bet they'd think about us a lot different today if we did.
No argument there
I think Ron Paul is wrong in one aspect of his beliefs. They attacted us because we let them or we aided them! We...being our government....Official reports even show how they were warned about attacks using airplanes, and Condi Rice defended herself by saying we knew they would hijack planes, but we did not know they would use them as weapons! Give me a break!! If that was true, then why were all airports not on high alert!!!! She lied through her teeth!!!!!
Americans seem to forget that our mortal enemiy used to be communists, and that fueled massive government spending on defense that made some folks very wealthy. when the communist threat died, they had no enemy to fuel that business/government entity any more. Now they have created "The War on Terror"...where we have no defined enemy at all, and they will continue to milk America of every single defense dollar they can suck from you!
Most Americans don't realize that there was an investigation into trillions of lost defense dollars prior to 9/11. Guess where all the records were stored....yes...in the section of Pentagon that was destroyed on 9/11. Very convenient...along with all the corporate fraud investigation files that were in WTC #7. All lost forever....killed lots birds with a few stones...ie...jets....