California Conservative

Congressman Ron Paul of Texas was one of the few Republicans to vote against the authorization for war bill in 2002 and was the 1988 Libertarian candidate for president. He is staunchly anti-war. His comments at the debate included:

Have you ever read the reasons they attacked us? They attack us because we’ve been over there; we’ve been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We’ve been in the Middle East — I think Reagan was right. We don’t understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics.

So right now we’re building an embassy in Iraq that’s bigger than the Vatican. We’re building 14 permanent bases. What would we say here if China was doing this in our country or in the Gulf of Mexico? We would be objecting. We need to look at what we do from the perspective of what would happen if somebody else did it to us.

They don’t come here to attack us because we’re rich and we’re free. They come and they attack us because we’re over there. I mean, what would we think if we were — if other foreign countries were doing that to us?

The premise that the United States was attacked on 9/11 because we had bombed Iraq’s WMD sites and monitored the No Fly Zone doesn’t begin to make sense. Sadly, Congressman Paul does not know America. He asked how we would like it if what we did to Iraq was done to us by China or another country, making a moral equivalence between the United States of America, arguably the most benevolent country on the face of the earth, and those involved in human rights abuses. The fact is we are not a Saddam Hussein, threatening the world with self-serving domination or torturing our own people (unless you count the unborn victims of abortion). We are not an Iran, sponsoring terrorism and trying to usher in a religious fanaticism as legitimate foreign policy. We are not a China, persecuting religious citizens to the point of death or forcing family size, stripping the essence of freedom away from it’s people.

Congressman Paul unfortunately puts himself in the unenviable position of being an abuser’s advocate. That is, he justifies the acts of an abuser by saying the wife’s bad habits made him do it. He says the woman who was raped wore her skirt too short. He says Emmett Till had it coming because he hit on a white woman. He says Nicole Brown Simpson had it coming.

Critics of the war who applaud Paul’s performance by default support the late Jerry Falwell, who said our moral failures contributed to the 9/11 attacks. Who is right, Paul who said our trespassing into holy Muslim lands caused the murders of 9/11 or Falwell who said our moral depravity did?

If the United States ushered in the murders of 9/11 because the U.S. Air Force bombed WMD sites in the 1990’s, what then is the United Nations guilty of? If we are hated in the Middle East because we tried to do what the U.N. could not, why then do Iraqis hate the U.N. for their past inactions far more than any actions of the United States in trying to provide freedom to their nation?

Paul’s logic is fatally flawed and gives the benefit of the doubt to the one with the proclivity to do evil rather than the one to do good. He suggests we sit down with the thugs who murdered our family members to hear them out, understand their reasons, rather than uphold any standard of common sense or justice.

Paul is essentially suggesting we not be the good Samaritan, but rather the myriads of people who ignored the bleeding and dying man beaten by robbers. He tries to put America in the position of an Iraqi in a pre-2003 Iraq in which citizens were terrified to be themselves, to venture out, to oppose evil or address wrong. America is the best for a reason: we value human rights and seek to ensure them for the less fortunate. Ignoring evil in the world doesn’t assuage that evil, it multiplies and perpetuates it.

The United States of America didn’t ask for 9/11 anymore than Abraham Lincoln asked to be assassinated. It is lonely at the top, but it’s even lonelier when our own people turn their back on American when we need to be united the most.

Cross-posted at Bottom Line Up Front

This entry was posted on Friday, May 18th, 2007 at 5:57 am and is filed under Author: Amy Proctor, Election 2008, Iraq, Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.