Well, at least I managed to stir up some activity on this list.
What Ron Paul refuses to understand - and many other libertarians too - is that
the reasons for the attacks on us have little to do with specific U.S. policies
and everything to do with what is a fundamental clash of civilizations. There
is the fundamentalist Islamic view - one which ftr I believe is most consistent
with the Koran as written - that the world is divided into the World of Islam
and the World of War. Those countries that do not accept Islam are to be
attacked until they do.
The U.S. involvement that al Qaeda objects to is our support for anyone they
oppose. Well why the hell should we allow them to dictate to us what we do? The
never interfere fantasy of the LP - based evidently on Starfleet's Prime
Directive - is a fantasy precisely because we are involved even if only by
trading. If we sell arms to the government of Sudan or refuse to, we are
involving ourselves in their civil war. If we buy oil from Saudi Arabia or
Nigeria, we are helping maintain the government. So the idea of
non-intervention simply does not happen in the real world. Plus, the other side
is always intervening, so if we stay out, we let the bad guys win. (A Star Trek
episode comes to mind here.) For example, in the 1980s, the people who demanded
"non-intervention" in Nicaragua or El Salvador deliberately overlooked the fact
that the Soviets were backing the Marxist guerrillas, who actually took power
in Nicaragua (the Sandinistas). Without US help to the Salvadoran govt. and the
Contras, it seems likely that both countries would have Marxist govts. Now
granted, Daniel Ortega recently won an election in Nicaragua, but he does not
have anything like the power he did back in the 1980s, and there is the real
possibility that he can be removed in a future election.
As for al-Qaeda, btw, U.S. aid for Israel was not an issue until after we
retaliated, when OBL decided he'd forgotten about the Palestinians and used
them as a means of rallying Arab support. It was the U.S. presence in Saudi
Arabia to protect the Saudis from Saddam that OBL objected to.
However, the idea that the U.S. presence in the Mideast is the issue is
questionable, to say the least. How does that explain al Qaeda attacks in
Indonesia? India?
Oh, and yes, al Qaeda does care about what we do in our country. US prosperity
poses a tremendous challenge to their world view that Islam is the best way for
everybody. Given a choice between religious piety and prosperity, a majority
will usually choose the latter, and if that is accompanied by full civil rights
for women, tolerance for homosexuals, and what the Islamic fundamentalists view
as libertinism, then the Islamofascists fear that many Muslims would choose our
open society and prosperity over Islamic purity.
As for presidential candidates, the topic I started with, since I moved out of
New York a few months after Giuliani took over, perhaps that is why I don't
have the negative opinion of him that Travis and Robert do.
I'm not sure to which report Travis refers as the report on the "root causes of
9/11," but if it's the report put out by the 9/11 Coverup Commission on which
Jamie Gorelick was a member rather than a witness/defendant, then I assign it
the same level of belief as I do "The Unicorn Song" for explaining modern-day
zoology.
I have a wide range of problems with Giuliani, but I still think he is the
least bad of the current candidates.
Doug
> Date: Fri, 18 May 2007 22:35:19 -0700> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> To:
> libnw@immosys.com> Subject: Re: GOP debates> > On 5/17/07, Douglas Friedman
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:> > Ron Paul embarrassed himself again in the
> recent GOP debate, suggesting that> > our presence in Iraq was what caused
> the Sept. 11 attacks, a curious> > chronology. Even if you take him to mean
> our presence in the Mideast,> > He said 'Over there' which in the context was
> clearly meant to mean> the mid east. The chronlogy also was clearly laid out
> as well.>> > He displayed a much better understanding of it than anyone else
> on the> stage. He came right out and pointed to it being our foriegnpolicy>
> that led people to suicide attack us with airplanes. Guilliani said> this was
> abusrd and then later in the night said it was our domestic> policies that
> led them to attack us. Do you really think they give a> *#^% what we do in
> our own country? No. They are pissed at us for> what we do in their
> countries. That is not absurd, not crazy, but> does show he does
> fundamentally undestand the nature of the war. It> also shows that he has
> read the reports on the root cause of the 9/11> attacks.> > I am not
> registered anything but have never voted for a republican or> democrat in my
> life. I will be voting for my first republican this> primary election. When
> Paul whens I will be voting for my first> republican in a general election.>
> > The man who has never heard the theory that US foriegn policy affects> the
> actions of others? I lived in NYC while the man was mayor. There> were far
> too many things to dislike the man for to even consider. Now> that he has
> proven he has no clue about foriegn policy and is ONLY> about trying to
> intimidate people... He is at the bottom of my list of> republican candidates
> I would consider.
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