Why Shouldn't American Foreign Policy Be Blamed For 9/11?

DealMonkey

Lifer
Nov 25, 2001
13,136
1
0
As Ron Paul pointed out during the GOP debate recently, American foreign policy deserves at least some of the blame for 9/11. After all, without Muslim anger over our meddling in the region for decades, propping up ruthless dictators, fighting proxy wars and maintaining huge military bases in the area, terror groups like Al Qaeda wouldn't have much to latch onto. I'm afraid simplistic thinkers like Rudy Guliani are unable to learn from history and are afraid to look inward for reasons why the terror groups desire to attack us.

Is Ron Paul wrong? If so, why?

Here's his statement from the debate:

"They attack us because we've been over there. We've been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We've been in the Middle East [for years]. I think (Ronald) Reagan was right. We don't understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics. Right now, we're building an embassy in Iraq that is 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."
 

DealMonkey

Lifer
Nov 25, 2001
13,136
1
0
Originally posted by: OrByte
Ron Paul is a traitor...so his opinion doesn't matter.
You don't say! So looking at a political situation and pointing out the obvious - that one's actions around the globe can have both intended and unintended consequences - is now traitorous? Care to elaborate?
 

Bowfinger

Lifer
Nov 17, 2002
15,776
392
126
Of course Paul was right. In America, however, such blunt honesty must be silenced lest the public start paying attention to the many bad things we do around the world. (And to preempt the usual bleating, no, I am not saying America is bad. Good countries sometimes do bad things, however. The United States is certainly no exception.)
 

ProfJohn

Lifer
Jul 28, 2006
18,161
7
0
Deal, it is that type of mentality that has lead to 50+ years of violence between Israeli and Palestinians.

I don?t know about you, but the ?he hit me first? excuse stopped working for me when I was about 5.
 

Bowfinger

Lifer
Nov 17, 2002
15,776
392
126
Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Deal, it is that type of mentality that has lead to 50+ years of violence between Israeli and Palestinians.

I don?t know about you, but the ?he hit me first? excuse stopped working for me when I was about 5.
Except Paul wasn't excusing anything. He was explaining. There's a huge difference, no matter how much the neo-cons want to twist it.
 

CanOWorms

Lifer
Jul 3, 2001
12,404
2
0
Even though I blame European policies more (many of the 9/11 terrorists were radicalised in Europe), I don't see what's necessarily wrong with it. However, it doesn't mean that you must bend your policies to the wills of others.
 

DealMonkey

Lifer
Nov 25, 2001
13,136
1
0
Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Deal, it is that type of mentality that has lead to 50+ years of violence between Israeli and Palestinians.

I don?t know about you, but the ?he hit me first? excuse stopped working for me when I was about 5.

How about we stop hitting first? Even if you were sincere about what you were saying, you'd have no valid reason to continue using our military to perpetuate the cycle of violence.

Additionally, the Israelis are being used right now and they don't even know it. The Palestinian rocket fire into Israel of late is serving to draw Israel back into the conflict and thus unite the warring factions of Hamas and Fatah. Or if they know it, they're stupidly walking right into it. One could easily draw parallels between this recent flare up in Gaza with the U.S. and groups like al Qaeda. They drew us into greater conflict and we fell all over ourselves to get even deeper.
 

sandorski

No Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
70,220
5,798
126
You got it all wrong. One day the Terrorists woke up and said, "WTF, they've got Freedom! OMGDie2U!!!"

Everyone knows that's the reason......
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
85,556
50,731
136
Originally posted by: OrByte
Ron Paul is a traitor...so his opinion doesn't matter.

I feel like we need a modified Godwin's law for these boards. The first person to call someone on the other side a traitor automatically loses the argument.
 

Craig234

Lifer
May 1, 2006
38,548
350
126
Not enough Americans understand why there are wars. Too many just blindly wave at the flag and say that any war has their full support.

Wars usually have a couple things in common at least - someone who thinks that they either have an advantage and something to gain, or are threatened, and flase justifications for the war.

Take the American civil war. The south had years and years of grievances, with no small amount of justification, that they were being screwed by the democratic principle that the majority non-southern states could screw them every which way economically, and they could only be the 'loyal minority' with so much abuse. The North, of course, arranged for the south to shoot first to look like the good guys - and the war became about ending slavery. Later.

Or take the previous war to that, the Mexican-American war. You had the US feeling its oats, and getting enoug more powerful than Mexico, who had a lot of land, that it encouraged the US to take the land by invasion. To do it, the US president unilaterally declared that the border had moved, put a few troops on the new 'border', and waited for a skirmish. Between that and the Alamo, the US were the good guys again.

Of course, not all Americans fall for the propaganda, but enough do. For example, Lincoln was a leading opponent of the war, and Grant called it as immoral war of a greater power by a gereater power against a weaker as there ever was. But the US smiled and kept the land.

The US, in my opinion, did wrong to many in the Middle East in several situations, for which 9/11 can be seen as a response - as or more justified than the American attack on Afghanistan in response to that.

Basically, it goes back to oil - the world industrial powers a century ago screwing the middle east to set things up for their benefit, and continuing to screw Middle Easterners, set up puppet regimes, and so on, in ways which leave them with little to say when they are given a tiny, tiny taste of their own medicine, relatively speaking.

When only the sanctions on Iraq, for just one example, killed hundreds of thousands, mostly children, horribly through malnutrition and disease in a previously prosperous society for the region, it outraged the region, and many of us Americans, who felt that the policy could be greatly improved in terms of reducing the harm to innocent people. Those hundreds of thousands greatly outnumber 9/11 victims.

That doesn't make 9/11 "right", any more than it's "right" for the Hatfields to kill a McCoy after the McCoys kill some Hatfields, but the thing is, too many fail to avoid the arrogance of power, and could care less about the suffering the US causes with its abuse of power over and over.

I don't think Americans should excuse 9/11; I think they should take responsibility for their own government's wrongs preceding 9/11. 9/11 was also a publicity stunt, a power grab, for Al Queda, serving their interests; like any power, they used the wrongs of the US as justification, just as the US used, with less justification, the Alamo for justification in its immoral war on Mexico, or Custer's Last Stand for its immoral war on the Native Americans.
 

OrByte

Diamond Member
Jul 21, 2000
9,302
144
106
Originally posted by: eskimospy
Originally posted by: OrByte
Ron Paul is a traitor...so his opinion doesn't matter.

I feel like we need a modified Godwin's law for these boards. The first person to call someone on the other side a traitor automatically loses the argument.

you guys do know I was kidding right?

it might be too late (or early) in the morning for sarcasm.
 

dahunan

Lifer
Jan 10, 2002
18,191
3
0
Originally posted by: OrByte
Originally posted by: eskimospy
Originally posted by: OrByte
Ron Paul is a traitor...so his opinion doesn't matter.

I feel like we need a modified Godwin's law for these boards. The first person to call someone on the other side a traitor automatically loses the argument.

you guys do know I was kidding right?

it might be too late (or early) in the morning for sarcasm.


You have started the new smear campaign against him Americans are too easy to brainwash to do anything you want
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
85,556
50,731
136
Originally posted by: OrByte
Originally posted by: eskimospy
Originally posted by: OrByte
Ron Paul is a traitor...so his opinion doesn't matter.

I feel like we need a modified Godwin's law for these boards. The first person to call someone on the other side a traitor automatically loses the argument.

you guys do know I was kidding right?

it might be too late (or early) in the morning for sarcasm.

Ahhhh I was fooled!

Still, I swear I see treason thrown around here at least once a day. It angries up the blood!
 

marincounty

Diamond Member
Nov 16, 2005
3,227
5
76
Americans don't really want to hear the truth about certain things. Ron Paul raised a great question, and will undoubtedly get hammered for it by right-wingers unable to see the truth.
This reminds me of others that chose to tell the truth and were attacked because the message was not what people wanted to hear.

Walter Mondale : By the end of my first term, I will reduce the Reagan budget deficit by two-thirds. Let's tell the truth. It must be done, it must be done. Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won't tell you. I just did."[2] While this was meant to show that Mondale would be honest with voters, it was largely interpreted as a campaign pledge to raise taxes which was unappealing to some voters. In 1986, Reagan did sign into law a bill that raised taxes for corporations and flattened the tax rates for individual taxpayers, effectively lowering taxes for higher-income Americans.

Bill Maher: The show was cancelled after comments Maher made responding to George Bush and others calling the September 11 terrorist attacks "cowardly." Maher stated, "We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly." When several sponsors pulled their advertising, ABC cancelled the show. Six days later, on June 22, 2002, Maher was awarded the L.A. Press Club's President's Award, its highest honor, for "championing free speech."
 

daniel49

Diamond Member
Jan 8, 2005
4,814
0
71
attacks by radical Islamists are not new they have been going on for a long time. What is new is that they finally hit us on our own soil.
I think the mentality that if we just get out and ignore them everything will be hugs and kisses is wishful thinking.
Its the type of thinking that Neville Chamberlin had in WW2.
Ron Paul reminds me of one of my states demented politicians, A fellow named Jim Mcdermitt.
Although like everyone else I am tired of the republocrats and the Demicans to avoid the likes of a Paul in the office of the President of the United States is a no brainer to me and would be even more dangerous then the status quo.
/end rant
 

marincounty

Diamond Member
Nov 16, 2005
3,227
5
76
Originally posted by: daniel49
attacks by radical Islamists are not new they have been going on for a long time. What is new is that they finally hit us on our own soil.
I think the mentality that if we just get out and ignore them everything will be hugs and kisses is wishful thinking.
Its the type of thinking that Neville Chamberlin had in WW2.
Ron Paul reminds me of one of my states demented politicians, A fellow named Jim Mcdermitt.
Although like everyone else I am tired of the republocrats and the Demicans to avoid the likes of a Paul in the office of the President of the United States is a no brainer to me and would be even more dangerous then the status quo.
/end rant

That's exactly the problem. " They finally hit us on our own soil"? Huh, that was the second attack on the WTC, which they had vowed to attack.
And we just ignored the first attack, where was the enhanced security at this building?
The outgoing national security team specifically warned the incoming administration about terrorists wanting to fly planes into buildings, so of course they ignored the info and concentrated on getting rid of Saddam, the only secular leader in the middle east.
 

chucky2

Lifer
Dec 9, 1999
10,016
36
86
Originally posted by: marincounty

That's exactly the problem. " They finally hit us on our own soil"? Huh, that was the second attack on the WTC, which they had vowed to attack.
And we just ignored the first attack, where was the enhanced security at this building?
The outgoing national security team specifically warned the incoming administration about terrorists wanting to fly planes into buildings, so of course they ignored the info and concentrated on getting rid of Saddam, the only secular leader in the middle east.

Perhaps if the outgoing national security team had actually done some, you know, proactive security, the incoming administration wouldn't have had to contend with a the largest national disaster we've ever had to face, all with a way downforced military. Of course, when you lead by poll instead of just plain lead, sometimes things never get done...the hard things usually get done last unfortunately, as their usually unpopular and no politician wants to do the unpopular...

I'm sure enacting half the additional air travel laws in existance today would have went over shockingly well with the American air traveler had Bush pushed for them pre-9/11...I can just hear it now, "Does this hick not have anything better to do that swagger in and spend tax dollars on things we don't even need, when the economy is tanking? He needs to be spending his time on that before he starts meddling with the air laws that worked perfect under Our Saviour Clinton...sniff sniff...damn no 3rd term..."

:roll:

Back to the OP: Of course it's America's fault. It's always our fault. We are the worst country in the world. We should totally convert over to a the peacefullness of a radical Islamic law friendly government, give Iran and N. Korea some of our ICBM's and stop meddling in those peaceful and trustable countries affairs, petition for the UN to re-write our Constitution so we're in compliance with the rest of the world, and then beg the EU to let us in on whatever terms they set, since they absolutely know best. Once we've done all that, we won't need a military any longer because we should just be loved by everyone, plus, we'll have like no guns here at home because the UN and EU don't like those, no guns for us warmongers, we don't need them anyways, the police afterall are like 20 seconds away from every household in America, which is afterall unneccessary, since there aren't any violent offenders out there anyways.

I'm sure China nor Russia would have a problem with this approach, since it basically will remove us from the world stage and open it up to them pretty much solely.

Time for my 345346rd prayer for today, musn't offend The Mighty, else I'll have to go stone the neighbor girl for not covering up her eyelids, that impure heretic!!!

Chuck
 

Darthvoy

Golden Member
Aug 3, 2004
1,825
1
0
Originally posted by: DealMonkey
As Ron Paul pointed out during the GOP debate recently, American foreign policy deserves at least some of the blame for 9/11. After all, without Muslim anger over our meddling in the region for decades, propping up ruthless dictators, fighting proxy wars and maintaining huge military bases in the area, terror groups like Al Qaeda wouldn't have much to latch onto. I'm afraid simplistic thinkers like Rudy Guliani are unable to learn from history and are afraid to look inward for reasons why the terror groups desire to attack us.

Is Ron Paul wrong? If so, why?

Here's his statement from the debate:

"They attack us because we've been over there. We've been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We've been in the Middle East [for years]. I think (Ronald) Reagan was right. We don't understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics. Right now, we're building an embassy in Iraq that is 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."

I agree with Paul, but the thing is if we didn't "meddle" with other countries we would never have the standard of living we do now.
 

dmcowen674

No Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
54,889
47
91
www.alienbabeltech.com
Originally posted by: daniel49
attacks by radical Islamists are not new they have been going on for a long time. What is new is that they finally hit us on our own soil.

I think the mentality that if we just get out and ignore them everything will be hugs and kisses is wishful thinking.

Slapping an offender silly up side the head is one thing but setting up shop in the other guys house is another.
 

imported_Shivetya

Platinum Member
Jul 7, 2005
2,978
1
0
Ron Paul is a looney.

Whats next? Blaming Europe for Hitler because they punished Germany for losing the first World War? Blaming GM for car deaths because they build cars?


The world has been meddling in the politics of the Middle East for hundreds of years.

I'm afraid simplistic thinkers like Ron Paul are unable to learn from history and are afraid to look inward for reasons why the terror groups desire to attack us.

FIXED.
 

highwire

Senior member
Nov 5, 2000
363
0
76
Originally posted by: DealMonkey
As Ron Paul pointed out during the GOP debate recently, American foreign policy deserves at least some of the blame for 9/11. After all, without Muslim anger over our meddling in the region for decades, propping up ruthless dictators, fighting proxy wars and maintaining huge military bases in the area, terror groups like Al Qaeda wouldn't have much to latch onto. I'm afraid simplistic thinkers like Rudy Guliani are unable to learn from history and are afraid to look inward for reasons why the terror groups desire to attack us.

Is Ron Paul wrong? If so, why?

Here's his statement from the debate:

"They attack us because we've been over there. We've been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We've been in the Middle East [for years]. I think (Ronald) Reagan was right. We don't understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics. Right now, we're building an embassy in Iraq that is 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."
I really don't think framing the 9-11 event with the word "blame" is quite correct. If a country, rightly or not, is actively engaged in acts of war against another national group for a long period of time, it is reasonable to assume that retaliation will sooner or later come to past. If the American people were properly and continuously informed that their government had been indulging in acts of war for decades by financing and supplying Israel, they certainly would not have bought the "They hate us 'cuz of our freedom" yarn to "explain" 9-11. Instead, they would have seen the event as a consequence, a cost of earlier decisions by our government. Then we could debate if that war is right and worthy and in OUR interest.

But to that same population, who has little choice but to be indoctrinated by our Zionist media day after day, plain truth may sound a bit odd. So, it is no surprise that Ron Paul's factual statement is sacrilege. Things really are getting an Alice-in-wonderland quality as we are silently eased into the first stages of our own Sovietization.

So, lets have it! I think Paul's statement is not only true, it is obviously true.

Or is it one of those many things, all too common lately, that just should not be said?
 
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