Jeremy R. Hammond
Alt-Market
December 27, 2011
This article, originally titled “Ron Paul: Propagandist Or Prophet?”, was written by Jeremy R. Hammond and published at Foreign Policy Journal
Ron Paul is “the best-known American propagandist for our enemies”, writes Dorothy Rabinowitz in a recent
Wall Street Journal hit piece.
To support the charge, she writes that Dr. Paul “assures audiences”
that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 “took place only because of U.S.
aggression and military actions”. It’s “True,” she writes, that “we’ve
heard the assertions before”, but only “rarely have we heard in any
American political figure such exclusive concern for, and appreciation
of, the motives of those who attacked us”—and, she adds, he doesn’t care
about the victims of the attacks.
The vindictive rhetoric aside, what is it, exactly, that Ron Paul is
guilty of here? It is completely uncontroversial that the 9/11 attacks
were a consequence of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. The
9/11 Commission Report,
for instance, points out that Osama bin Laden “stresses grievances
against the United States widely shared in the Muslim world. He
inveighed against the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, the home
of Islam’s holiest sites. He spoke of the suffering of the Iraqi people
as a result of sanctions imposed after the Gulf War, and he protested
U.S. support of Israel.”
Notice that Rabinowitz doesn’t actually deny that the 9/11 attacks
were motivated by such U.S. policies as these. Rather, Ron Paul’s sin is
that he actually
acknowledges this truth. The fact that
other political
figures choose to ignore or deny this fact hardly reflects poorly on
Dr. Paul. Refusing to bury one’s head deeply up one’s arse, as
Rabinowitz is so obviously willing to do, is hardly a character trait to
be faulted.
From this position of willful ignorance, Rabinowitz then implores her
readers that “a President Paul” would “be making decisions about the
nation’s defense, national security, domestic policy and much else.” The
conclusion one is supposed to draw is that anyone who could actually
acknowledge
the ugly truth that 9/11 was a consequence of U.S.
foreign policy isn’t fit for office; only someone who is willing to
delude him or herself that the U.S. was attacked because “they hate our
freedoms” is worthy of the presidency. Anyone who wishes to
changeU.S.
foreign policy is unfit; only a person who is willing to continue the
status quo should be allowed a seat in the Oval Office.
Rabinowitz warns that “The world may not be ready for another
American president traversing half the globe to apologize for the
misdeeds of the nation he had just been elected to lead.” It’s not clear
who she has in mind with the “another”, but it’s by now a familiar
refrain. “I’ll never apologize for the United States of America. Ever. I
don’t care what the facts are,” President George H. W. Bush declared to
the world after a U.S. warship had shot down an Iranian civilian
airliner in Iranian airspace, killing all 290 passengers aboard,
including 65 children. Surely, any president willing to
apologize for the murder of innocent children
must not lead the nation. The horror of the thought!
And then there is Dr. Paul’s position with respect to Iran. He recently urged his host in
an interview
“to understand that Iran’s leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had never
mentioned any intention of wiping Israel off the map.” Here, again, it’s
notable that Rabinowitz doesn’t actually dispute this. Dr. Paul is, of
course, correct. The claim that Iran has threatened to acquire nuclear
weapons to “wipe Israel off the map” is a
complete fabrication of Western media propaganda, and mainstream corporate news agencies
know it is a fabrication, but repeat it obligatorily anyway.
(CONTINUE READING)
