The Dower Power Hour

I have spent the last few days watching (and then brooding over) the respective Democratic and Republican Primary debates. As a result, you can expect that the next few blog entries will probably be related to the American Presidential race as it is currently evolving. To keep entries short, I’ll try to harp on specific aspects of the debates rather than tackling everything all at once. I’d like to start with, as Colbert might put it, a stern wag of the finger at Republican candidate Mayor Giuliani of New York City.

During the second Republican debate, Congressman Ron Paul made an assertion about the consequences of US foreign policy in the Middle East: “They attack us because we’ve been over (Iraq). We’ve been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We’ve been in the Middle East [for years]. I think 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.”

The Fox guys immediately jumped all over Ron Paul’s statements, asking, “are you suggesting we invited the 9/11 attacks, sir?” Ron Paul then attempted to clarify, stating, “I’m suggesting that we listen to the people that attacked us and why they did it.” He then went on to explain how the United States’ position in Iraq has made it more vulnerable and boosted local support for the terrorists throughout the Middle East.  No sooner had Dr. Paul’s time run out than Giuliani decided to jump in, absolutely blasting the Congressmen for his “extraordinary” statement.

Giuliani: “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that before, and I’ve heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11th.” This remark was met by thunderous applause, probably the most in the entire debate. Never heard that before? Well then, I guess you haven’t read the 9/11 Commission Report. In 1996, bin Laden, to quote the report, issued “his self-styled fatwa calling on Muslims to drive American soldiers out of Saudi Arabia. The long, disjointed document condemned the Saudi monarchy for allowing the presence of an army of infidels in a land with the sites most sacred to Islam…”

So if you want to use Osama bin Ladin’s own explanation, then yes, the original reason for Al Qaida’s attacks on America are specifically in response to our foreign policy. Even if you ignore those rather incriminating facts, to pretend that our actions in that region are not in the slightest bit responsible for the backlash that 9/11 represented - it’s simply absurd. The uncomfortable fact of the matter is that Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups hate us for more than just our liberal social conventions and our “freedoms.” If anything, it is when we betray the freedoms we espouse that we really get ourselves into trouble. But I’ll complain about the de facto endorsement of American use of torture by Giuliani and Romney later…

Giuliani then went on to demand a withdrawal of Ron Paul’s statement, again to the sound of thunderous applause. Ron Paul then continued to offer reasonable, factually based explanations for his assertion, referencing the installation of the 1953 installation of the Shah of Iran and how that eventually led to the hostage crisis decades later. How gutsy do you have to be, to bring up one of the biggest and most costly blunders in 20th century American foreign policy during a Republican debate?

You can access the video here, but suffice to say I am extremely disappointed in Giuliani. Either he genuinely thinks that the terrorists only hate us for our freedoms or he jumped at the chance to take an opponent down a notch by undercutting an unappealing but fact-driven argument. Either way, he just lost my vote.