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 change U.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.
Rabinowitz presumably does, as well, so instead of challenging Dr. Paul on the facts, she quotes him saying “They’re just defending themselves” and writing, “Presumably he was referring to Iran’s wishes for a bomb.” In the interview referred to, Dr. Paul had said, “I don’t want them to get the nuclear weapon”, but pointed out that Israel’s defense minister, “Ehud Barak said that they’re acting logically, and they’re acting in their self-interest, and if he was an Iranian, he would probably think the same way” (Dr. Paul is correct on this, also; it’s true that Barak has “quipped that if he were an Iranian, he would take part in the development of nuclear weapons”).
Rabinowitz also disinclines herself to point out what Dr. Paul said next: “But there is a gross distortion to this debate that they are on the verge of a nuclear weapon. There is no evidence that they are on the verge of a nuclear weapon, and we shouldn’t be ready to start another war” (Dr. Paul is correct on this, too, and has rightly drawn parallels to the current propaganda about Iran and the lies that preceded the war on Iraq).
So, once again, we see that Ron Paul’s true sin is his failure to jump on board with the war propaganda. A further sin is that he said after 9/11 that “there was ‘glee in the administration because now we can invade Iraq.’” But is the contention that those policymakers responsible for the war on Iraq were not happy that they now had the opportunity to do so sustainable? Is Rabinowitz unaware that in 1996, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser coauthored a document prepared for the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, which made the case for overthrowing Saddam Hussein’s regime? Or that the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), whose membership was a virtual who’s who of so-called “neoconservatives” calling for war on Iraq, had a manifesto calling for regime change and stating that the “process of transformation” of the U.S. military into a force to “preserve American military preeminence” around the globe “is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor”? That PNAC director Robert Kagan acknowledged that the 9/11 attacks were the “Pearl Harbor” he and his ilk were looking for, writing in the Washington Post that 9/11 must be used to “to launch a new era of American internationalism. Let’s not squander this opportunity”?
Yet again, it becomes evident that Ron Paul’s sin is that he is too willing to be honest with the American people and speak the truth about U.S. foreign policy. Just as Dr. Paul predicted and warned about the housing bubble and financial crisis of 2008, so did he predict and warn prior to 9/11 that U.S. foreign policy would result in what the intelligence community terms “blowback”. Ron Paul has a long record of speaking truth to power and making predictions that have come to pass.
Rabinowitz concludes, “It seemed improbable that the best-known of American propagandists for our enemies could be near the top of the pack in the Iowa contest, but there it is.” That Ron Paul has emerged in Iowa as a frontrunner is a hopeful sign that Americans are waking up to the realities of U.S. foreign policy and are tired of crude propagandists for U.S. wars and empire insulting their intelligence, as Rabinowitz—who is a member of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board—does so well in her column.
written by Not Boltin' , December 27, 2011
It's rather unfortunate that much of the Jewish community in the United States has gone down a path with their neocon compatriots which is filled with hate, blood, blood libel (against Muslims), militarism and adventurism. Rabinowitz is no different here, nor is the owndership of the Wall Street Journal, which is the News Corporation (owned by Ruppert Murdoch, an Israeli dual citizen). Unforunately, those who wish to foster WWIII incessantly shriek anti-semitism in order to forestall debate on important issues, such as the course of desired foreign policy for all Americans, not just a small group of individuals, which pushes an agenda which may well precipitate World War III. You see, regardless of the prospects of WWIII, the move toward destabilizing the Middle East to facilitate landgrab at the expense of local Arab populations on the way toward a greater Israel is, of course, one aspect of the goal.
It turns out that 52 of the most important Jewish Groups in the United States are in favor of and appear to be pushing Washington into war with Iran and the prospects of World War III (note recent Chinese admonitions). Dr. Ron Paul argues for a different path. Of course, because he has taken a rational position which serves the majority of Americans (and the rest of the world) rather than a very small narcissistic group (in contradistinction to the larger community) which is hellbent on acting out any number of putative prophecies, delusions, pathologies and/or fairy tales, among others, he is being pilloried because of the absence of blood lust in his message.
Of course, much has gone wrong recently in American society. Precipitating a conflict with a nation which provides absolutely no national security concerns to the United States would appear to be a completely irrational approach. But as Washington becomes more frightened of and irrational toward their own people and closer to those who feed their trough, and as those of all religious and political stripes beat the tomtom for war with Iran (and possibly Pakistan, China and Russia), Dr. Paul becomes the sole figure who stands in the way of their madness. Thus, the shrieking madness of the mainstream media and various groups (the same as those who got us into the ill fated Iraq war) who see Dr. Paul as the sole impediment to their further hijacking of the United States in pursuit of their bloodlust and further military adventurism.
Our hopes, prayers and admonition go out to the decent Israeli citizens and members of the American Jewish community who understand what the go for broke policies of their leaders are designed to create. It is not a surprise that most Israelis are against a war with Iran because of the prospects such a war brings.
Rather than pillory Dr. Paul, perhaps acknowledgement of his approach would bring the American Jewish community closer to their American neighbors, who overwhelmingly do not wish to start World War III for a non-existential threat to the United States or even Israel.
written by Nugster , December 27, 2011
I am a Canadian but have a great interest in American presidential politics. It is clear that Ron Paul is the only mainstream candidate (I say this because there are others who preach the anti-establishment message, i.e., Cynthia McKinney) who is a thinker. His policies are not rooted in demagoguery but on a philosophical ideology he does not stray from to suit the political current of the month. He and his platform are rooted in higher-order thinking; they are intellectual. Unfortunately, the wide majority of the American electorate are not. As such, they are easy prey for the corporate media and the crude propaganda it spews about Ron Paul.
The only way a candidate like Ron Paul can be elected into higher office in your country is post an intellectual paradigm shift. There are far too many bottom-feeders in your country to allow this to happen at the moment I am afraid. I sincerely hope things change soon though.
written by Spartan , December 27, 2011
Nugster hit the nail on the head. We need this paradigm shift VERY soon. As is often the case, it takes someone from the outside to see more clearly what we cannot see ourselves. Let the intellectual revolution begin!
written by Frank Verismo , December 27, 2011
The good news is that said revolution need not be intellectual at all.
A couple of years ago I was surprised to discover the meaning of the word 'apocalypse'. Doubting what I heard, I reached for my (1924) etymological dictionary and looked it up, Sure enough, there it was: 'the veil' - or more specifically, the lifting of the veil of deception laid over the population's eyes for so very long.
We don't need to possess a colossal intellect to know when we've been shafted. And that which has been seen cannot be unseen. The carefully orchestrated deceptions which have kept the system in place are now crumbling and this is a process that can only accelerate as more and more see through them.
Ron Paul has played a vital part in this process. Regardless of the outcome of the primaries and the subsequent presidential race, the lifting of the veil continues - and corporate media's attempts to pull it back down now appear laughably obvious.
written by FREEDOM , December 27, 2011
hey brandon, are you guys involved in this? lets hope! GO MONTANA!!!
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/recall-montanans-organize-to-remove-senators-who-voted-for-traitorous-detainment-bill_12272011
written by Brandon Smith , December 27, 2011
@freedom
Sort of. My friend Stewart Rhodes of Oath Keepers is helping with the filing of the recall. I'm not a lawyer, but I fully support the initiative and will organize as many people as I can to make it a reality. We will do everything in our power to make Montana safe for lovers of liberty.
written by slk , December 27, 2011
Not Boltin', Rupert Murdoch is NOT a dual citizen with Israel. What nonsense. He was an Australian and gave up that citizenship to become American so he could buy media organisations otherwise denied him. I know this as an Australian journalist well versed in his rich to even more riches story. Please don't invent more grounds for online ranting for or against Jews.
btw fantastic article. Excellent points. Ron Paul is by far the only politician flapping his gums and making sense right now. I don't even care if he it does turn out to have dodgy past (or even present) views on minorities when what matters right now - all that matters - is finding someone to lead the US who can reign in the American military machine and also stop starting wars.
I appreciate that he largely says what he thinks and what he thinks is generally factually backed up and lacking the American exceptionalism and propaganda usually found in his fellow politicians. Go Ron.
written by Ceedog , December 28, 2011
Excellent points by all! As a supporter of Ron Paul for 6 years, I can say that the paradigm shift has already begun. And I believe it is rapidly leaving the infancy stage. The media's efforts at stuffing the genie back in the bottle have gloriously failed and only serve as another indicator of our phony system to those who have employed reason and honesty instead of right/left banter.
written by Mind Farmer , December 28, 2011
Ron Paul is failing us. HOW? WHY? And the Fear Factor!
Ron Paul is failing to see the Victory. WIth the majority of Americans barely out of their miond control and Fox News programend propaganda minds his "NON-defense of America is going to cost him possibly Iowa and the rest of the US. Ron Paul needs to satisfy not blood lust but the mental state of a nation who has been at war for ten decades.
We need a Dad figure to say to us. Look. I am going to take care of you scared little children and chase the boggy man away. Coming out and telling a scared nation of mental infants with some form of tough love I am going to let you be scared with out anyform of comfort will cause many who would vote for him to turn towards another canidate.
Ron Pau has his base, he can regather it if it falls off after the primary, but he needs to tell theses neo-con duped children of America that he will defend them and do so with power and strength, and he will not trash our commitments, longterm commitments like the phillipines and Israel. There are millions upon milluions of Jews who have suffered at the hands of tyrants and laise faire politicians, which Ron is begining to sound like. They will not vote for some guy who says he will stand by and watch there people annialated.
Maybe a lot of you hate Jews or Israel or the policies of the illuminatis but you fail to see the plan in the shadows. There has always been a plan by the neo-cons for middle east conquest, NOT because they love the Jews, but because the descend from the ancient families that started the Crusades.
There is so Much Fear Factro going on Ron is failing to see what it will take for victory.
Munroe, Jefferson both at times fond it necessary to make this liberty movement go viral and global. The Munroe doctrine, the Jefferson expansion. Get real our founders never intended us to be and island of hope but a light house of liberty shining forth becaons of its brilliance around the globe. The neo-cons, illuminati and the elites have used it to spread their terror and their dark purposes. Victory will take for us to turn there evil to our good, to manipulate the fears and terror to our cause. If we fail to say to the American People, if Ron Paul fails to show he, like Jefferson can and will weild a sword to defend the Republic, the people will not support him and all the marginalizing of Fox News and the rest of the elitist news agencies will have worked exactly the way they want it to. Good by republic, good by Ron Paul, you failed!.
written by Mind Farmer , December 28, 2011
What I was saying is that this nation, the USA, suffers from 100 years of conflict, a real national condition of mental PTSD. Ron Paul is scaring the scared. He is not galvanizing for victory but marginalizing his succeses. Reality check... WE ARE AT WAR. Ron can end it.. but not unless he can win the position of commander-in-chief. To do so will require some understanding of REALITY, we are at war... People belive that being felt up by the TSA is a good thing, that the majority of this nation are scared out of their minds by the neo-con media.
Ron Paul can stop the TSA and the planned Military takeover of America, BUT he won't if he will not survey the battelfield, understand the strengths of his forces and commit to a plan action to tackle our national mental crisis. I want Ron Paul to be president. But The more and more I watch him I see a man struggling to be the next leader, and not becasue of Republican and neo-con engineering against him, whci is going on, but becasue he is looking more and more like a failure than a hero.
You and Ron Paul are foolish to believe that you can go into this arena and tell a Floride brain numb nation that has suffered under the most intense barrage of Propaganda in world history that is also simultaneously under a total moral and economic collapse that he will totally abandon the defense of this nation, this scares the crap out of the sheep. He needs to come in like Gandolf on the white horse wielding the sword against the great all seeing eye of Soron. Not some feeble constitutional proffessor. He is playing into the hands of his enemies. A real general will understand the ability of his troops and not sacrifice the war for a battle!
written by WiseCaveOwl , December 29, 2011
Ron Paul: the only American politician who isn't a galley slave on the SS Israel. More power to him. Provided he goes 3rd Party, and sends the Republicrats the way of the Whigs, I'll give him my vote and whatever money I can contribute
written by Mind Farmer , December 30, 2011
The Munroe Doctrine stated simply we will in many capacities aid those nations seeking to brake the shackles of tyranny.
Iraq was not begging for our help. And neither has any of the other nations we have gone in and spilt their blood and our blood over! Not Afghanistan, not Yugoslavia, not panama, not somalia, not haiti, not georgia, not lybia, not egypt not syria not pakistan or iran NOT any of them.....but Israel has asked for us to help. They are a democracy. They have both secular Jews and Religious Jews. They have both Christian Arabs and muslim arabs. They have blacks, asians and europeans. They are a very diverse multicultral nation with a true to form democracy. They are NOT a dictatorship and they are a humble enough nation to allow the UN and America and England and all their Arab nations to dictate to them their future.
They to are under the same vicious attacks by the elitist globalists.
Like what happens here in America when they divide us, so are we being globaly divided by our brothers around the globals engaged in a fight for freedom and liberty. What the globalists are doing to Israel is what they plan to do to us.
If you are so sucked in by the globalists lies and have such a a hatred for Israel then you are as lost. You are just as brainwashed and dumb down as my fellow citizens that can't see through the fog of the media propaganda in America and believe in the other garbage the global elits vile mouths spill out. The lies are worked up to control both sides. I support a free and democratic Israel and Know that the global elites plan on undermining that in the US and Israel and Canada everywhere else. They want you to hate the USA or hate Canada or to hate Israel. You are fools if you think the Al CIAda takeover of Israel is not going to play into the hands of the global elits diabolical scheme for total world techno domination!
If Ron Paul abandons the principles of the Munroe Doctrine and fails to see the global importance of liberty and freedom and CAN NOT dissasociate what is right from what is wrong and the delusions of the elite globalists wars from what we are responsible for in our tiny spot in freedom then I would say Ron Paul for all his muster is not worth my vote. We unfortunately are tied to a responsibility to usher in the fight against all forms of tyranny. Here and abroad. There is a big difference in being the global camp gaurd for the globlists and being the defender of the republic and liberty for a desperate world. The globalists are trying to enslave all nations, not just ours. If we free ourselves from them they will just use their minions from around the globe to undermind and attack us.
A free and protected Israel defends liberty. Selling Israel out to it's evil neighbors (they are all dictators or CIAda Al kida patsys) will be our own undoing. What goes around comes around. Ron Paul wants lady liberty and the almighty GOD on his side, he needs to choose correctly to defend liberty anywhere. That is not the same as Bush and Obama being lap dogs for global intrests. That is being like Munroe, like Jefferson and Adams who saw the tyrannical monarchs defeated in North America.
written by Joanne Renshaw Colonial Heights, va , January 02, 2012
Ron Paul said concerning the terrorist attacks of 9/11: "took place only because of U.S. aggression and military actions". That is a true statement. "Patriots" and neoconservatives do not like the truth when it sounds like a slur on the "good" name of the U.S.. Our foreign enemies are more cognizant of history than most Americans. America developed from: the theft of the land and persecution of the Natives; kidnapping, enslavement, then segregation of Negroes (Africans); absconding Southwest lands (TX, AR, NM, CA) from Mexico; occupation of foreign lands (empire-building). No wonder they fear and attack us!
written by Timothy , January 02, 2012
What is not being said here is the TRUE cost of the Jewish lobbbys cost to America, The direct Foreign aid is just a fraction of the total. Our unqualified support for the Israelis oppression of the Palestinians and the NeoCons (Dual Citizen American Jews) is the unending war in the Middle East and the police state we find ourselves in here in the US. I commute into Manhattan every day and have seen countless soldiers posted in the subway etc holding automatic weapons, add the new Homeland security etc and you have a true cost of Hundreds of Billions if not trillions. The primary reason we were attacked on 9/11 and dont forget all of the other attacks was due to our support for Israel and our meddling in Middle East affairs. This is a fact that the MSM will not discuss although all of the captured terrorsist say it is so. As an Amercian I cannot stand the Orwellian lying that the media and our politicians engage in to the point that we are literally bankrupting our country not to mention our soldiers dying to support a small wealthy ethnic minority in this country. I say they are traitors and I do not say that lightly. I have Irish ancestry and my grandfather had to make a hasty exit from Ireland in the 1930's due to his alleged activities on behalf of the IRA. I never would suggest that the US provide weapons and monies to the IRA as it was not in this countries interests to do so. The Jewish Americans in this country have no qualms whatsoever in doing just that and it is way past time to call them out on it. They have manipulated the media to the point that pointing out the obvious is called "anti-semitic" when in fact they are engaging in treason
written by Anti Secret Societies , January 31, 2012
lets get masonry out of government make them all divulge what secret society they belong to. We need make all public officials self report what subversive organization they belong to in order to get a public job. then you'll see the bigger picture. Masons only promote masons no matter how stupid or inept they are. The public loses becasue the brightest non masons get passed over while the little winey mason gets hooked up and does no work but rides the co-tails of his smart co-workers, steels their ideas and gets the credit. Wake up America they been hoodwinking the public for hundreds of years .
