05/16/07 – Justin Raimondo – The Scott Horton Show

For Antiwar.com and Chaos Radio 95.9 FM in Austin, Texas, I'm Scott Horton, and this is Antiwar Radio.
All right, my friends, welcome back to Antiwar Radio on Radio Chaos 95.9 FM in Austin, Texas.
I'm Scott Horton, and introducing our next guest, Justin Raimondo.
He's the editorial director of Antiwar.com, is the author of Reclaiming the American Right, the Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement, and Enemy of the State, the Life of Murray N. Rothbard.
Welcome back to the show, Justin.
It's great to be back.
It's good to have you here, and boy oh boy, did you see the Republican debate last night?
I sure did.
Boy, that was fun, wasn't it?
Yeah, oh yeah, definitely fun.
Always fun to watch those guys try and pretend that they're conservative.
Yeah, if they even know what that means.
Let's get right to Ron Paul and foreign policy.
This made all the news, and I think it could work against him, but then again, it was the highlight.
So for the people in the audience who didn't get a chance to hear it, let's go ahead and listen to Ron Paul's first answer on foreign policy in the debate last night.
Congressman Paul, you're one of six House Republicans who, back in 2002, voted against authorizing President Bush to use force in Iraq.
Now you say we should pull our troops out.
A recent poll found that 77% of Republicans disapprove of the idea of setting a timetable for withdrawal.
Are you running for the nomination of the wrong party?
But you have to realize that the base of the Republican Party shrunk last year because of the war issue.
So that percentage represents less people.
If you look at 65 to 70% of the American people, they want us out of there.
They want the war over.
In 2002, I offered an amendment to international relations to declare war up or down, and nobody voted for the war.
My argument there was if we want to go to war and if we should go to war, the Congress should declare it.
We don't go to war like we did in Vietnam and Korea because the wars never end.
And I argued the case and made the point that it would be a quagmire if we go in.
Ronald Reagan in 1983 sent Marines into Lebanon, and he said he would never turn tail and run.
A few months later, the Marines were killed, 241 were killed, and the Marines were taken out.
And Reagan addressed this subject in his memoirs.
And he says, I said I would never turn tail and run.
He says, but I never realized the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics, and he changed his policy there.
Now, Justin, was Ronald Reagan a cowardly Democrat for turning tail and running from Beirut in 1983?
Well, he was, according to the neoconservatives, would attack him for it.
They attacked him even back then?
Yes, yeah, and they said, oh, you know, he's cutting and running and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But, of course, he was right to leave.
And now, of course, we're right back there, or will be shortly, and we're in the area.
And it's a big mistake, as we're coming to see, and it's 30% of Republicans.
You know, if you look at the polls, you see that 30% of Republicans say that this war was a mistake from the very beginning, and they want out.
So that's who Ron Paul represents.
Unfortunately, they were not given tickets by Fox News to enter the auditorium last night.
Yeah, and as Ron Paul pointed out, that 30% is of a Republican Party that is much smaller than it used to be, because so many people have just left the party entirely over this war.
Right, I mean, anybody who's still registered Republican at this point is either Helen Keller or, you know, a complete fool.
And so, I mean, that's who's going to be voting in the primaries, probably.
So, to your ears, author of Reclaiming the American Right, Justin Romano, when you hear Ron Paul say that it's a conservative thing to not get involved in these interventions, that's not a contradiction to you?
He doesn't sound like a wimpy, sissy liberal?
No.
I mean, he sounds like Robert A. Taft, who was the leading Republican statesman back in the 1940s and early 50s.
But that's a dead tradition.
I don't know if it can be reconstituted, but it's interesting that Ron would bring that back up again.
Okay, now, this next clip, I believe, is regarding the Department of Homeland Security.
And, in fact, the last article of Dr. Paul's that we ran on AntiWar.com was about this topic.
Congressman Paul, can you do better than that, sir?
I'd start with the departments.
Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security.
We've started with, we've just, the Republicans put in the Department of Homeland Security, it's a monstrous type of bureaucracy.
It was supposed to be streamlining our security and it's unmanageable.
I mean, just think of the efficiency of FEMA in its efforts to take care of the floods and the hurricanes.
So, yes, there's a lot of things that we can cut.
But we can't cut anything until we change our philosophy about what government should do.
If you think we can continue to police the world and spend hundreds of billions of dollars overseas, and spend hundreds of billions of dollars running a welfare state, an entitlement system that has accumulated $60 trillion worth of obligations, and think that we can run the economy this way, we spend so much money now that we have to borrow nearly $3 billion a day from foreigners to take care of our consumption.
And we can't afford that.
We can't afford it in the government.
We can't afford it as a nation.
So tax reform should come, but spending cuts have to come by changing our attitude of what government ought to be doing for us.
You would eliminate the Department of Homeland Security in the midst of a war, sir?
Well, I think we should not go to more bureaucracy.
It didn't work.
We were spending $40 billion on security prior to 9-11.
And they had all the information they needed there to deal with the threat.
And it was inefficiency.
So what do we do?
We add a gigantic bureaucracy, which they're still working on trying to put it together, and a tremendous amount of increase in funds.
So I don't think that the Republican position ought to be more bureaucracy.
I mean, why did we double the size of the Department of Education?
All right, Justin.
I guess there's no doubt that that was nothing but conservative arguments against centralization of power in Washington there.
Well, you know, it's interesting how none of the other candidates could name a single department that they would get rid of.
And this is a Republican debate.
I mean, what are we talking about here?
What has happened to the Republican Party?
I'll tell you what's happened to the Republican Party.
War.
They should change their name to the War Party, because that's all they care about.
Yeah, it sure does seem that way.
I remember when I was a kid, Republicans used to always talk about abolishing agencies.
Especially education and things like that.
Yeah, and of course, no more.
And you know, it's interesting how, you know, the Fox News people call you sir if they don't like you.
Right.
You gave the wrong answer, sir.
Yeah, he should have said, I'm Dr. Paul to you.
But now on the question of security and Homeland Security, well, does Wendell have a point that it would be a mistake to abolish Homeland Security in the midst of a war, Justin?
Well, I mean, let's look at what the Department of Homeland Security really is.
It's just all these other agencies that they, you know, already had in existence, these pre-existing agencies, about 10 of them.
And now they're all under one tent.
So what have they actually done?
Nothing.
It's just a name, Department of Homeland Security.
It absorbed the Immigration and Naturalization Service and about three or four other agencies that deal with border security, period.
And so what you have is this bureaucratic label that they invented.
And I mean, look, let's face it, Americans like the name, Homeland Security.
I mean, it's all about appearances.
It's not about reality.
It's just, oh, yeah, it's a great name.
It's marketing, period.
It has nothing to do with any kind of substance or any kind of extra protection that we are getting.
Yeah, if anything, it makes it harder for the 10 former independent agencies to do their actual jobs.
I actually know a lady who works for FEMA here in Austin.
She explained to me how during Katrina, FEMA was basically not allowed to do anything without asking permission from Homeland Security first and Homeland Security wouldn't do it.
FEMA was set up to do what they want to do, at least on the lowest level, the actual boots on the ground type people, first responders.
They were ready to go out there and do their job.
It was the new level of bureaucracy in D.C. that prevented them from doing so.
Right.
It's all about bureaucratic turf protection.
These people have their little empires and their first instinct is to defend the empire, meaning their own bureaucratic empire, not the American empire.
So, you know, you have to get permission from them and then you have to get permission from this guy and then you have to send an email to this guy.
And then, of course, you know, the hurricane has already knocked over the entire city.
So let's just forget it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
Oh, what's that?
Somebody stuck in their attic waving out the window?
Oh, well, we'll come back for you.
Good luck, buddy.
Yeah.
Well, and you know, you're really right about the how shocking it is really to behold the other nine candidates.
Look at Ron Paul like he's from Mars for saying that too much government in D.C.
We ought to think about abolishing these things.
You get more security from liberty, not from centralizing power in Washington.
They all looked at him like they were all Democrats.
Right.
Well, I mean, they are all Democrats, basically.
You know, they're all neoconservatives.
And as we all know, neoconservatives came from a Democratic Party.
So, you know, you got a bunch of Scoop Jackson Democrats, Giuliani, number one.
Is Giuliani a former leftist?
Well, he's a New Yorker.
So, you know, New Yorker, leftist, it's the same thing.
Yeah.
And now even for people and I guess Romney's they say he's flip flop on a lot of these things.
But even for the guys who are, you know, actually conservatives who maybe, you know, grew up in the Goldwater movement or what have you like that, they've still bought the line of the ex-leftist hook, line and sinker.
So what's the difference at this point?
You're right.
And, you know, and speaking of Romney, I mean, Romney is the perfect post millennium Republican so-called conservative candidate.
I mean, look at the guy.
He has no real views about anything.
Anything.
And, you know, he's changed his position.
And look how slick he is.
The hair is perfect.
The suit, perfect.
You know, and the oily kind of manner is also perfect for the kind of switching he has to do.
And no content.
A Stepford candidate if ever there was one.
Yeah, his most original thought was that we should double the size of Guantanamo and torture even more people there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, he actually said that in front of people and cameras and everything.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, you know, it's the Jack Bauer crowd.
I mean, all these people care about is war and torture.
This is their platform.
So, you know, I mean, it's like the Republican Party is now a horror movie and not a very good one.
Do you think that it's a mistake for Ron Paul to even try to save the GOP by leading it?
No, no, no, no.
Ron Paul should get the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Except he'd vote against it because it's unconstitutional.
He is telling the truth and somebody has to.
So he's up there.
He's taking the slings and arrows.
And what I'd like to know is why is he doing this?
I mean, he could have a good life.
He could retire from Congress, you know, like go back to his medical practice, hang out with his grandchildren.
And yet he is going through this and subjecting himself to smears and jeers from the, you know, from the monkeys, you know, who are left in the GOP.
And he is really a hero for our times.
I am lost in admiration from the man.
Let's listen to some more from last night's Republican debate.
Congressman Paul, I believe you are the only man on the stage who opposes the war in Iraq, who would bring the troops home as quickly as almost immediately, sir.
Are you out of step with your party?
Is your party out of step with the rest of the world?
If either of those is the case, why are you seeking its nomination?
Well, I think the party has lost its way because the conservative wing of the Republican Party always advocated a non-interventionist foreign policy.
Senator Robert Taft didn't want to be in NATO.
George Bush won the election in the year 2000 campaigning on a humble foreign policy.
No nation building, no policing of the world.
Republicans were elected to end the Korean War.
The Republicans were elected to end the Vietnam War.
There is a strong tradition of being anti-war in the Republican Party.
It is the constitutional position.
It is the advice of the founders to follow a non-interventionist foreign policy.
Stay out of entangling alliances.
Be friends with countries.
Negotiate and talk with them and trade with them.
Just think of the tremendous improvement, relationships with Vietnam.
We lost 60,000 men.
We came home in defeat.
Now we go over there and invest in Vietnam.
So there's a lot of merit to the advice of the founders and following the Constitution.
And my argument is that we shouldn't go to war so carelessly.
When we do, the wars don't end.
Congressman, you don't think that changed with the 9-11 attack, sir?
What changed?
The non-interventionist policies.
No, non-intervention was a major contributing factor.
Have you ever read about the reasons they attacked us?
They attack us because we've been over there.
We've been bombing Iraq for 10 years.
We've been in the Middle East.
I think Reagan was right.
We don't understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics.
So right now we're building an embassy in Iraq that's 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.
We need to look at what we do from the perspective of what would happen if somebody else did it to us.
Are you suggesting we invited the 9-11 attack, sir?
I'm suggesting that we listen.
I'm sorry, I want to pause it right there to point out that Ron Paul just got some applause from that conservative Republican audience for what he said right there.
Justin?
Yeah, sure.
Because, I mean, look, even though you're a Republican, it doesn't mean you're completely brain dead.
And then the question is, are you suggesting we invited the 9-11 attacks?
That's the question.
Listen to the people who attacked us and the reason they did it.
And they are delighted that we're over there because Osama bin Laden has said, I am glad you're over on our sand because we can target you so much easier.
They've already now, since that time, killed 3,400 of our men and I don't think it was necessary.
Wendell, may I make a comment on that?
That's really an extraordinary statement.
That's an extraordinary statement of someone who lived through the attack of September 11 that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq.
I don't think I've ever heard that before and I've heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11.
And I would ask the Congressman to withdraw that comment and tell us that he didn't really mean that.
Congressman?
I believe very sincerely that the CIA is correct when they teach and talk about blowback.
When we went into Iran in 1953 and installed the Shah, yes, there was blowback.
The reaction to that was the taking of our hostages and that persists.
And if we ignore that, we ignore that at our own risk.
If we think that we can do what we want around the world and not incite hatred, then we have a problem.
They don't come here to attack us because we're rich and we're free.
They come and they attack us because we're over there.
I mean, what would we think if we were, if other foreign countries were doing that to us?
Can I have 30 seconds, please?
No, no, no.
Wait a second.
Let's all get 30 seconds.
They are coming.
We all want 30 seconds to talk about this.
Wendell, go ahead.
I think I'm going to turn to Senator McCain and change the subject, if I will.
I don't think we're going to solve this tonight, gentlemen.
Boy, and isn't that just like Fox News?
Oh, what, we're finally getting to a real debate?
Let's go with a 20-second pregnant pause as I'm listening to the instructions in my ear telling me to ask McCain about the Confederate flag.
What?
There was a debate that was beginning to take place in that debate last night.
Yeah.
Well, look, I mean, you know, it's interesting that Rudy's first reaction is to get Ron Paul to withdraw his comment.
I mean, this is typical of Rudy, the most dangerous man in America.
I mean, this guy, this guy is like one of the Sopranos.
And if he is in the Oval Office, you will see a real dictator.
But this guy does not like anybody to disagree with him.
So his first reaction is, withdraw the comment, comrade.
And plus, he's a liar.
He's saying he never heard of such an explanation.
Garbage.
Of course he did.
Or if he didn't, then that's even worse, because then that just shows that he knows nothing about the terrorist threat.
He hasn't even read bin Laden's fatwa, where he actually declared war on the U.S. and gave his reason.
And of course, Ron Paul has read that and is absolutely correct, in that bin Laden talked about the bombing of Iraq by a Bill Clinton, by the way.
Right, the no-fly zone bombings that were taking place on average of every other day for eight years while it was in office.
That's what Andywar.com was covering while everybody else was ignoring it.
And also, you know, the horrible sanctions that killed tens of thousands of Iraqis, most of them women and children and old people.
So, I mean, this is what bin Laden said motivated him in part to attack America.
And of course, Ron Paul was absolutely correct.
But of course Giuliani, the demagogue, you know, here is somebody who claimed that, okay, he married his first cousin.
Giuliani's first wife was his first cousin, okay?
They were married for over 15 years.
And then all of a sudden he investigated his family tree and found out, oh, my wife is my first cousin.
And then he got the marriage annulled.
Yeah, right, like he didn't know that his wife was his first cousin, please.
This guy is not even a good liar, always a bad characteristic of a presidential candidate.
I think I really liked his beady little eyes through those glasses when he put them on, too.
That really helped with the effect there.
Boy, Giuliani.
You know, I mean, maybe we deserve Giuliani, but I don't deserve Giuliani.
No, don't say that, Justin.
It's just not right.
Well, we've got to stay on Giuliani here for a minute and this whole argument.
I didn't have time to look it up and I apologize for it.
But I read the book Perfect Soldiers by an L.A.
Times reporter named Terry McDermott.
And he talks about, at length, he discusses the lives of the hijackers, like the core crew, not the 15 Saudis who were brought in at the last minute for the muscle, but the actual ringleaders of the plot and all the time that they spent in Germany going to the mosque and hanging out at the apartment afterwards.
And here's what they talked about at the apartment in Hamburg, Germany, as they were preparing to do this plot with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and bin Laden to crash planes into American buildings and kill 3,000 people.
Here's their conversation.
Did you hear what Israel did today?
Man, some Americans are going to have to pay for that.
That was what they talked about.
American foreign policy, particularly in regards to Israel, and that is a fact.
Well, you know, I mean, this is a very American thing, is that you never take responsibility for anything.
You never take responsibility for anything.
Who, us?
It's also, you know, like a very New York thing.
Oh, you know, we're in the subway.
Excuse me.
You know, you just elbowed me.
Oh, whatever.
I mean, it's just that, I mean, no actions have any consequences, and they are never to blame, never to blame, because they have anger and they have issues.
And Americans live in perpetual childhood so that, you know, they can get away with anything.
And so to even mention that we are in some way asking for it is treason.
It's treason to the American mentality of we're above it all.
We're above history.
We're above judgment.
We're even above God, because we don't take any bullshit from anybody.
We can just do whatever we want.
We just go barreling in, and that's it.
Yeah, and if you do say that America provoked the attack, then, oh, well, you're saying that we deserved it, that it was okay what they did, et cetera, et cetera.
You just, you can't even have a reasonable discussion about this, even in 2007.
Right, because people say America, actually, that's the, it's the American government.
I mean, there's the American government, and then there's the American people.
So those are two complete separate entities.
So it's been an American foreign policy, as implemented by the American government, that in fact provoked the 9-11 terrorist attack.
And there's no question about that.
And even if you provoke something doesn't mean you deserve it.
You know, if I poke you in the chest five times and then you punch me in the face as hard as you can, you know, I might not have deserved that, but I certainly provoked it, right?
Well, you know, the American government provoked it, but the 3,000 people who were killed didn't deserve anything.
And, of course, Giuliani, being a demagogue, you know, conflates those two, and he'll go far, I predict.
Well, I turn the channel to The Daily Show because I just can't stand to watch Sean Hannity for any more than a very limited period of time.
But I'm told that by the end of the postgame show, basically, Ron Paul's statement was being paraphrased as saying that the U.S. government was behind the attack.
They were making him a 9-11 kook rather than a critic of foreign policy.
Yes.
Well, you know, I'm not surprised to hear that.
You know, I did watch some of the post-debate talk, but like you, I have a limited tolerance for Hannity.
He's just a blithering idiot.
Yeah, I just can't do it.
Yeah, it's hard.
But, I mean, look, these people will stop at nothing.
And I predict that Ron Paul will be banned from any further debate.
Forget it.
He is not going to be on any more debate.
CNN debate is coming up.
I predict he's not going to get into that debate.
Even though he's cleaned Giuliani's clock in all the polls after the last two debates.
Well, in all the online polls.
Well, the Fox News poll yesterday was over your cell phone, sent a text message, and they got caller ID.
Presumably, you could only vote once on that.
I don't think you can only vote once.
Oh, really?
I mean, you know, you have to know how to do it.
And I'm sure that, you know, like many libertarians who are very high-tech crowd, you know, like know how to do it.
And I personally know one guy who voted several times on his cell phone.
Well, I only voted once.
I thought that Fox News would have it together where you can only vote once.
But maybe I guess giving them too much credit that they don't deserve.
Right.
But I mean, look, this whole debate has been very illuminating to me.
And it's, you know, I mean, Ron Paul, again, has, you know, shown, I mean, just by speaking truth to power.
He has created this controversy that kind of illuminates what the issues are and who's on what side.
And he's really exposed the intellectual bankruptcy of the GOP.
And, you know, for that alone, he ought to be honored.
Indeed.
And, you know, these debates, I think I kind of want to honor the debates at all just for illuminating the fact that there are three people from each party that you're allowed to choose from, period.
And it's just the way they set it up in the first place.
You know that you can either choose Edwards, Obama or Hillary on the Democrat side, or you can choose Romney, McCain or Giuliani on the Republican side.
And the rest of these people are just a joke because they fulfilled some technicality that they're allowed to be in the debate.
But everybody knows that they don't stand a chance and that they don't get support and that we're not going to give them any real press and that they're not part of this.
They're the sideshow.
There are six to choose from and only six.
Well, you know, I mean, it's theoretically possible that, you know, one of them could win.
I mean, you know, we do have the primaries and people do vote, real people vote.
And, you know, when you go in, you can vote for Ron Paul or you can vote for somebody else.
And so, I mean, it's theoretically possible, but they make it all but impossible for anybody who doesn't, you know, support the pro-war consensus to actually win.
And, you know, there's the money question, there's the stacking of the primaries, like, you know, the Super Tuesday, you know, 10 different primaries are held on one day.
I mean, you need some money in the bank.
So actually Ron Paul has raised some money.
And he's like, I think, number six, you know, as far as the money raisers go, he's raised about $650,000 so far, which is more than a lot of the others.
And I think that his campaign is going to go pretty far.
You know, I think it's going to mobilize a lot of people and I think people are going to be surprised at how far he goes.
You know, this early in the season, it's just unconscionable that anybody is talking about excluding anyone from the debate.
You know, Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo and these guys, they don't have any better chance than Ron Paul does, or worse, really.
The primary elections don't really start for, you know, more than six months from now, eight months or something from now.
I mean, I hear that anybody's talking about excluding anyone.
I mean, when the Washington Post came out with their lead editorial last week saying, you know, these debates are really cluttered.
They ought to ditch Paul and Gravel.
It's pretty clear what's bothering them.
You know, and, you know, for those in the audience, even if you hate Ron Paul, even if you're a warmonger or, you know, a hardcore socialist and you just can't stand Ron Paul, certainly you don't think he ought to be excluded from the debate.
It's only May of 2007.
Right.
Well, I mean, that's how the system works.
And, of course, the Washington Post, you know, is just trying to cover its ass because, of course, the Washington Post was among the leading liars but lied us into war.
And their columnists, Krauthammer, you know, and the whole crowd up there, you know, were echoing back, you know, the lies of this administration.
And so, of course, the Washington Post, along with the New York Times, has a lot to answer for.
So they don't want anybody who's outside of their little cocktail party Washington insider group to really be heard.
And, I mean, this is their method, and it's worked pretty well so far, though it may not work this time because the country is in some pretty major political turmoil, and it's only going to get worse.
I mean, I've been predicting this for a while.
You know, I'm from a generation back in the 60s when the Vietnam War really did produce a social revolution, you know, especially among young people.
And I think we're going to experience something like that this time around.
War always does this.
You know, it makes people uncomfortable, it stirs the pot, and the pot is being stirred harder and harder, and I think that some of the stew is going to slip over the sides of the bowl, to pardon my metaphor.
And so, you know, we're going to have a mess on our hands.
And as this war becomes more unpopular, I think that you're going to see a lot of political turmoil.
I mean, look at the example of Bloomberg and Hagel.
They're talking about running as independents.
I mean, that, look, Bloomberg has a billion dollars to spend.
A billion.
I mean, that's a lot of money.
He can have a real impact.
I don't know what his foreign policy views are, though I suspect that he's against the war.
Like most Americans.
And, of course, Hagel is also talking about running, and the two of them are having lunch a lot.
So what are they talking about in terms of lunches?
It could be very interesting.
So all these efforts to exclude people, to have two pro-war candidates or three pro-war candidates so that we never talk about what our foreign policy ought to be and are never given a choice.
It may not work this time.
Yeah, and you know, especially since they tried to seize on this September 11th comment by Ron Paul as the thing to marginalize him.
Everybody knows that American foreign policy is what provokes September 11th.
I mean, Rudy Giuliani is probably the last person in the world to believe, as he told Sean Hannity, assuming he's not just an outright liar in this case, when he told Sean Hannity that the reason they attacked us is because of women's rights.
What?
Nobody's so stupid that they believe that anymore.
Well, you know what I'd like to hear him say is that they attacked us because of a women's right to choose.
Yeah.
Why doesn't he say that to the Republicans?
Yeah, well, I love this.
This is the Conservative Party is the champion of spreading liberalism to the world and no contradiction there.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, you know, that's been their major thing.
Women's rights in Afghanistan.
That's why our soldiers are dying there, right?
Good luck with that one, buddy.
Well, just because there's never been such a thing as women's rights in Afghanistan doesn't mean that America can't make it with machine guns and howitzers and such.
Ten thousand pound bombs, you know.
They can create women's rights out of the void.
I mean, these people believe that military power can accomplish anything.
That they can, you know, change 4,000 years of civilization.
That they can do anything.
And, you know, I think that like a lot of this is due to television.
I mean, look, you turn on the TV and there's always law enforcement stuff and there's always military, you know, programs about war and whatever.
And force is always kind of a deus ex machina, you know, the thing that can, you know, do the impossible.
And increasingly, you know, like Americans believe that force is really the ultimate solution.
And guess what?
It isn't.
Yeah.
Well, what happens is they just make matters worse.
As Ron Paul pointed out, bombing Iraq was featured highly in bin Laden's fatwas of 96 and 98.
Michael Shorter's pointed out over and over again, and in fact, you know, has gone ahead and called George Bush a liar for telling us anything as a motive for al-Qaeda other than America's foreign policy.
And he says it's the no-fly zones and the blockade against Iraq, which has now been replaced on the list by the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Support for local dictators, pressure on them to set the price where American companies want the price set.
Support for Russia, China, and India and their wars against Muslims.
And support for Israel and their occupation of Palestine.
Simple as that.
See, Scott, all of these are empirical facts.
Facts that have to be discovered by doing research, by finding out about other countries, for example.
You know, and of course, Americans don't have time for this.
And they're not interested.
Yeah, I guess you're right.
In any case, what most Americans are interested in is a story.
A story.
A narrative.
And there's the good guys and the bad guys.
And the bad guys hate us because we're free and beautiful and prosperous and we have iPods and, you know, whatever.
So, I mean, it's just this kind of fairy tale story that, you know, is comforting to them.
And of course, it flatters Americans.
I mean, when you're living in a decadent, corrupt society, this is what happens.
You get the leaders you deserve.
In a rational society, Rudy Giuliani would be a doorman somewhere in, like, a Manhattan condo.
In our society, he's a credible candidate for president.
You know, the worst always rise to the top.
And you're seeing it now.
Yeah.
Well, you know, I can't get over the fact that it is 2007 and people have had a chance to take a deep breath.
And, you know, I think if they were trying to pass the Patriot Act for the first time now, they'd at least have to read it and debate it.
There's been some change.
You point out in your blog entry about Ron Paul last night that even Free Republic got it right and said, you know, hey, look, this is, you know, Ron Paul was right and Giuliani's wrong.
Of course they attacked us for our foreign policy.
And that's at Free Republic, right?
I mean, that was posted on Free Republic.
I'm not saying that, you know, the readers or, you know, the proprietors of Free Republic got it right.
But, yes, I did find that on Free Republic.
And now Tancredo last night in the debate, he got it half right.
He said that he basically admitted that America's foreign policy in the Middle East has some effect, but then said, but that's really besides the point because Osama bin Laden has an ideology and a religion that, you know, mandates that he attack us anyway.
And I just would like to add to that, that to the degree that that's true, if it's true, he still doesn't have any followers unless he can point at an occupation.
And that is a fact.
And Robert A. Pape, who researched and documented every single suicide bomber between 1980 and 2004, showed that when the occupation ends, the volunteers for the terrorist groups dry up, period.
So, like where the Ayatollah Khomeini ranted for 10 years about American corruption and miniskirts and pop music, nobody cared.
But when bin Laden lists the six specific foreign policies that he objects to, people rally to his cause.
Well, I mean, it's not surprising that Mr. Tancredo, whose whole campaign is based on hatred of foreigners, would talk about how inherently all Muslims want to attack us.
I mean, that guy is all about hatred.
And, of course, hatred is based on ignorance.
He knows nothing about Islam, Muslims, or anything else.
And so, you can tell that by just looking at him.
Right.
He's the guy that wants to deport all the Mexicans.
Right.
Well, good luck with that, buddy.
Come to my neighborhood and you'd have no one to wheel the baby strollers, you'd have nobody working in restaurants, and people would be wandering around in a daze.
Who would do the work?
Not the Americans.
Hey, let me ask you this.
If Ron Paul can appeal to the conservative southern Christians and say, look, I'm anti-war and I know you guys love war and everything, but check me out.
I'm a southern Protestant, too, and I'm good on all the other questions.
At least I want to make abortion a state issue, not a federal one, so you can outlaw it in your own states if you want, etc.
If he can bring them on board, and if he can show the guys on Wall Street that they're better off with a free economy than rating the U.S. Treasury, and I know that there are many business-oriented Republicans who really like Ron Paul, do you think that he could possibly put together enough of a coalition to even come close to getting the nomination here?
Oh, and very quick, because we're all out of time, too.
If he could, anything is possible, though I wouldn't bet the farm on it.
Yeah, well, that's a pretty good way to say it.
All right, we're all out of time.
Thanks very much for your time, Justin.
Anytime, bye.
All right, everybody, Justin Romano, he's the editorial director of antiwar.com, and this has been Antiwar Radio, see you back here at 11 o'clock Texas time tomorrow.