“Just when I thought I was out…they pull me back in!”
This classic line from the Godfather III accurately describes how I feel every time I think I may just be done with Ron Paul, before America’s Crazy Uncle comes out with another ridiculous claim I need to address; and this time its in the form of his new book: Swords into Plowshares: A Life in Wartime and a Future of Peace and Prosperity.
This article will be focusing specifically on some of the things found in Buzzfeed’s profile of his book (found here).
For starters, Paul continues his record of saying some nasty (and borderline anti-Semitic) comments in his attempt to paint U.S. foreign policymakers as the bad guys. In his chapter “Making America Safe for Empire,” Paul opines:
Americans generally see spiritual safety as being in the realm of religion and theology and political philosophy as being determined by the professors and others who dwell on esoteric ideas. There is theocracy when the theologians gain control of the state to offer salvation and eternal life through using force to impose their will and enforce their rules. Theocracy has always been abused. The Founders feared it and worked hard to prevent it. Supporters of radical Islam frequently endorse a theocratic system. Aggressive Christian Zionists also like to use the state to promote their theological beliefs, especially in foreign policy and with social gospel teachings. Zionism has played a role in our post-9/11 march toward empire, and its influence has encouraged extreme interference in the Middle East. (1)
There are a few things that need to be dealt with in this paragraph before moving on to the crux of what Paul has been preaching since before he even became a thing. For starters, Paul gets his definition of theocracy horribly wrong, which is not surprising given that Paul has always had a history of abusing the meaning of words (as we will further see in a minute). According to Noah Webster, “the Schoolmaster of America”, in his 1828 Dictionary of the English Language, a theocracy is defined as
Government of a state by the immediate direction of God; or the state thus governed. Of this species the Israelites furnish an illustrious example. (2)
As Webster points out, theocracy is government under immediate direction of God, or governed as such; this is not the same thing as “theologians gain(ing) control of the state to offer salvation and eternal life through using force to impose their will and enforce their rules”, that’s tyranny, not theocracy. Furthermore, goodness knows how Paul can possibly think the government of the United States has at any time in recent years been remotely close to a theocracy. I suppose Paul’s reasoning comes in the form of his charge of “Aggressive Christian Zionists” using the state to promote their theology in foreign policy and social gospel teachings, but this too is flawed reasoning.
I’m not sure what an “Aggressive Christian Zionists” actually is, but I highly doubt their foreign policy has been in effect anytime within the 9/11 era; and given that Zionism (or Jewish Nationalism) had the goal of reestablishing the physical nation of Israel, a feat that was accomplished in the 1940s, this idea of an aggressive “Christian Zionism” doesn’t make much sense. Well, actually it does, IF you happen to fall into the camp of conspiracy theorists who believe that Jewish bankers run world governments in an attempt to bring about the NWO…a position that Paul supporters have attempted to distance themselves from in recent years in order to give Paul’s campaign more legitimacy (albeit with little success).
In terms of the social gospel argument Paul makes, one can easily argue that it is similar to the vision the Founders invoked time and time again, which is why I am interested (morbidly?) in a further explanation from Paul. Where Paul really starts to go off the rails in that quote is where he says: “Zionism has played a role in our post-9/11 march toward empire, and its influence has encouraged extreme interference in the Middle East.” Now, for starters Paul (as mentioned before) completely abuses the word “empire”, as by any reasonable definition America and her actions don’t come anywhere close to being an empire (as I pointed out in my article “An Age of Empires?”, which can be found here).
But aside from his abuse of the English language, Paul also abuses logic; I mean, let me see if I understand this correctly: Zionism, that is to say Jewish Nationalism, has played a role in a nation who has a deep Christian founding and heritage, marching towards an empire in the post 9/11 world? Okay, because that somehow makes sense?
Simply put, Zionism has not done this because A. We have not been marching towards an empire, and B. If we had been, Jewish Nationalism is not part of the vehicle we were driving in order to do so. Again, the only possible way you can believe this to be true is if you also believe in a vast Jewish conspiracy, which to be honest, is not only intellectually dishonest, its also kind of offensive.
Paul goes on to claim rather outrageously that “The U.S. Empire received a big boost from the 9/11 attack… We also know that the PATRIOT Act was written a long time before 9/11, when the conditions were not ripe for its passage…Nine-eleven took care of that.” (1)
You know, it takes a lot of balls to claim something that terrible. Paul makes it sound like officials were GLAD when 9/11 happened, because it gave them an excuse to grow an empire; this however is not surprising given that Paul has previously stated “Think of what happened after 9/11…The minute before there was any assessment, there was glee in the administration because now we can invade Iraq, and so the war drums beat.” (3)
Let that sink in for a moment: Ron Paul literally claimed in these two statements that the Bush administration was GLEEFUL about the deaths of 3000 Americans because it gave them an excuse to invade Iraq (something that happened 2 years later, and after we had given many chances for Iraq to cooperate and avoid invasion), and enlarge a Zionist backed empire. The sheer arrogance and hatred you have to have inside you in order to ascribe that much evil intention upon President Bush and his administration is incalculable, and shows just how far out there Paul actually is.
Strangely however he did get one thing right in that original paragraph, where he said “Supporters of radical Islam frequently endorse a theocratic system”; and its odd that he got that right considering the next thing he got wrong (what I call the crux of his last 9 years of Presidential politics). In his book Paul writes about Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and why they attacked us. He criticizes U.S. officials arguing that the attacks came “because of our freedom and prosperity,” to avoid “scrutiny of our foreign policy.” Paul claims:
The reasons for the attack were fully described by bin Laden,”…“His reasons were simple and straightforward. One: foreign troops on the holy land of the Arabian Peninsula. Two: constant bombing and lethal sanctions against Iraq. Three: favoritism for Israel over the Palestinians. There is zero evidence that the attacks were motivated by hatred of Americans because of our freedom and prosperity. The terrorists simply did not like the U.S. constantly meddling in the affairs of the entire Middle East region, defiling their holy land, and causing death and destruction for their people. (1)
Now again, Paul does get one thing right, in that Bin Laden’s reasons are abundantly clear, but they are not what Paul claims them to be. You see Paul in this statement echos previous statements he has made, for example: “They attack us because we’ve been over there; we’ve been bombing Iraq for 10 years.” (we weren’t bombing them by the way, it was a no fly zone we were enforcing). Paul even blamed America for the attacks as early as two weeks after 9/11, so it is no surprise he continues it here. (4)
But where is Paul getting his information? He is getting it from Osama Bin Laden’s propaganda letter that he sent to America in order to get the media and people like Paul to adopt a false, America-bashing narrative. How do we know this? We know this because that letter is not the only time he explained his motives; and one of the other times was an explanation to his own Al Qaeda fighters, where he said:
Our talks with the infidel West and our conflict with them ultimately revolve around one issue – one that demands our total support, with power and determination, with one voice – and it is: Does Islam, or does it not, force people by the power of the sword to submit to its authority corporeally if not spiritually? Yes. There are only three choices in Islam: [1] either willing submission [conversion]; [2] or payment of the jizya, through physical, though not spiritual, submission to the authority of Islam; [3] or the sword – for it is not right to let him [an infidel] live. The matter is summed up for every person alive: Either submit, or live under the suzerainty of Islam, or die. (5)
Paul’s right, Bin Laden makes his position abundantly clear. So we have two conflicting accounts here, which one is to be believed; the propaganda message to the Media, OR Bin Laden’s message to his fighters? The answer is obviously we should believe the message to his own people; for if you are going to lie to anyone, its going to be your enemies, not those whose support you need to carry out the fight! The propaganda letter was meant to cause division, debate, and distraction – which it clearly has – while his letter to his fighters was meant to assure them of what they already knew was true, that their conflict with us stemmed from their understanding of Islamic theology and obligation.
To put it another way: if a Republican candidate for President were to say to his voting base “here is why you should vote for me, because our ideology is “X”, and the ideology he then lays out is to raise taxes, triple spending, install universal healthcare, completely open the borders, and allow partial birth abortion, his base would never vote for him. Why? Because you are not going to vote for someone who tells you your values and policy vision is something different than what it is. In the same way, Bin Laden can be trusted to tell the truth of their motivations to his own people, because if he didn’t, they would’t fight for him, they’d move on to someone else.
But this was not the only time Bin Laden gave the spread of Islam as his motivation, as he said in 1998 (3 years before 9/11):
I am one of the servants of Allah. We do our duty of fighting for the sake of the religion of Allah. It is also our duty to send a call to all the people of the world to enjoy this great light and to embrace Islam and experience the happiness in Islam. Our primary mission is nothing but the furthering of this religion. (6)
If that were not enough, the other 9/11 planners expressed similarly that:
We, Muslims, are content with God’s book, the Quran, to fight you with. God has granted us to fight…In God’s book, He ordered us to fight you everywhere we find you…We ask to be near to God, we fight you and destroy you and terrorize you. The Jihad in God’s cause is a great duty in our religion. (7)
Ironically we are further assured that Bin Laden’s reasons as stated to his people are the correct ones because of what Bin Laden said in his propaganda letter! Wait, what? You see, the interesting thing about the propaganda letter to the U.S. is that after providing a list of excuses for their hatred of us, Bin Laden lets his true intentions slip, where he states:
“As for the second question that we want to answer: What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?
(1) The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam...It is the religion of Jihad in the way of Allah so that Allah’s Word and religion reign Supreme.
(2) The second thing we call you to, is to stop your oppression, lies, immorality and debauchery that has spread among you.
(a) We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling’s, and trading with interest…You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire.You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator.” (8)
Think about that for a minute: no where does Bin Laden call for us to leave their Holy Land, stop bombing them, and support the Palestinians instead of the Jews; if those really were his big motivations, you would think that is what he would call for us to do. Instead, he calls us to convert to Islam, stop our immorality and immoral actions (homosexuality, intoxicants, trading with interest, etc.) and to instead live by Islamic Sharia law, as Allah commands. Bin Laden later expounds on those reasons just listed, and then slips back into the propaganda that Paul likes to focus on, in essence trying to hide his true beliefs in a sea of lies.
You see Mr. Paul, although you mock it, radical Islamist’s do hate us for our freedom, because what we see as freedom they see as intolerable. “Fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, trading with interest”; these are things that Americans, while sometimes believe to be morally wrong, also allow the freedom to happen. Many believe fornication and homosexuality are wrong, but you are still free to be gay or have sex outside of marriage. The drinking of alcohol (an intoxicant) is legal, gambling is Vegas’ biggest attraction, and trading with interest is common place – in their eyes we are the biggest target, because what better target than the world’s greatest historical purveyor of freedom?
Simply put, they hate us for our freedom, because our freedom and everything we stand for is viewed by them as un-Islamic, it is everything they hate.
Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda did not believe in freedom of religion, speech, and press; they did not believe in non-theocratic government. These are the people who did not respect women, who were in fact some of the worst oppressors of women; who would not let women wear dresses, shirts or pants, but would cover them up in a Burqa.
They were men who did not believe in free elections and would not allow women to vote; who would not let women drive or go to school, and would flog, if not execute women for being in the presence of a man who was not related to her, or would flog or execute a woman for being raped by a man! Who, for some un-Godly reason, mutilate the genitals of women. These are the people who would dismember you for stealing, and would stone and/or throw you off the top of a building for being a Homosexual; this is who Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda were, and who Al Qaeda and ISIS now are.
Everything Al Qaeda was and is, is who America is unquestionably not. We believe in freedom of religion, speech, and press; we believe women have the right to drive, vote, be educated, and wear shirts, pants, and dresses if they want to. We don’t flog women for walking with anyone, or getting raped, and we don’t mutilate their womanhood. We don’t dismember the hands of thieves and we don’t throw Homosexuals to their deaths from roof tops.
America is not that country, and that is what infuriates men like Bin Laden, and makes them hate us. Everything we stand for they see as un-Islamic, and it is their stated goal to advance Islam by the sword, until their religion rules every corner of the earth – for to paraphrase Bin Laden: In Islam there are only three options – Convert, Submit, or Die.
It’s a shame that Paul doesn’t understand this, and continues to deceive those who so avidly admire him.
Sources:
1. Buzzfeed: http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/ron-paul-zionism-has-played-a-role-in-our-post-911-march-tow#.dcD8Dzwnq7
2. Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary: http://1828.mshaffer.com/d/search/word,theocracy
3. Ron Paul, December 11, 2011, “Ron Paul says Bush was thrilled with 9/11”, https://www.rt.com/usa/ron-paul-bush-iran-449/
4. Ron Paul, December 26, 2011, Right Scoop, “Just days after 9/11, Ron Paul blames America » The Right Scoop”: http://www.therightscoop.com/just-days-after-911-ron-paul-blames-america/
5. Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri ((Fmr.) Al Qaeda Leader), ., Al Qaeda, “The Al Qaeda Reader”, Page 42: http://tinyurl.com/7u43kq2
6. Osama Bin Laden (Al Qaeda Leader), May 1998, The Religion of Peace, “Terror in the Name of Allah”: http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Pages/In-The-Name-of-Allah.htm
7. The 9/11 Shura Council, 2009, “Terror in the Name of Allah”, http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Pages/In-The-Name-of-Allah.htm
8. Osama Bin Laden (Al Qaeda Leader), November 24, 2002, The Guardian, “Full text: Bin Laden’s ‘letter to America'”, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver
The Bottom Line 