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Ron Paul Rages: Don't Blame America, Blame The Neocon Interventionists For The Syrian Catastrophe
Submitted by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,
Is the current refugee crisis gripping the European Union “all America’s fault”? That is how my critique of US foreign policy was characterized in a recent interview on the Fox Business Channel. I do not blame the host for making this claim, but I think it is important to clarify the point.
It has become common to discount any criticism of US foreign policy as “blaming America first.” It is a convenient way of avoiding a real discussion. If aggressive US policy in the Middle East – for example in Iraq – results in the creation of terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda in Iraq, is pointing out the unintended consequences of bad policy blaming America? Is it “blaming America” to point out that blowback – like we saw on 9/11 – can be the result of unwise US foreign policy actions like stationing US troops in Saudi Arabia?
In the Fox interview I pointed out that the current refugee crisis is largely caused by bad US foreign policy actions. The US government decides on regime change for a particular country – in this case, Syria – destabilizes the government, causes social chaos, and destroys the economy, and we are supposed to be surprised that so many people are desperate to leave? Is pointing this out blaming America, or is it blaming that part of the US government that makes such foolish policies?
Accusing those who criticize US foreign policy of “blaming America” is pretty selective, however. Such accusations are never leveled at those who criticize a US pullback. For example, most neocons argue that the current crisis in Iraq is all Obama’s fault for pulling US troops out of the country. Are they “blaming America first” for the mess? No one ever says that. Just like they never explain why the troops were removed from Iraq: the US demanded complete immunity for troops and contractors and the Iraqi government refused.
Iraq was not a stable country when the US withdrew its troops anyway. As soon as the US stopped paying the Sunnis not to attack the Iraqi government, they started attacking the Iraqi government. Why? Because the US attack on Iraq led to a government that was closely allied to Iran and the Sunnis could not live with that! It was not the US withdrawal from Iraq that created the current instability but the invasion. The same is true with US regime change policy toward Syria. How many Syrians were streaming out of Syria before US support for Islamist rebels there made the country unlivable? Is pointing out this consequence of bad US policy also blaming America first?
Last year I was asked by another Fox program whether I was not “blaming America” when I criticized the increasingly confrontational US stand toward Russia. Here’s how I put it then:
I don't blame America. I am America, you are America. I don't blame you. I blame bad policy. I blame the interventionists. I blame the neoconservatives who preach this stuff, who believe in it like a religion -- that they have to promote American goodness even if you have to bomb and kill people.
In short, I don’t blame America; I blame neocons.
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It constantly amazes me how simple and obvious I find Ron Paul's wisdom to be nowadays yet it was his pieces exactly like this ~7 years ago that helped wake me up. Also there are a couple decades worth of material he put out before I heard of him that hit rediculously close to home in regards to todays environment. You are amazing Dr. Paul.
dear Ron Paul, i have bad news for you.
Do you pay taxes ? you do ?
then i am blaming you because your taxes were spent to bomb Lybia, Syria, Iraq, Afganistan and many many more countries all around the world
so shame on you for supporting these wars
I hear you on that, but...
If someone walks up to you with a gun and says pay me or else... and you truly believe you have no option to survive than to give over your resources, it is not really your fault how those resources are used. I didn't pay taxes for close to 8 years myself for moral reasons, and here I am on a several decade payment plan after it became apparent they were going to put me in a cage if I didn't play along. They are taking my resources and using them as they wish. If I were the resource they tried to kill with sure, I'd be culpable, but I'm not. Actions are on the actor. I tried to do my part. No one backed me up. Maybe you consider me to be supporting these wars but I was unable to fight the men with guns that came for me.
Life will give you back what you give to it. Americans will receive the equivalent back for their ignorance, lack of responsibility for their government, the condoning of our foreign policies and wars, selfishness, refusal to plan for the future, refusal to act for the greater good, etc.
It's gonna be a painful just desserts. Ouch!
I love Ron and agree with the meat of this piece but I hate it when he validates the company line on 9/11......
Saw this on bus station billboard: "kill a NeoCON for Christ or The Messiah, if you prefer''
Their fortunes should be confiscated.
Their mansions burned to the ground.
Their children imprisoned.
And their heads decapitated and shrunken to be placed in a new monument on the Washington Mall as a tribute to what happens when a country lets dual citizen scum overrun it.
Yeah, but you all vote for the people that keep the neocons going.
In some other news. Remember this Syrian man and his child that were tackled by an Hungarian journalist so she would get a better photo opportunity? Well, there was a lot of outcry and the got adopted in Spain -pardon, Catalunya- and made him a football coach. Now a Kurdish organization says he is actually a terrorist with Al Nusra and a war criminal on the run. Now, if this is true, how will that go down there with the folks that adopted him? Of course, they will not send him back out of fears that he will be tortured. Not that he cared when he did his own torturing.
I don't blame neocons.
I blame anyone whom pays taxes or votes.
I'm not sure Ron (or his audience) knows that "neocon" is shorthand for a term invented to demonize conservatives by lumping in some very NOT conservative people and branding the whole lot crazy warmongers. But then he's been going off his meds a lot lately.
Just like the term 'liberals' was high jacked from its real meaning and used to demonize people on the left. Adam Smith for instance was a liberal but not a lefty..
Not fond of neo-liberals, either. This "neo" group very often means a bunch of nutcases who love starting wars in places most Americans couldn't find on a map.
Right on Ron
The Zionist Neocons are the perps bribing congress and running America behind the scenes.
About time someone identifies this foreign element that has usurped and ruined our country.
America is a criminal engerprise operating behind the shield of liberty.
regime change hmm
Israel, Vietnam, Iran, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Afganistan, Ukraine, Syria, Chile, Honduras and doubtless many more.
Maybe you should blame america.
Kind of like it when Ron Paul calls it for what it is.
The bit he will not say is those Neocons need removing.
Who are they? They are the grey people you are not allowed to know who they are and they own both parties in the US and in many other dual party democracies. When something goes wrong they switch to the other side but retain the power to call the shots so if Democrats or Republicans hold power YOU STILL END UP WITH THE SAME POLICIES creating the same mayhem.
Go on make my day, elect Donal Trump at the next election and just see how it will stay exactly the same because those policies for self interest will never be dropped.
Not American interests neither although you believe by voting they are yours.
So you got no money it is theirs, economy theirs, democracy theirs and all the shit in the world is THEIRS too.
There I fixed it for you Ron.
Ron Paul is a raving lunatic. I'd love to hear how interventionalism created the catastrophe in Syria. If we did intervene, it was the most feeble intervention in the history of civilization. Didn't we just spend millions training like 4 guys?
According to the Cablegrams leaked on Wikileaks, USA has been stirring the pot in Syria for years. The "moderate rebels" we love to back have been funded by us since before the current civil war. Ron Paul called it right. The neo-cons are out of control and some of them are still in Obama's administration, leading him around like a bull with a ring in its nose.
Too much preference is often given to the 'evidence' provided by the senses;
blame, in every case, is but effect reasoned out by sense-thinking, not by mind-knowing.