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Ron Paulism: Moral and Intellectual Confusion

Nicholas M. Guariglia - 8/1/2007

There has been much brouhaha over the quarrel between Rudy Giuliani and Ron Paul which occurred during a recent candidates debate. The topic turned to the overriding issue of transnational terrorism, where Mr. Paul went unfettered: “Have you ever read about the reasons they attacked us? They attack us because we’ve been over there… I’m suggesting that we listen to the people that attacked us and the reason they did it. And they are delighted that we’re over there…”

There is nothing morally ambiguous in opposing war or holding non-interventionist views. In fact, the sincerity in this libertarian man’s position is admiringly consistent, as compared to those in Congress who advantageously support or oppose an incursion depending on its popularity or degree of difficulty. But the folksy and seemingly charming Paul espouses inconsistency and amorality in claiming “they,” the jihadists who toppled our greatest buildings, “attacked us because we’ve been over there”–– there being the Middle East –– while concluding “they’re delighted that we’re over there.”

What are we to make of this abject damned-if-we-do-damned-if-we-don’t declaration? Representative Paul was not misunderstood or taken out of context, as his rabid supporters may claim. Anyone with a modicum of familiarity with his work could pinpoint where he is coming from the moment he opens his mouth. He has subsequently defended, reiterated, elaborated, and expanded on this central thesis of his, which I feel needs to be addressed under the auspices of a few counterpoints.

First, his policy prescription, which is based loosely on not pissing off al Qaida for fear of blowback, is as foolhardy as it is irreconcilable with itself. If we intervene overseas, his logic suggests, the havoc we may cause will rile up the proverbial hornet’s nest. And yet, at the same time –– as evidence that we ought to withdraw –– Paul and his kind quote our adversaries, which boast they relish our presence to quench their blood thirst. This jejuneness recurred during a love fest with Bill Maher, where, in cataloging the terrorists’ gripes against us and our past faults, Mr. Paul listed “supporting Osama bin Laden (against the Soviets).”

So, sir, which is it? Is it our opposition to Islamists which earns their wrath, or our assistance to them? I’ll let you have one, but you’re not getting both. This incompatibility raises the corollary question: Should or should we not continue on, uninterrupted, with a policy that displeases our opponents? What about a policy that pleases them, also proven to be inefficient? Paul never directly addresses this query, although he does seem to blame the cause of Wahhabi violence on our resistance against it.

In this, Paul is playing considerably well to the lowest common denominator of his Antiwar.com base (of which he is a regular columnist). Can the congressman cite one historical example –– from Alexander at Gaugamela, to Martel at Tours, to Chard at Rorke’s Drift, to Tommy Franks at Kabul –– where two military rivals actually agreed with the opposing policy of their enemy? Is the presidential hopeful implying there is something less preferable, for instance, than to know the likes of Dr. al Zawahiri contest what we have been up to? Would not his concurrence with our policy be grounds for self-rumination and self-scrutiny?

It is well within the realm of legitimacy to put these silly propositions, and the concepts they propagate, under scrutiny. Simply take a Charley Reese –– “Every time our guys kick in a door, shoot somebody or arrest a ‘suspect,’ we simply create more enemies” –– or a Richard Clarke –– “Our presence provides motivation for people… to become anti-American terrorists” –– and marvel at their banality. Just how can someone think in this self-truculent manner? This is utter masochism, the creepiest form of sadistic thinking; they are to international relations theory what kinky deviants are to sex therapy: hard to explain, a little weird, and self-flagellating.

By behaving like so, this cluster of pundits ends up practicing what they preach against: hubris and unfair clumping of “the other.” One gets the gut impression they feel Islamic terrorism is about everything but itself, promoting an increasingly self-centered worldview where everything is a reaction to American ills. Just what is it about arming needy Muslim Afghans, or protecting Muslim Kurds, or liberating Muslim Kuwaitis, or bombing Christian Serbia to save Muslim Bosnia that so irks al Qaida?

It is the height of generalization to assume all Middle Easterners who oppose American foreign policy are little terrorist tacticians in the making, with the wherewithal, and equipment, and desire to start plundering innocents. Conflating every upset Muslim –– every Arab with a differing opinion –– as a “future enemy” is not only a soft bigotry of low expectations, showing tempered scorn for all “those people,” but it is a ludicrous request for U.S. policymakers to abide by. What sovereign state happily handcuffs itself like this? What other segment of the world’s population do we try to avoid angering so much?

Anyone who has translated jihadist literature, listened to state-run Arabic media, read Quranic verses, or studied the socio-political aspects of Wahhabi and Salafist culture should come to realize that those who kill off dissidents and human rights activists in their homelands do so for a reason. And just because there is a reason does not lend credence or legitimacy to their motivation one iota.

The pestilence is clear to anyone who opens their eyes: the hoodlums that kill civilians in Iraq are the same ideologues (if not members of the same networks) which ban television in Afghanistan, and murder feminists in Pakistan, and jail singers for their fame in Saudi Arabia, and conduct honor killings in Hamastan (Gaza), and illegalize holding hands in Iran, and rejected political, economic, and cultural connectivity, openly ridiculing democratic constitutionalism, declaring Allah’s word, which advocates the slaughter of nonbelievers, as the holy and unalterable directive –– and that is their law, their final commandment, their parliament, their Bill of Rights.

Wake up. They oppose what we do because they cannot stand who we are. And they cannot stand who we are because a large chunk of the populace they vow to subjugate either loves, appreciates, or is, at the very least, intrigued with who we are. This is nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to hide from, and certainly nothing to blame ourselves for –– lest we concur with Ron Paulism. Punks like bin Laden have rebuked us for not addressing campaign finance reform and global warming; “philosophers” like Sayyid Qutb chastised us for our football, our high school wrestling, our vanity, our watered lawns, our “brutish” males, our “seductive” females, our dances (Chubby Checker’s The Twist?), and oh yes, our not believing true freedom can only occur in a state of complete submission to the supernatural.

Paul should elaborate if he does or does not consent with the jihadist grievance, because frankly, I find it moronic –– and believers in protecting and promoting free societies should grow, as I have, to loathe the jihadist as much for who he is as for what he does. By explaining away the destruction of this or that structure these lout assassins demolish –– a tower in Argentina, a U.N. or parliamentary building in Baghdad, an office in Tanzania, the World Trade Center, etc. –– and by attempting to get inside the logic of the murderers and kidnappers of humanitarians, cerebral short-comers like Ron Paul end up hoisting their avowed foe’s banner, in a sense playing ventriloquist for the very people that swear to kill them.

No doubt such men –– Mike Gravel, Richard Clarke, Charley Reese, etc. –– generally mean well, and in theory oppose Islamist intimidation and violence; they just unfortunately participate in the therapeutic exercise of speaking on behalf of it. One can only scoff when someone cites a comatose catatonic like Michael Scheuer as a legitimate voice of reason. Scheuer promises, “We’re being attacked for what we do in the Islamic world, not for who we are or what we believe...” This on the heels of Congressman Paul claiming, “The whole peninsula is holy land to them,” and our presence “provides a tremendous motivation for them to come after us.” There it is again: “we,” “what we do,” “motivation for them.” Oh, play me the world’s smallest violin…

Do they not see the xenophobia in al Qaida’s whines? For what reason are we disallowed from entering their “holy” land, after all? Why must I refrain from touring Mecca, for instance? Why are nonbelievers exempt, in a racist and prejudiced manner, from the trespass of certain terrains? Is Paul truly conceding to the theocrats that their preferred real estate fall under religious dominion, that a particular piece of land fall under the authority of a certain theology, that Islam itself be granted territorial sovereignty? And if it is our color and creed which prompts their hatred of our company, is that not abhorrence for “who we are” and “what we believe,” Mr. Scheuer?

Nobody else on the planet would get away with this excuse, and we shouldn’t allow al Qaida to get away with it, let alone by quoting them empathetically. To offer a final counterintuitive, perhaps it is they, the head-loppers, who ought to fear what we think of them, more so than they of us? Perhaps with each nun or businessman or journalist they kill, with each movie or opera or cartoon they demand be shut down, with each design of architectural ingenuity and labor they disintegrate, they are simply “creating” more Western enemies, more “blowback” against their cause? Perhaps with enlistment and retention rates amongst the branches, the terrorists’ actions are helping “recruit” Marine and Green Beret and SEAL adversaries? Perhaps the tenets of self-critique ought to be aimed more at undoing failed policies that help our opponents, not harm them?

Maybe, just maybe, Congressmen Paul, getting the jihadists in a frenzy is not such a bad thing?