Paul vs. Giuliani, Continued
Filed under: President 2008, Rudy Giuliani, Ron Paul
Kudos to Ron Paul for infusing the presidential race with a very unexpected twist. From this week's dust-up at the Republican debate, Paul and Rudy Giuliani locked horns on the notion of "Blowback," a term coined by the CIA back in the 1950's which postulates negative repercussions as a result of United States foreign policy. First, have a look at the issue from the perspective of Mr. Paul's camp:There's a lot here that I agree with. For a while now, Giuliani has been guilty of politicizing 9/11. As much as I admired the mayor's humanity and steadfastness in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attack, I have recoiled from his absurd insistence that America won't be as safe if we elect a Democratic president. This from the man who nominated mob-linked Bernard Kerik as the head of Homeland Security?
But the debate on how much credence we should pay to the idea of blowback is an interesting one. While our elected officials often proudly declare that we will never cede to the demands of terrorists, it is a fact, as Mr. Paul has pointed out, that the 1983 attack on the Marine compound in Beirut was enough for Ronald Reagan to exit that troubled nation. Ditto that for Bill Clinton in Somalia. The message seemed to be, You don't want us there, we're gone. Indeed, no one would argue that we should ignore local customs and use our diplomatic clout to open a chain of bikini shops in downtown Riyadh. Never mind that our culture says that women have a right to wear a bikini in public, or that our system of free-market economics dictates that "Bikinis-R-Us" at least be given a chance to prosper. Opening such a store would offend religious sensibilities. So what about basing soldiers in Saudi Arabia?
The slopes are slippery in every direction on this issue. Certainly, the 9/11 commission is right that there are reasons for the poor opinion of Americans throughout the Middle East. The biggest is a perceived indifference to solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Could the Bush administration have done more to try and broker peace between the parties? Absolutely.
On the other hand, the intolerance fostered by the likes of al-Qaeda (Danish cartoons, anyone?) is completely unacceptable. Their vision of how the world should be governed in no way comports with our own, whether you're a Republican or Democrat. So the notion of entering into serious dialog with these people, as both Pakistan and Afghanistan are currently doing, is a tad hard to swallow.
I guess I'm somewhere in between Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani on this question. I'm not thumping my chest and demanding Ron Paul retract any suggestion that blowback is real, then again, I'm not an isolationist, either.
