This is just maddening:

Ron Paul: “Have you ever read 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.”

Rudy Giuliani: “That’s really an extraordinary statement. That’s an extraordinary statement, as 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 heard that before, and I’ve heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11th. (Applause, cheers.)”

Leave aside that Paul didn’t say we “invited” the attack. Giuliani’s never heard that the first Gulf War and its dozen-year aftermath had something to do with the rise of Al Qaeda. Really? Crack a book. Fire up your webrowser. Here’s the ‘98 Fatwa for example:

First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.

If some people have in the past argued about the fact of the occupation, all the people of the Peninsula have now acknowledged it. The best proof of this is the Americans’ continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are against their territories being used to that end, but they are helpless.

Remember, the war on terror, Giuliani says, is something he understands “better than anyone else running for president.” The sad fact is, that might even be true, considering everyone else up on that stage except for Paul. But it’s sort of like winning “Best Complexion” at the Leper Colony.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 16th, 2007 at 1:39 pm by Gene Healy and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.