Ron

Ron Paul, a relatively obscure anti-Iraq war Republican/Libertarian Congressman from Texas, has become the darling of many Left-leaning commentators and writers (e.g., John Nichols in The Nation) as a result of comments he made in last night’s Republican Presidential Candidates Debate (a better term for the event would be “serial Q&A session,” but never mind). Paul restated the Left’s mime that the 9/11 attacks were precipitated by our actions in the ME and by the bad things we’ve done to Islam and the Arabs over the past 30 years. In essence, he argued that it was our behavior that is at fault and that we were responsible for 9/11.

This claim, coming from a Texas Republican, is music to the ears of many on the Left. It validates their contention that if only we would change, Islamofascists would somehow see the light and call off their Jihad against the West.

There is no doubt that Islamists have grievances and that those grievances (whether real and imagined) fuel their outrage and precipitate at least some of their barbaric and murderous behavior.

But I’m confused. How have our past actions fueled the centuries long murderous conflict between Sunni and Shia? How has our “lack of evenhandedness” in dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict caused Fatah and Hamas to kill each other? How have our actions somehow influenced Islamist groups in Thailand to murder Buddhist teachers and school children in the southern part of that country? How have our actions caused Moslem terrorists to murder Hindus in India? What have we done that has caused the Iranian Mullahs and their proxy President to deny the Holocaust? I wonder if Ron Paul has an answer.

There’s an irony in all of this. Those who condemn the Bush administration argue that the President used trumped-up intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq. In other words, the administration created a phoney grievance to justify an act of war. For this, the Left believes, Bush should be reviled. I submit that the Moslems use trumped up grievances to justify their war against the Infidel West and that people like Ron Paul and his supporters are the “useful idiots” who provide them with moral cover.