Actually Frank, Ron Paul's blowback theory was first presented on 9-12-01 in several papers, even quoting Osama bin dumb@ss hisself. For Rudy not to know it just means Rudy or his handlers can't read. Jihadists hate us for our freedoms but despise our presence in the Middle East. I knew this when I served in Desert Shield/Storm and nothing has happened to change that. To call him crazy for saying what the world already knows shows folks to be Republicans and not conservatives. We need to quit towing party lines and stand for values.

FIRST!

I hear he is blaming India for 7-11.

Are we sure that Ron Paul isn't somehow related to rupaul?

And whatever happened to the little guide for dummies to let us do cute link inserts? Us dummies really miss that....

Ron Paul '08: He's All That's Left.

Hey, you're on to something there....

***Ron Paul/Hymmy Carter '08***
Appeasement is not an OPTION, It's EVERYTHING!

You may not know that he is opinionated about other subjects too:

Other Ron Paul beliefs:
1)Windows is the ultimate Operating System.
2)The World Wide Web was spun from Spider Silk.
3)That 911 was an inside job.
4)That DU and Daily Kos are mainstream conservative websites.
5)Islam is the Religion of Peace.
6)Paris Hilton is a virgin.

3)That 911 was an inside job.
4)That DU and Daily Kos are mainstream conservative websites.

Do you even know who Ron Paul is Writer?
Obviously not by those comments.
Gudy the liberal is much closer to DU than Dr. Paul will ever be. Anti-gun, pro-gay, pro-abortion (even tax-payer funded), anti-Constitution...
And the R's will probably vote for him in droves.

Not this R.

"To call him crazy for saying what the world already knows shows folks to be Republicans and not conservatives. We need to quit towing party lines and stand for values."

Two things:

What Bin Laden's emphasized about our presence there is us occupying Saudi Arabia in the 90s, the same country (obviously) where Mecca and Medina is. From stuff I've read about him, it was this that drove him nuts--not the fact that we were in the Middle East period.

Where I have a problem with Paul's explanation, is that if you're going to credit this as causing 9/11, it supports the Iraq War not the other way around.

The only reason we were in Saudi Arabia was because of Hussein. If we left the region, he would have invaded it again. If he pulled our planes away from Northern and Southern Iraq, he would have gone after the Kurds and the Shia again. I'm not okay with that on a humanitarian basis, but also, just strictly from position of the United States' well-being, Saddam Hussein gaining control of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and (yes) their oil would have been absolutely untenable.

If we wanted to avoid the problem that pissed off Bin Laden for all those year (us being in Saudi Arabia), we had to either take out Saddam Hussein or just leave and let him take control of all of it.

Between letting Saddam Hussein become that powerful and taking him out, I say we had to take him out if we were ever going to pull our troops out of Saudi Arabia -- that this is an argument in favor of the Iraq War not against it.

The problem I have with even this argument, however, is that 1.) we're taking Bin Laden at his word (he's given a bunch of reasons for why he does what he does and I think we can count on him to pick a few that are at least somewhat sympathetic to outsiders--it doesn't mean they're the real reasons) 2.) if we're going to run our foreign policy based on whether a guy like Bin Laden's okay with it, God help us--If we attack any dictator, if we go anywhere in the world, it's going to anger somebody--If we quit doing that it will be bad for us and horrible for much of the world.

Besides that, though, Bin Laden's also mentioned among his reasons for attacking us is his belief that the United States has a glass jaw (we bailed in Lebanon in the 80s, we bailed in Somalia, we had him attacking us throughout the 90s without really doing much against him). Pulling out of Iraq won’t help us change that perception. And for that matter, yeah, Bin Laden's pissed we're in the Middle East…He's also pissed Christians are still in Spain. Tough noogies.