The Forbidden Answer

“They hate us, not because of anything bad we’ve done. This has nothing to do with any aggression on the part of the United States of America. It has nothing to do with anything America is taking from anyone. It has nothing to do with Israel and Palestine. They hate us for the freedoms that we have and the freedoms that we want to share with the world because those freedoms are in conflict with their perverted interpretation of their religion. Rudy Giuliani

Former Mayor (R)of New York

Their maniacal, violent, and perverted interpretation of their religion, in which they train their young people to be suicide bombers, and they train them to hate you and despise you and they train them to hate your religion and to not allow you to have religion of your own or anyone else. They hate us for the reasons that are the best about us, because we have freedom of religion, because we have freedom for women, because women are allowed to participate in society, because we have elections, because we have a free economy. Well, we’re not giving that up, and you’re not going to come and take it from us.”

Rudy Giuliani

Former Mayor (R)of New York

At least, this is what our rulers have led us to believe. But is it the only possible

explanation? To answer that we must start at the beginning – with the Founding Fathers.

“The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.”

George Washington

Founder of America

“The essential principles of our Government, and consequently those which ought to shape its Administration, are peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.”

Thomas Jefferson

Founder of America

“Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will America’s heart, her benedictions, and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.”

John Quincy Adams

Founder of America

American foreign policy has changed dramatically since the Founders’ time.

The United States currently has:◦ Entangling alliances among many nations ◦ Troops stationed in 135 countries ◦ Almost 1,000 military bases encircling the globe

This intervention into foreign lands is a major reason why they hate us. How is that? Well first we need to understand what blowback is…

Scheuer is the world’s expert on Osama bin Laden. He’s read everything bin Laden has ever written.

His argument is that the perpetrators of terrorist attacks on Americans should be pursued mercilessly for their acts of barbarism. But it is unreasonable, even utopian, not to expect people to grow resentful, and desirous of revenge, when your government bombs them, supports police states in their countries, and imposes murderous sanctions on them. That revenge, in its various forms, is what the CIA calls blowback – the unintended consequences of military intervention.

Michael Scheuer

Former Chief of CIA’s Osama bin

Laden Unit

“This war is dangerous to America because it’s based, not on gender equality, as Mr. Giuliani suggested, or any other kind of freedom, but simply because of what we do in the Islamic world – because ‘we’re over there.’”

Michael Scheuer

Former Chief of CIA’s Osama bin

Laden Unit

So what is an example of blowback that caused Osama bin Laden to hate us?

“The CIA supported Osama bin Laden, like so many other extreme fundamentalists in Afghanistan who were fighting Russia, from at least 1984 on. It was only after the Russians had bombed Afghanistan back to the stone age and suffered a Vietnam-like defeat, and the United States had walked away from the death and destruction the CIA had helped cause, that Osama bin Laden turned against his American supporters. The last straw as far as he was concerned was the way that ‘infidel’ American troops – around 35,000 of them – remained in Saudi Arabia after the first Gulf War to prop up the Saudis excessively wealthy and fiercely authoritarian regime.

Chalmers Johnson

CIA Consultant

Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of

American Empire

Devoutly Muslim citizens of that kingdom saw the troops’ presence as a humiliation to the country and an insult to their religion. Some Saudis protested and began to launch attacks against Americans and against the Saudi regime itself. In June 1996, terrorists associated with Osama bin Laden bombed the Khobar Towers apartments near Dhahran airport, killing nineteen American airmen and wounding scores more.”

Chalmers Johnson

CIA Consultant

Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of

American Empire

Paul Wolfowitz was a major architect of President Bush’s Iraq policy and its most hawkish advocate. He said that a benefit of the invasion “that has gone by almost unnoticed--but it’s huge--is that by complete mutual agreement between the U.S. and the Saudi government we can now remove almost all of our forces from Saudi Arabia. Their presence there over the last 12 years has been a source of enormous difficulty for a friendly government. It’s been a huge recruiting device for al Qaeda.

Paul Wolfowitz

Deputy Secretary of Defense under George W. Bush

In fact if you look at bin Laden, one of his principle grievances was the presence of so-called crusader forces on the holy land, Mecca and Medina. I think just lifting that burden from the Saudis is itself going to open the door to other positive things. I don’t want to speak in messianic terms. It’s not going to change things overnight, but it’s a huge improvement.”

(Source:

http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=2594 )

Paul Wolfowitz

Deputy Secretary of Defense under George W. Bush

“The confirmation of this whole idea of why they come here came from none other than Paul Wolfowitz. But what he doesn’t understand, as Michael Scheuer explains, is that the whole peninsula is holy land to the Muslims, including Iraq. So the fact that we don’t have troops right now in Saudi Arabia means nothing. We’re still over there, so the incentive is still there. And if it were true that we had to deal with the people most responsible for 9/11, it was not the Iraqis, it was not the Iranians, it was Saudi Arabia – 15 of them! So if you had to declare war, that is where you should have gone.”

Ron Paul

Texas Congressman (R) and Presidential Candidate

So how do entangling alliances create hatred toward us?

“Many Americans have wondered, ‘Why do they hate us?’ Bin Laden and al Qaeda have answered this question. America is held responsible for the governments of Muslim countries, ridiculed by al Qaeda as ‘your [America’s] agents,’ because of America’s support for their countries’ repressive rulers.”

(Page 51)

“Our fight against these governments is not separate from our fight against you.”

Osama bin Laden

9-11 CommissionReport (Page 51)

“As the 9/11 commission report indicated, there were consequences for our presence in the Middle East and if we seriously want to address the terrorism problem we have to be serious about that issue. Giuliani indicated that he was not only not serious about that issue, but seemed to be ignorant of both the 9/11 [Commission] Report and political realities in the Middle East.”

Philip Giraldi

CIA Officer

So how does having troops around the world create hatred toward us?

Robert Pape has done more research than anyone else on the subject of suicide terrorism by studying every suicide terrorist attack between 1980 and 2003, all 315 of them. He found that the country that commits the most suicide terrorism is not Islamic, it’s Sri Lanka (an island just south of India). The Tamil Tigers there are a non-religious Marxist group that want to secede. They invented the idea of strapping bombs to your chest.

Robert Pape

Dying To Win: TheStrategic Logic ofSuicide Terrorism

Pape also discovered that the countries that are most radical in their Islamic philosophy, Iran and Sudan (which is just south of Egypt) commit no suicide terrorism. And he said that the most important element in getting someone willing to commit suicide terrorism is occupation by a foreign force. The terrorists want “to make modern democracies withdraw military forces from the territory the terrorists view as their homeland.”

Robert Pape

Dying To Win: TheStrategic Logic ofSuicide Terrorism

The only role religion plays in this struggle, according to Pape, is that the willingness of the occupied to resort to suicide attacks increases when the occupying army is made of people who come from far away, look different and believe differently due to the fear that their entire way of life will come under attack.

Robert Pape

Dying To Win: TheStrategic Logic ofSuicide Terrorism

“In 2002, after two U.S. soldiers were acquitted by a U.S. military court in South Korea of negligent homicide in the deaths of two Korean schoolgirls, Koreans demonstrated, burned American flags, chanted anti-American slogans, and demanded that U.S. troops leave the country. Hatred of the United States is not a result of our freedoms and our values, it is a direct result of our intervention into the affairs of other countries and our military presence around the world.”

Laurence Vance

What’s Wrong with the U.S. Global Empire?

So how does having almost 1,000 bases around the world create hatred toward us?

“Why do so many Americans feel as if we have a right to a military presence in some 160 countries when we wouldn’t stand for even one foreign base on our soil, for any reason? These are not embassies, mind you, these are military installations. The reality is that our military presence on foreign soil is as offensive to the people that live there as armed Chinese troops would be if they were stationed in Texas. We would not stand for it here, but we have had a globe-straddling empire and a very intrusive foreign policy for decades that incites a lot of hatred and resentment towards us.”

Ron Paul

Texas Congressman (R) and Presidential Candidate

Angry: Some 6,000 people gathered at a rally in Tokyo on Jan. 30, 2010. The slogans written in Japanese read “We don’t need Futenma base,” in red, and “We refuse new Henoko base,” in blue.

Angry: Thousands of Americans gathered at a rally at Ground Zero on Aug. 22, 2010. The protesters are angry at a mosque being built on what they consider holy ground. Imagine if instead of a mere mosque, it was an Islamic military base instead. That is how Muslims feel.

But don’t our troops do some good things for other countries?

Well, would you be OK with Chinese troops in your neighborhood as long as they passed out toys for tots? Do unto

others as you would have them do unto you.

So then why did the terrorists attack innocent bystanders on 9/11?

“The suicidal assassins of September 11, 2001 did not ‘attack America,’ as political leaders and news media in the United States have tried to maintain; they attacked American foreign policy. Employing the strategy of the weak, they killed innocent bystanders, whose innocence is, of course, no different from that of the civilians killed by American bombs in Iraq, Serbia, Afghanistan and elsewhere.”

Chalmers Johnson

CIA Consultant

Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of

American Empire

But does that mean that we have to do whatever the bin Ladens of the world want or else they will raise a

bunch of terrorists to come after us?

“About the only thing that can hold together the very loose temporary alliance that Osama bin Laden has assembled is a common Muslim hatred for the impact of U.S. foreign policy…. They all agree they hate U.S. foreign policy. To the degree we change that policy in the interests of the United States, they become more and more focused on their local problems…”

Michael Scheuer

Former Chief of CIA’s Osama bin

Laden Unit

So are you saying that Americans are to blame for 9/11?

To the civilians suffering it, blowback typically manifests itself as “random” acts of political violence without a discernible, direct cause; because the public—in whose name the intelligence agency acted—are ignorant of the effected secret attacks that provoked revenge (counter-attack) against them.

Blowback

So are you excusing the terrorists for their evil acts?

“Looking for motive is not the same thing as making excuses; detectives always look for the motive behind the crime, but no one thinks they are looking to excuse murder. Obviously the onus of blame rests with those who perpetrate acts of terror, regardless of their motivation. The questions Scheuer and I are asking is not who is morally responsible for terrorism – only a fool would place the moral responsibility for terrorism on anyone other than the terrorists themselves.

Ron Paul

Texas Congressman (R) and Presidential Candidate

The question we are asking is less doltish and more serious: given that a hyper-interventionist foreign policy is very likely to lead to this kind of blowback, are we still sure we want such a foreign policy? Is it actually making us less safe?”

Ron Paul

Texas Congressman (R) and Presidential Candidate

But doesn’t patriotism and love of country mean that I should always be loyal and give my government quasi-

religious subordination no matter what it does, especially concerning foreign policy?

“It is the duty of every Patriot to protect his country from his government.”

Thomas Paine

Founder of America

“Where liberty is, there is my country.”

Benjamin Franklin

Founder of America

But didn’t Muhammad describe the climax of Islam on earth as one in which the whole world would be

Muslim?

“Yes, but there’s as much chance of that happening in any kind of foreseeable future as the application of the Golden Rule, and ‘turn the other cheek’ and ‘love thy neighbor’ in the Christian world. There’s no chance. Bin Laden is popular and his message resonates because it is a defensive message. It is very much a message of ‘get out and leave us to our own problems.’”

Michael Scheuer

Former Chief of CIA’s Osama bin

Laden Unit

But don’t Muslims hate America because we have an immoral culture compared to theirs?

“According to Scheuer, the Ayatollah Khomeini [the Supreme Leader of Iran from 1979 to 1989] tried over the course of a decade to instigate a jihad [holy war] against America on account of our wickedness, our entertainment, our women in the workplace, and the like. It was a complete flop. No one blew himself up because of R-rated movies.

Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

Best-selling Libertarian Author and Historian

No Patronizing, No Sloganeering

What made Osama bin Laden’s message attractive, on the other hand, was precisely that it was defensive in nature, focusing on specific grievances that resonated with his Muslim audience. That, and not a war against the West over its decadence, is what won recruits. In other words, we may in fact be dealing not with comic-book villains but with actual human beings.”

Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

Best-selling Libertarian Author and Historian

No Patronizing, No Sloganeering

“I’m not so sure the role of the United States is to go around the world and say, ‘This is the way it’s got to be.’ I think one way for us to end up being viewed as the ‘ugly American’ is for us to go around the world saying, ‘We do it this way; so should you.’ I think the United States must be humble in how we treat nations that are figuring out how to chart their own course.”

George W. Bush

Former President

Dodging an Iraqi Shoe

The only reason that Osama and his gang are able to recruit suicide terrorists is by pointing to real, earthly grievances: specifically the presence of foreign occupying armies in their countries – not 72 virgins in heaven, not freedom, nor a plan to create an Islamic Caliphate.

Occupation. This is the answer to “why they hate us.” Why is it a forbidden answer?

“It’s very common for the slurs to be thrown when you say something like this. You’re an appeaser, you’re an anti-American. I think it’s a shame, but the governing establishment wants to protect itself. It does not want to talk about these issues. At the end of the debate, Americans may decide that the foreign policy status quo that exists at the moment is what they want. But if they do, they will at least go into it with their eyes open, and know that they are in for an extended period of war, a tremendously bloody and costly war.”

Michael Scheuer

Former Chief of CIA’s Osama bin

Laden Unit

A partial list of past as well as some on-going American foreign policy interventions that have caused blowback:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/cox/cox17.1.html

Ron Paul advocates the use of Letters of Marque and Reprisal as described in the Constitution, which would have been a far superior, creative and modern response to the attacks of 9/11 than a full-

scale military operation:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/fisk5.html

If the US stopped sending foreign aid to Israel and its enemies, it would actually strengthen the U.S. and Israel, as well as end one of the greatest impetuses for terrorism:

Part 1: http://www.lewrockwell.com/block/block88.html

Part 2: http://www.lewrockwell.com/block/block89.html

LewRockwell.com is the most read libertarian website in the world, the one that Ron Paul reads first thing in the morning. Also, see Mises.org for a lifetime of learning.

World Wide War Project –

http://www.worldwidewarproject.org

The official website dedicated to verifying Dr. Jonathan M. Kolkey’s provocative conclusions based on his exhaustive and academically sound historical research collected over three decades that conclusively link the root cause of all wars with leaders’ cynical pursuit of their own political and personal self-interest. It demonstrates that these same government leaders disseminate for public consumption bogus “reasons” for their wars, all the while admitting in private their real self-serving motives.

How victory in the war in Iraq is a logical impossibility and an analysis of the fallacious line of thinking that “we’re fighting them over there so that we don’t have to fight them over here.” –

http://www.lewrockwell.com/vuk/vuk21.html

A video showing how the CIA’s 1953 coup d’état in Iran caused blowback in the form of the taking of American hostages. –

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldgbOxDX6DE

[This video plays on next slide. There are four more slides after the video. Don’t forget to click for the next slide after the video finishes!]

A video proving that the previous video isn’t biased. Norman Pohdoretz, who authored World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism and was chosen by Rudy Giuliani to be his foreign policy advisor, is questioned about the 1953 coup. Norman admits it is true and yet tries to dodge answering the question by arrogantly saying, “Yeah, I think the CIA did in fact have something to do with the overthrow of Mosaddegh, but to tell you the truth I have no stomach for this kind of ancient history.” (Skip to 6:10 in the video) –

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MBzLTjVMhY

Imagine armed Chinese troops in Texas!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKfuS6gfxPY&feature=youtu.be

Troops discuss the use of “drop weapons”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SODTI_C1q_Q

Conservatives need to question foreign policy as much as they question domestic policy

http://youtu.be/a4zKzXFcLN4

Historian Tom Woods explains how he came to realize that the conservative tradition has

become warped on foreign policy

http://youtu.be/SLUoWhWsOWk

Ron Paul debates prominent neo-conservative Dinesh D'Souza

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BqTrhrF86o

Thank You