Not all Republicans from Texas are Crazy

All you have to do is read this speech before the US House of Representatives to realize that Ron Paul is not your standard Texas Republican. I'll give you the last few paragraphs here but go read it all. He has a good understanding of the delusional neocons and the dangers of their delusions.

The Muslim world is not fooled by our talk about spreading democracy and values. The evidence is too overwhelming that we do not hesitate to support dictators and install puppet governments when it serves our interests. When democratic elections result in the elevation of a leader or party not to our liking, we do not hesitate for a minute to undermine that government. This hypocrisy is rarely recognized by the American people. It’s much more comfortable to believe in slogans, to believe that we’re defending our goodness and spreading true liberty. We accept this and believe strongly in the cause, strongly enough to sacrifice many of our sons and daughters, and stupendous amounts of money, to spread our ideals through force.

Pointing out the lack of success is taboo. It seems of little concern to many members of Congress that we lack both the moral right and constitutional authority to impose our will on other nations.

The toughest task is analyzing what we do from their perspective. We should try harder to place ourselves in the shoes of those who live in the Arab countries where our efforts currently are concentrated. We are outraged by a Muslim country that would even consider the death penalty for a Christian convert. But many Muslims see all that we do as a reflection of Western Christianity, which to them includes Europe and America. They see everything in terms of religion.

When our bombs and sanctions kill hundreds of thousands of their citizens, they see it as an attack on their religion by Christians. To them our actions represent a crusade to change their culture and their political systems. They do not see us as having noble intentions. Cynicism and realism tell them we’re involved in the Middle East to secure the oil we need.

Our occupation and influence in the holy lands of the Middle East will always be suspect. This includes all the countries of the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Naïvely believing otherwise will guarantee continuing hostilities in Iraq. Our meddling will remain an incitement for radicals to strike us here at home in future terrorist attacks. All the intelligence gathering in the world will serve little purpose if we don’t come to understand exactly why they hate us – despite the good intentions that many Americans hold dear.

When George W. Bush "slipped" and referred to the invasion of Iraq as a crusade he was not kidding and that's the way the people of the middle east see it. Pat Buchanan was right, they don't hate us because of who we are they hate us because of where we are.