Ron Paul Speaks Out on Causes of Benghazi Massacre, Middle East Turmoil

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, a failed presidential candidate and libertarian-leaning politician, has weighed in on recent events in the Middle East, including riots in from of American embassy and the murder of the American ambassador to Libya.

Paul defies conventional wisdom in explaining attacks

Writing in a newsletter called Market Oracle, Paul eschews the conventional wisdom arguments advanced by both the left and right. The left, in the form of Dr. Susan Rice, the American ambassador to the United Nations, maintained that the riots and the attacks were a result of a spontaneous uprising over an anti-Islam video that had spun out of control, something disputed by the Libyan government, according to Hot Air. Charles Krauthammer, speaking for the right, blames a lessening of American power in the Middle East, thanks to Obama administration policy, resulting in a lack of respect for the United States by local governments, according to Real Clear Politics. Paul, on the other hand, rejects both views and suggest that American intervention is the cause of Middle East turmoil.

It's the intervention, stupid

Paul, returning to themes that had propounded on during his last presidential campaign, suggested at Al Qaeda and other Islamist terrorists are motivated solely by American intervention in the Middle East in his Market Oracle piece. His analysis goes back to the arming by the United States of Mujahedeen rebels in Afghanistan in the 1980s, which he claims created Al Qaeda. Paul also suggests that Al Qaeda was strengthened by the invasion of Iraq and by American efforts to overthrow the regime of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. He goes on to predict a similar development in Syria if the Assad regime is overthrown.

Paul's analysis questioned

Paul seems to be confusing Al Qaeda with the Taliban, which indeed came to power in Afghanistan several years after the withdraw of the Soviet Army. An account of the American campaign to aid the Afghan mujahedeen, "Charlie Wilson's War" (made into a movie starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts), suggests that Paul's analysis is overly simplified. One of the conclusions in the account by George Crile is that far from too much American engagement in Afghan affairs, it was a pullout from that country after the Soviets left that allowed the Taliban to occupy the resulting power vacuum at the expense of the relatively pro western Northern Alliance.

Paul is on more solid ground when discussing Iraq. According to an account published in Red Orbit , the "Senate Report on Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq" suggested that American intelligence officials were warned that Al Qaeda would use an invasion of Iraq to step up attacks. This alone does not prove the thesis that the invasion of Iraq was ill-advised. The report speaks more to the unpreparedness on the part of the Bush administration for the aftermath of the liberation of Iraq. Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein was a sponsor of terrorism. Also intelligence from a variety of sources concluded that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction constituted a clear and present danger, something that subsequent events have cast doubt on.

Texas resident Mark Whittington writes about state issues for the Yahoo! Contributor Network.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ron-paul-speaks-causes-benghazi-massacre-middle-east-192900131.html

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