Topic: Ron Paul
Farah Sloppy In His Critique On Ron Paul WND publisher and editor Joseph Farah took Ron Paul to task for his answers regarding earmarks on Meet The Press.by Walt Thiessen
(Libertarian)
Thursday, December 27, 2007
First, I want to state for the record that I disagree with the characterization of Joseph Farah's piece on Ron Paul as a smear job or a slander, as some other Paul supporters are characterizing it today. His piece was neither; at worst it was sloppy journalism. The article was an expression of Farah's point-of-view, and it was based on (at least some) evidence. That I disagree with his analysis will become clear, but I wish to distance myself from other respondents who are trying to treat Farah's commentary as a personal attack on Ron Paul. That's not the way to achieve true political discouse.
Farah made two critical mistakes in his analysis.
The first is in his unstated assumption that someone can't be an opponent of big spending if he himself has ever included an earmark into legislation as a representative in Congress. As Dr. Paul pointed out, he didn't necessarily support those earmarks, but as the representative of his constituents in Texas it was his duty to include them as they were made. What's wrong with the earmark system isn't that Dr. Paul included earmarks and then said he personally opposed them. What's wrong is that the legislative system has an earmark process at all. Blaming Paul for that system's existence or for the fact that he is acting on behalf of his constituents is absurd.
Farah doesn't mention in his article whom he supports for President, but odds are nearly 100% that that unnamed candidate, whomever it is, has undoubtedly entered earmarks into legislation on behalf of his constituents. Does that mean that Farah's candidate is against spending cuts? Of course not. If he comes out against spending cuts, does that same Farah-backed candidate become a hypocrite by also having offered earmarks? Ridiculous. The proposition is ludicrous because earmarks are not votes! They're simply representatives in Congress doing their job for all their constituents, not just those with whom they happen to agree.
The second critical mistake Farah made in his article is where he writes:
"While I agree America has involved itself in world problems far more than it should, I will never accept that our enemies will leave us alone if we leave them alone.
"Having studied America's No. 1 foreign enemy, Islamic radicalism, for the better part of the last 28 years, I can only say Ron Paul and his supporters are just dead wrong about this. Furthermore, we'll all be dead wrong if we follow his prescription."
Unfortunately, Farah doesn't give any evidence to support his contention. He merely states it as if it were a given truth. The evidence does not support his claim, however. In the course of 28 years, America has been attacked twice by extremists who claim to be acting in the name of Islam (contrary to what the Qu'ran itself says). In both of those cases, they and their supporters made clear in their statements that they were acting specifically in reaction to American interference abroad. Mr. Farah is deliberately ignoring this fact, because if he took it into account, he would find that his claim falls apart.
So where is the evidence that these and similar extremists are targeting the U.S. not because of American Foreign Policy? It turns out that there is no direct evidence, and this is the most damning part of Farah's failure of analysis. It is the same failure that led the entire country to be neo-conned by the Bush administration, which Farah and his crew helped to elect in 2000. All of the so-called "evidence" that extremists are targeting America "just because" are based upon interpretations by people (usually neo-cons) who fear extremism and love the opportunity it gives to them to acquire political power. But when we sweep aside all that rot and look at what the extremists actually say, we see that the neo-con analysis actually twists the extremist message in a way that is intended to justify continued interference in the affairs of others...which suits the purposes of the extremists to a T.
Farah opines, "Believe me, I wish it were as easy as Ron Paul suggests. But the sad truth is that if we run from this enemy now, our days as a country living in relative peace and prosperity are over."
Again, no evidence. Just a claim. This is undoubtedly why other Paul supporters are claiming that Mr. Farah's piece is a smear. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and call for him to provide his evidence to back his claims about extremists being active for reasons on than being due to American Foreign Policy. I expect this level of detail from someone with Mr. Farah's reputation.
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Published: Thursday, December 27, 2007
Last modified: Thursday, December 27, 2007
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Posted By: Paul M. Green
Date: 2007-12-27 11:02:47
Very well written sir. In my column, I tend to rant and rave a little bit, and let emotion steer my discourse. Thank you for being the cooler head on this subject. I wholeheartedly agree with what you've written. You've taught me something of diplomacy. However, I might not find it easy to give Farah the benifit of the doubt - the man is NeoCon through and through.
Vote FREEDOM
Vote LIBERTY
Vote RON PAUL 2008
"I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and call for him to provide his evidence to back his claims about extremists being active for reasons on than being due to American Foreign Policy. I expect this level of detail from someone with Mr. Farah's reputation."
Don't hold your breath. You'll be waiting an eternity at that rate. Sorry, Walt, but I don't give as much slack to such shameless propagandists. I part from your perception of Farah, whose "reputation," if anything, is one of a disinfo hack of the neoconniving, Israel-first order. He's a Brigitte Gabriel/Walid Phares with an added skin-thin veneer of credibility in the form of a "conservative" website and rolodex. His first order of business is to keep US taxpayer dollars funneled to the pseudo-democracies in Lebanon and Israel, where his fellow Zionists and Maronites are thereby able to keep the Shia, Sunni, Christian, and Jewish nationals underfoot despite the highly unfavorable demographic. (But of course he'll tell us it's all about state-less "Islamic fundamentalists" trying to destroy the first and fourth most powerful military states on Earth.) To that end, he'll support any pro-Israel, anti-Muslim, or anti-Syrian policy decision no matter the blowback to US, Lebanese, or Israeli interests, or even his own credibility. (After all, being a neocon and in control of the message means not having to say you're sorry or face scrutiny — as in, having a comments section at the bottom of each journal entry.) He (along with others at AEI, NRO, HumanEvents, Townhall, Weekly Standard, and elsewhere) accomplishes the task by way of a steady flow of disinfo and sheer fraud. Ask Farah what the land of Palestine looked like circa 1885, and he'll probably tell you something like "It was a land without people for a people without a land." Zionist fraud, in other words. Ask him about Camp David, Oslo, etc., and he'll tell you the same old hasbara propagandist's stand-bys: "Arafat never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity," and "Barak made back-breaking concessions, but the Palestinians refused to accept a peaceful resolution." Fraud. Ask him about the Syrian Golan Heights, and he'll likely tell you that Syrian farmers ("terrorists") provoked war with the military-state superpower Israel, and that therefore, Israel had no choice but to slaughter them, take their land, and annex it. You can then turn to Israeli historians and official documents for the truth, where you'll find that Moshe Dayan et alia admitted to provoking the Syrians almost daily, with military vehicles advancing on and into the Golan, forcing the Syrian people there to react with violence or retreat. Ask former Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister, Shlomo Ben-Ami, and Israeli historians Avi Shlaim and Ilan Pappe, who rarely agree on much, and they'll tell you that the neocon version of Israeli-ME history trumpeted by the likes of Farah et al. is practically a total inversion of reality.
His attack on Paul's character is no misunderstanding of politics or Paul's positions; it's calculated fraud. After "28 years" following US politics, surely he'd reflect an understanding of the difference between the flawed process and the flawed politician, no? Of course not. He has no intention of showing that he understands. He is out to marginalize those who are against the neocons' political wars and the US' blind support of Israel and pro-Israel governments in the ME. Farah has absolutely zero credibility in the area of Middle East history, and from what he has parroted about Ron Paul and the "Clash of Civilizations" mumbo-jumbo, he's not much closer to seriousness in U.S. affairs. One more thing: Don't you think there are bigger fish to fry in this presidential race than a perceived (concocted) inconsistency that is, like you said, no more noteworthy than actual inconsistencies (hypocrisy) evident in the political m.o. of other candidates?
I agree. It is completely reasonable for a congressman to make the attempt to retain that money for his constituents. If he doesn't make an effort to secure those funds, it's not as though the government will put the money toward the national debt. They will likely use it for something equally absurd.
Also worth note is the fact that Congress passed the final spending bill of the year last week. The bill included nearly $1 BILLION in earmarks for overseas construction. At least Dr. Paul is trying to direct American money toward an American cause.
This is a good counter presentation with a couple of key aspects. "What's wrong is that the legislative system has an earmark process at all." You've nailed one of the root causes of the problem here. We would not need line-item vetos, earmarks, or any other approach but one; we should have a pure system of riderless legislation. Each item brought up for debate and voted on standing alone. Our two-party oligarchy likes to sweep this aside claiming it would take too long yet we know it would actually streamline the entire process and no longer allow any representative to hide their pork.
"Farah opines, "Believe me, I wish it were as easy as Ron Paul suggests. But the sad truth is that if we run from this enemy now, our days as a country living in relative peace and prosperity are over.""
I've never heard Dr. Paul suggest it would be easy, quite the opposite and it would take time for the world to accept and embrace the idea we really have returned to non-intervention. He also plants the seed once again a non-intervention policy is somehow running from the enemy when quite the opposite is true. The negative tone of peace and prosperity being over is a sad commentary. If we teach the world peaceful interaction it will eventually take hold, continue to teach a strike in case others think of striking maintains the warring ways. However, corporatism embraces war, it is quite profitable.
If any haven't already to read John Perkins, 'Confessions of an Economic Hitman' but be prepared to view things entirely different once you do.
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2007-12-27 13:48:37
Dan asked, "After '28 years' following US politics, surely he'd reflect an understanding of the difference between the flawed process and the flawed politician, no?"
Not necessarily. In my experience, there are an awful lot of people who make mistakes of this kind. Most often, these mistakes are born of fear. The entire neo-con agenda is based on fear, and it's a very effective basis. Neo-cons used that approach to successfully con an entire country, and it wasn't difficult for them to do. All they had to do was to project the fear they feel themselves.
Unfortunately, such people ended up running the country, but that doesn't automatically imply that the governors are even aware that they are being governed by their own fears. Undoubtedly some do, but I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority wear blinders so that they don't have to look. Looking would imply facing their own fears, which is something most fearful people are unwilling to do, generally speaking.
The fear motif runs throughout his article. For instance, he wrote, "But the sad truth is that if we run from this enemy now." Running from an enemy. That's all about fear. "Furthermore, we'll all be dead wrong if we follow his prescription." Fear of being dead, again without any specific, concrete reason given. "He and his supporters think we just don't want to be involved with determined foreign enemies who have sought to destroy the U.S. since it became a nation." This is blatantly obvious fear, since the extremists in question haven't been trying to destroy us since our country's inception, but rather since the 1990s, or at most since the 1950s when the CIA overthrew the shah. I don't think there's any doubt that Mr. Farah genuinely feels the above mentioned examples of fear and uses them as the basis for his reasoning.
By the way, Mr. Farah published on his site much of the work of the late Harry Browne, who was as anti-war and anti-interventionism as anyone I ever met. Surely that says something positive about Mr. Farah's willingness to consider the opposing viewpoint, even if he is afraid of its consequences.
Hey, Walt. Yours, like Griz's, is an enviable cool-headedness. I still disagree on Farah's genuineness on the earmarks/ethics charges and implications. Most of the time, Farah make sense to me (less the intervention issues, obviously). If he were to somehow ("convincingly") retract his assimilation of Ron Paul to the hypocritical and unprincipled lot in D.C., then I'd gladly give that benefit of the doubt I'd afforded him when the ME issues were all I had over him. (I'm not holding my breath.) His use of the fear of ideological dragons to argue his points is nothing new; but hadn't yet used such points to disrespectfully single-out Ron Paul. But now, Farah is willing to publicly upbraid him — all of the sudden — based on a gradeschool-level comprehension of Paul's position on such straw-grasping issues as earmarks? Non-controversial, constitutional positions he has held all this time? I'd call that a very crass and very timely episode of swiftboating. It makes me question Farah's honesty. Whether Farah actually believes his own rationale for dissing Paul, I'm still not convinced. I do, however, appreciate your reasonable perspective on his belief in other things, and basically agree with you there.
Posted By: David L Nilsson
Date: 2007-12-28 08:12:55
Ron Paul doesn't play favorites overseas. He stands today where he has always stood- for strong defense, rejection of entangling alliances and subjugation of our freedom of action to international treaties and bodies, plus peace and honest friendship among individuals of all countries. They seldom wish each other much harm, absent the inflammation of "causes" and "crusades" by their governments.
In a world where sovereignties are multiplying (nearly 200 now), empires and multiracial polities such as the USSR and Yugoslavia have crumbled and more and more people see themselves as individuals and consumers, rather than cannon fodder of some flag, faith or ideology, Paul's temperate, libertarian-leaning conservatism makes more sense than Farah's drumbanging for neo-Prussian neoconnerie.
It also fits America's founding traditions and our national insularity, frank ignorance of furrin parts and the mistrust of big armies. That was instinct in the Republican Party of Coolidge, Taft, Ike, Goldwater and Reagan. Ike warned us that the military industrial complex would always find fresh reasons to hijack our money and freedom, and we have seen this all too starkly in the era of Cheney, Rumsfeld and the neocons.
Two thirds of Americans have rejected the Iraqi adventure, its motives and its continuance. Iran is out as the neocons' next target of opportunity. Where next, Pakistan?
As for the relatively small problem, compared with nuclear Cold War, of Islamist terrorism- Robert Pape has demonstrated beyond argument that suicide terrorists are moved by the wish to protest against foreign incursions on their turf, not because they "hate us for their freedom", because they are "Islamofascists" (a supremely illiterate coinage) or whatever. Leave them alone and they'll leave us alone. Spend some of the defense budget you save thereby in beefing up our border controls so the few rogues don't get in.
We are not GloboCop, cannot afford to be, and were never meant to be, Farah agrees, but only up to the point where we are supposed to meddle in the Middle East to suit his private pejudices and interests. But non-intervention means what it says, everywhere.
Why the surge for Paul? He's saying a lot of things that many Americans have independently concluded are common sense. But he's been saying them all along, BEFORE the PNAC imploded.
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2007 Walt Thiessen, all rights reserved.