Courtesy of George Washington.
Politico notes:
Ron Paul isn’t backing down from his position that the U.S. has provoked terrorists through foreign military occupation and that officials tried to capitalize on Sept. 11 attacks.
“Think of what happened after 9/11, the minute before there was any assessment, there was glee in the administration because now we can invade Iraq, and so the war drums beat,” Paul said Thursday night before a packed room of more than 1,000 students and supporters. “That’s exactly what they’re doing now with Iran.”
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His libertarian ideals have struck a cord with many, but conservatives remain deeply wary of Paul’s foreign policy positions, including his assertion that the U.S. provoked the Sept. 11 attacks by maintaining military bases in foreign countries. Paul’s position as the lone dove in the GOP race has made him a foil for some of his hawkish Republican opponents.
“Extremists have taken over, and they’re the ones who run the foreign policy and have convinced us to go along with all these wars,” Paul said Wednesday night.
Paul said that claims Iran could be developing a nuclear weapon are just part of an effort to scare Americans into going to war again.
Paul said of the possibility that Iran has a nuclear weapon is “not true at all.” “It doesn’t mean they might not want a nuclear weapon.”
No other country, Paul said, is capable of attacking the United States.
“How many foreign countries can threaten us right now?” Paul asked sarcastically. “How many are likely to invade us or drop a bomb on us? I can’t imagine.”
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“The PATRIOT Act was written many, many years before 9/11,” Paul said. The attacks simply provided “an opportunity for some people to do what they wanted to do,” he said.
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“I wish we could guarantee a democratic and honest election in this country as well,” Paul said. “The democratic process in this country has a long way to go.”
Mr. Paul is right:
- The government’s spying on Americans began before 9/11 (confirmed here and here. And see this)
- The Patriot Act was planned before 9/11 (and see this). Indeed, former Counter Terrorism Czar Richard Clarke told Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig:
After 9/11 the government drew up the Patriot Act within 20 days and it was passed.
The Patriot Act is huge and I remember someone asking a Justice Department official how did they write such a large statute so quickly, and of course the answer was that it has been sitting in the drawers of the Justice Department for the last 20 years waiting for the event where they would pull it out.
(4:30 into this video).
- Government plans, exercises or drills to detain American citizens who opposed war were also drawn up before 9/11
- The decision to launch the Iraq war was made before 9/11. Indeed, former CIA director George Tenet said that the White House wanted to invade Iraq long before 9/11, and inserted “crap” in its justifications for invading Iraq. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill – who sat on the National Security Council – also says that Bush planned the Iraq war before 9/11. Top British officials say that the U.S. discussed Iraq regime change even before Bush took office. And in 2000, Cheney said a Bush administration might “have to take military action to forcibly remove Saddam from power.” And see this.
- Cheney made Iraqi’s oil fields a national security priority before 9/11. And the Sunday Herald reported: “Five months before September 11, the US advocated using force against Iraq … to secure control of its oil.” (remember that Alan Greenspan, John McCain, George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, a high-level National Security Council officer and others all say that the Iraq war was really about oil.)
- The decision to threaten to bomb Iran was made before 9/11, and the Christian Science Monitor notes that the U.S. has been claiming for more than 30 years that Iran was on the verge of nuclear capability
- Wars throughout the Middle East and North Africa to effect regime were planned before 9/11
- Cheney dreamed of giving the White House the powers of a monarchy long before 9/11
- Cheney and Rumsfeld actively generated fake intelligence which exaggerated the threat from an enemy in order to justify huge amounts of military spending long before 9/11. And see this
- The government knew that terrorists could use planes as weapons — and had even run its own drills of planes being used as weapons against the World Trade Center and other U.S. high-profile buildings, using REAL airplanes — all before 9/11
- America played dirty games to justify wars before 9/11
