Once again, the sparks flew between Ron Paul and the other Republican candidates over the issue of terrorism in last night’s ABC News/Facebook Republican debate from New Hampshire. As he had done in the South Carolina debate a few months earlier, Dr. Paul stated that the primary motivation for the attacks of September 11th was the interventionist foreign policy of the American government in the Middle East. Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, and Fred Thompson all took turns lambasting the Texas Congressman for his heresy, flatly denying the possibility that US foreign policy could in any way be related to either the World Trade Center attacks or any of the other terrorist attacks that have taken place during the past few decades.
Perhaps all of the other Republican candidates are right, and Dr. Paul is wrong. I suppose it’s possible that all of the hatred expressed by many foreigners toward the United States is completely irrational and unwarranted. It could be, as Giuliani believes, that it is not possible for the US government to make mistakes in the realm of foreign policy, and we should not waste any time whatsoever in considering the ridiculous notion that people in other countries might occasionally disagree with US government policies that affect them.
In order to think through this a bit further, let’s imagine a room full of people. All of a sudden the scrawniest person there hauls off and clocks the biggest, strongest guy in the room. Upon seeing this, we could draw one of two conclusions. One, that the scrawny guy who threw the punch is just crazy. Maybe he felt that the other guy was better dressed and was having too much fun that night. After a few minutes of this, he was so incensed by the other guy’s apparent wealth and freedom that he just went nuts and attacked someone three times his size, even though the big guy had not so much as looked at him sideways the entire night. The other conclusion we might draw from the event is that the big guy had done something earlier to provoke the little guy, who finally decided to “do something about it” by taking a shot once he felt the time was right. Granted, either one of these scenarios is possible, but which one seems more likely?
Ron Paul believes that an attacker usually has a motive which needs to be understood so that steps can be taken to prevent future aggression. This in no way excuses the attack, any more than the police excuse a murder when they investigate the reasons that led the perpetrator to commit the crime in the first place. On the other hand, the rest of the GOP candidates apparently believe that whenever someone attacks the United States, they do so for no reason whatsoever. They obviously hate us to the point at which they are willing to kill themselves if they can just take a few Americans with them, but their hatred cannot be motivated by any legitimate cause whatsoever. That’s possible, I suppose, but then again, which scenario is more likely? And which candidates have the mindset that is better suited to address the root causes of terrorism? Those who seek to understand all facets of the issue, even if some are hard to accept, or those that studiously avoid any sort of critical self-reflection whatsoever?
These are important but uncomfortable questions to ask. Unfortunately, we have so conflated the US government with the American people that any critical analysis of foreign policy is generally equated with a criticism of individual Americans. This confusion between government and society plays into the hands of those politicians who prefer not to look too closely at the results of the interventionist foreign policy that they themselves have espoused, and that the founders of this country warned against. They are able deflect their critics by claiming that those who raise the hard questions are just “blaming the victim.”
Nothing could be further from the truth, of course. American society and American government are not interchangeable, nor were they ever meant to be. The founding fathers understood that there is a fundamental difference between the two. Society is formed by individuals interacting with each other in a voluntary manner through their own free market transactions and associations. Government, on the other hand, does not rely on voluntary interaction. It relies on coercion. Because of this fact, any government – even one that is freely elected by the people – necessarily stands apart from the larger society it claims to represent.
We must keep this distinction in mind if we are ever to deal effectively with the issue of terrorism. If our elected representatives refuse to examine the issue honestly, including all facets of the problem – no matter how uncomfortable they may be – they will never be able to take the steps necessary to prevent future attacks. At some point, we must recognize the wisdom of the principles upon which this country was founded, and accept the fact that an interventionist foreign policy is incompatible with real, lasting national security.
