By Roland S. Martin
CNN contributor
May 18, 2007
Roland S. Martin is a CNN contributor and a talk-show host
for WVON-AM in Chicago.
(CNN) -- Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was declared
the winner of Tuesday's Republican presidential debate in South
Carolina, largely for his smack down of Texas Rep. Ron Paul,
who suggested that America's foreign policy contributed to
the destruction on September 11, 2001.
Paul, who is more of a libertarian than a Republican, was
trying to offer some perspective on the pitfalls of an interventionist
policy by the American government in the affairs of the Middle
East and other countries.
"Have you ever read about the reasons they attacked us?
They attack us because we've been over there. We've been bombing
Iraq for 10 years," he said.
That set Giuliani off.
"That's really an extraordinary statement," said
Giuliani. "As someone who lived through the attack of
September 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking
Iraq; I don't think I've ever heard that before and I've heard
some pretty absurd explanations for September 11."
As the crowd applauded wildly, Giuliani demanded that Paul
retract his statements.
Paul tried to explain the process known as "blowback" --
which is the result of someone else's action coming back to
afflict you -- but the audience drowned him out as the other
candidates tried to pounce on him.
After watching all the network pundits laud Giuliani, it struck
me that they must be the most clueless folks in the world.
First, Giuliani must be an idiot to not have heard Paul's
rationale before. That issue has been raised countless times
in the last six years by any number of experts.
Second, when we finish with our emotional response, it would
behoove us to actually think about what Paul said and make
the effort to understand his rationale.
Granted, Americans were severely damaged by the hijacking
of U.S. planes, and it has resulted in a worldwide fight against
terror. Was it proper for the United States to respond to the
attack? Of course! But should we, as a matter of policy, and
moral decency, learn to think and comprehend that our actions
in one part of the world could very well come back to hurt
us, or, as Paul would say, blow back in our face? Absolutely.
His real problem wasn't his analysis, but how it came out of
his mouth.
What has been overlooked is that Paul based his position on
the effects of the 1953 ouster by the CIA of Iranian Prime
Minister Mohammad Mossadegh.
An excellent account of this story is revealed in Stephen
Kinzer's alarming and revealing book, "Overthrow: America's
Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq," where he
writes that Iran was establishing a government close to a democracy.
But Mossadegh wasn't happy that the profit from the country's
primary resource -- oil -- was not staying in the country.
Instead, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now known British
Petroleum, or BP) was getting 93 percent of the profits. Mossadegh
didn't like that, and wanted a 50-50 split. Kinzer writes that
that didn't sit too well with the British government, but it
didn't want to use force to protect its interests. But their
biggest friend, the United States, didn't mind, and sought
to undermine Mossadegh's tenure as president. After all kinds
of measures that disrupted the nation, a coup was financed
and led by President Dwight Eisenhower's CIA, and the Shah
of Iran was installed as the leader. We trained his goon squads,
thus angering generations of Iranians for meddling in that
nation's affairs.
As Paul noted, what happened in 1953 had a direct relationship
to the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in 1979. We viewed that
as terrorists who dared attack America. They saw it as ending
years of oppression at the hands of the ruthless U.S.-backed
Shah regime.
As Americans, we believe in forgiving and forgetting, and
are terrible at understanding how history affects us today.
We are arrogant in not recognizing that when we benefit, someone
else may suffer. That will lead to resentment and anger, and
if suppressed, will boil over one day.
Does that provide a moral justification for what the terrorists
did on September 11?
Of course not. But we should at least attempt to understand
why.
Think about it. Do we have the moral justification to explain
the killings of more than 100,000 Iraqis as a result of this
war? Can we defend the efforts to overthrow other governments
whose actions we perceived would jeopardize American business
interests?
The debate format didn't give Paul the time to explain all
of this. But I'm confident this is what he was saying. And
yes, we need to understand history and how it plays a vital
role in determining matters today.
At some point we have to accept the reality that playing big
brother to the world -- and yes, sometimes acting as a bully
by wrongly asserting our military might -- means that Americans
alive at the time may not feel the effects of our foreign policy,
but their innocent children will.
Even the Bible says that the children will pay for the sins
of their fathers.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the
writer. This is part of an occasional series of commentaries
on CNN.com that offers a broad range of perspectives, thoughts
and points of view.
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