Ron Paul: Propagandist or Prophet?

by Jeremy R. Hammond

December 24, 2011

Ron Paul is “the best-known American propagandist for our enemies”, writes Dorothy Rabinowitz in a recent Wall Street Journal hit piece. To support the charge, she writes that Dr. Paul “assures audiences” that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 “took place only because of U.S. aggression and military actions”. It’s “True,” she writes, that “we’ve heard the assertions before”, but only “rarely have we heard in any American political figure such exclusive concern for, and appreciation of, the motives of those who attacked us”—and, she adds, he doesn’t care about the victims of the attacks.

The vindictive rhetoric aside, what is it, exactly, that Ron Paul is guilty of here? It is completely uncontroversial that the 9/11 attacks were a consequence of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. The 9/11 Commission Report, for instance, points out that Osama bin Laden “stresses grievances against the United States widely shared in the Muslim world. He inveighed against the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam’s holiest sites. He spoke of the suffering of the Iraqi people as a result of sanctions imposed after the Gulf War, and he protested U.S. support of Israel.”

Notice that Rabinowitz doesn’t actually deny that the 9/11 attacks were motivated by such U.S. policies as these. Rather, Ron Paul’s sin is that he actually acknowledges this truth. The fact that other political figures choose to ignore or deny this fact hardly reflects poorly on Dr. Paul. Refusing to bury one’s head deeply up one’s arse, as Rabinowitz is so obviously willing to do, is hardly a character trait to be faulted.

From this position of willful ignorance, Rabinowitz then implores her readers that “a President Paul” would “be making decisions about the nation’s defense, national security, domestic policy and much else.” The conclusion one is supposed to draw is that anyone who could actually acknowledge the ugly truth that 9/11 was a consequence of U.S. foreign policy isn’t fit for office; only someone who is willing to delude him or herself that the U.S. was attacked because “they hate our freedoms” is worthy of the presidency. Anyone who wishes to change U.S. foreign policy is unfit; only a person who is willing to continue the status quo should be allowed a seat in the Oval Office.

Rabinowitz warns that “The world may not be ready for another American president traversing half the globe to apologize for the misdeeds of the nation he had just been elected to lead.” It’s not clear who she has in mind with the “another”, but it’s by now a familiar refrain. “I’ll never apologize for the United States of America. Ever. I don’t care what the facts are,” President George H. W. Bush declared to the world after a U.S. warship had shot down an Iranian civilian airliner in Iranian airspace, killing all 290 passengers aboard, including 65 children. Surely, any president willing to apologize for the murder of innocent children must not lead the nation. The horror of the thought!

And then there is Dr. Paul’s position with respect to Iran. He recently urged his host in an interview “to understand that Iran’s leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had never mentioned any intention of wiping Israel off the map.” Here, again, it’s notable that Rabinowitz doesn’t actually dispute this. Dr. Paul is, of course, correct. The claim that Iran has threatened to acquire nuclear weapons to “wipe Israel off the map” is a complete fabrication of Western media propaganda, and mainstream corporate news agencies know it is a fabrication, but repeat it obligatorily anyway.

Rabinowitz presumably does, as well, so instead of challenging Dr. Paul on the facts, she quotes him saying “They’re just defending themselves” and writing, “Presumably he was referring to Iran’s wishes for a bomb.” In the interview referred to, Dr. Paul had said, “I don’t want them to get the nuclear weapon”, but pointed out that Israel’s defense minister, “Ehud Barak said that they’re acting logically, and they’re acting in their self-interest, and if he was an Iranian, he would probably think the same way” (Dr. Paul is correct on this, also; it’s true that Barak has “quipped that if he were an Iranian, he would take part in the development of nuclear weapons”).

Rabinowitz also disinclines herself to point out what Dr. Paul said next: “But there is a gross distortion to this debate that they are on the verge of a nuclear weapon. There is no evidence that they are on the verge of a nuclear weapon, and we shouldn’t be ready to start another war” (Dr. Paul is correct on this, too, and has rightly drawn parallels to the current propaganda about Iran and the lies that preceded the war on Iraq).

So, once again, we see that Ron Paul’s true sin is his failure to jump on board with the war propaganda. A further sin is that he said after 9/11 that “there was ‘glee in the administration because now we can invade Iraq.’” But is the contention that those policymakers responsible for the war on Iraq were not happy that they now had the opportunity to do so sustainable? Is Rabinowitz unaware that in 1996, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser coauthored a document prepared for the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, which made the case for overthrowing Saddam Hussein’s regime? Or that the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), whose membership was a virtual who’s who of so-called “neoconservatives” calling for war on Iraq, had a manifesto calling for regime change and stating that the “process of transformation” of the U.S. military into a force to “preserve American military preeminence” around the globe “is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor”? That PNAC director Robert Kagan acknowledged that the 9/11 attacks were the “Pearl Harbor” he and his ilk were looking for, writing in the Washington Post that 9/11 must be used to “to launch a new era of American internationalism. Let’s not squander this opportunity”?

Yet again, it becomes evident that Ron Paul’s sin is that he is too willing to be honest with the American people and speak the truth about U.S. foreign policy. Just as Dr. Paul predicted and warned about the housing bubble and financial crisis of 2008, so did he predict and warn prior to 9/11 that U.S. foreign policy would result in what the intelligence community terms “blowback”. Ron Paul has a long record of speaking truth to power and making predictions that have come to pass.

Rabinowitz concludes, “It seemed improbable that the best-known of American propagandists for our enemies could be near the top of the pack in the Iowa contest, but there it is.” That Ron Paul has emerged in Iowa as a frontrunner is a hopeful sign that Americans are waking up to the realities of U.S. foreign policy and are tired of crude propagandists for U.S. wars and empire insulting their intelligence, as Rabinowitz—who is a member of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board—does so well in her column.

About the Author

Jeremy R. Hammond

Jeremy R. Hammond is an independent political analyst and a recipient of the Project Censored Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism. He is the founding editor of Foreign Policy Journal (www.foreignpolicyjournal.com) and can also be found on the web at JeremyRHammond.com. He is the author of "Ron Paul vs. Paul Krugman: Austrian vs. Keynesian economics in the financial crisis" and "The Rejection of Palestinian Self-Determination: The Struggle for Palestine and the Roots of the Israeli-Arab Conflict", both available in paperback or Kindle versions from Amazon.com. More...

157 Responses to Ron Paul: Propagandist or Prophet?

Jan1970

December 27, 2011 at 2:18 am

Are you people serious? Thousands of innocent Americans lost their lives to the vendetta of Bin Laden, not the people that put us in the position to upset him.
Iran supplies weapons for terrorist attacks on Israel. Innocent people are being killed and Ron Paul is excusing it because of our foreign policy. Hey here is a clue, we need to change our policy but there will never be an excuse for terrorism or supporting it.
- conalmc
  
  December 27, 2011 at 2:58 am
  
  You seriously need to start doing your research and stop falling for the MSM war propaganda. If the US foreign policy wasn’t mucking things up over there in the name of “democracy” there wouldn’t be so much dissent and hatred. There wouldn’t be terrorists wanting to kill Americans. Look at what US intervention did in Egypt. US foreign policy threw out a democratically elected leader in Iran in 1953 only to replace him with a totalitarian Shah who repressed his people for decades. No wonder the Iranians feel the way they do. You should get your head of that hole and try to understand people instead of trying to blow them up. As for Israel, did you even read the article? Israel has a well trained army and more weapons then anyone in that region. You probably never spent a day overseas or in the military. Do yourself a favor and keep your thoughts to yourself, cause you just make yourself and other chick hawks look like idiots.
  - richie
    
    December 27, 2011 at 12:47 pm
    
    good job brother, in trying to help educate someone who just believes everything they hear.. I too was in the service (army) and coudnt believe the things I was being asked to do…If we are being attacked cause we are free? then why isn’t Sweden or the Swiss or the Aussies being attacked? just this question alone should start to wake people up from there coma’s..REVOLUTION 2012
    - Nina
      
      December 29, 2011 at 7:17 pm
      
      thank you!! the only two countries that were even the target of the attacks were USA and GB because together, they do all kinds of evil around the world.
      
      war is never an answer and as a child of war i must say this – american people today have never experienced war on their own backs and i never wish for that to happen to us americans or anyone anywhere but, we keep taking wars and murder to the soils of our “enemies” and the rest of us sit at home and cheer while innocent people suffer and die. wake up Americans, our only enemy is our lying government that’s in the hands of corporations like HALIBURTON. and to think that i almost took a job offer from those bastards…
  - Nina
    
    December 29, 2011 at 7:12 pm
    
    I agree with you entirely! the terrorism they speak of is not even real – it is an american invention. what is really taking place is those who are weaker than us are being bullied by us and they have no other way to defend themselves than to do isolated attacks, isolated bombings, and even give their own lives because they are sick and tired of us. we exploit middle east for its resources and the only reason we went to iraq was because its president said ‘we wont drink oil. we will give it to you, but at a fair price.’ and the only reason usa supports israel is for the same reason – to upset middle east, keep unrest alive and well so that the whole region can never be left in peace to grow and prosper because you know what?? with all that oil, they would reach our potential and even surpass us and we want to continue to be the force of the world.
  - Nina
    
    December 29, 2011 at 7:19 pm
    
    thank you so much for every word that you wrote. i am glad to see american people respond to ron paul as you do. we have a chance to live in peace at home and with the rest of the world if we continue to spread the message. God Bless!
- Jeremy R. Hammond
  
  December 27, 2011 at 3:13 am
  
  Jan1970, it’s curious you should make a comment like, “Are you people serious? Thousands of innocent Americans lost their lives to the vendetta of Bin Laden, not the people that put us in the position to upset him” when not a soul who has thus far commented has ever said otherwise. Likewise, “Innocent people are being killed and Ron Paul is excusing it because of our foreign policy” is a mystery. When has Ron Paul ever excused the killing of innocent people? As for your comment, “Iran supplies weapons for terrorist attacks on Israel,” please let’s see your evidence. Also, it shouldn’t go without saying that the U.S. supplies Israel weapons for terrorist attacks on Palestinians. Finally, “Hey here is a clue, we need to change our policy but there will never be an excuse for terrorism or supporting it.” Certainly. But, again, acknowledging the motivations of terrorists is not “excusing” or “supporting” them.
  - Tpain
    
    December 27, 2011 at 3:39 pm
    
    man who paid you to write this bullshit .. fucking sellout.
    - Stevedave
      
      December 27, 2011 at 11:01 pm
      
      Your incredibly insightful comment shows exactly the problem with America today.
      
      You eloquently state your point with relevant and updated sources and provide the reader with a logical, flowing statement of purpose in your argument.
      
      I wish we all could be more like you – I honestly have something to strive towards.
      
      You really should read up on some ‘non-standardized, anti-establishment’ history. It would be an eye opener.
      - Nina
        
        December 29, 2011 at 7:13 pm
        
        haha! thank you :)
- Dennis
  
  December 27, 2011 at 3:37 am
  
  Are you kidding me? Where are you getting your facts… Ron Paul is the only one that makes sense in this matter… The USA bombs a country for 10 years after the gulf war killing 1000′s of people, but I guess that is ok to do since it didnt happen on our soil…if it wasnt for the oil we wouldnt give a shit for Iran, Iraq or any other middle eastern country, we proved that in Darfur, Sudan Africa…
  - ron paul supporter
    
    December 27, 2011 at 4:26 pm
    
    “The USA bombs a country for 10 years after the gulf war killing 1000′s of people, but I guess that is ok to do since it didnt happen on our soil”
    
    It’s worse than that. The US has killed OVER A MILLION of men, women and children over there. We’ve lost so many ourselves.
    
    Those who doubt the reasons why the u.s does what it does just google Military Industrial Complex. Then go watch the movie “Team America” (Yea, the one with puppets. I loved that they used puppets because that’ what our representatives are and apparently what presidents are… PUPPETS)
- Gil
  
  December 27, 2011 at 5:32 am
  
  Don’t you know? The U.S.A. is the Great Satan and no other country comes close to being as evil therefore the human rights violations of other countries need not be examined.
  - segmentis
    
    December 27, 2011 at 6:25 pm
    
    What on earth is wrong with taking a look at the beam in one’s own eye? Seems prudent to me. And acknowledging the flaws in our own foreign policy as well as those in other countries’ are not mutually exclusive, nor does Dr. Paul or the author of this article appear to say it is.
- Don White
  
  December 27, 2011 at 1:49 pm
  
  Jan1970, wake up to 2011. Ron Paul has a greater understanding about foreign policy and it’s constant foibles than you and I. If the truth hurts, you should bury your head in the sand. He speaks the truth. It’s a fact that constant wars have crippled our great nation. It wasn’t like this just fifteen years ago. We don’t need to feed the giant US military/industrial complex. They’re fat enough already. We need to cut the size of government, bring all of our boys home and correct the bad situation our economy is in before there is no Americza. Only Ron Paul has a consistent, conservative, workable plan to do so. And it doesn’t include business as usual. Everyone who wants us to keep on bombing isn’t living in the real world, and they know nothing about how wars get started and seem to go on and on and why. It’s because monied interests, banks and internationalists, see a dollar in it for them at the expense of our kids who end up fighting their wars. Our last two presidents lied to us numerous times. At least with Ron Paul you get an honest man who will tell it like it is. And if you want to make up fairy tales about how his words suddenly help the enemy, then go ahead. Hide your head in the sand. But for me, I will go with a true patriot, Ron Paul. I know more about this man than most Americans. I studied him and his books. He will wind up ending the wars and the Fed. Of course people are going to be mad at him. Their incomes will start to dwindle. Don White “Patriot Call of Ron Paul” available in ebook at Barnes and Amazon now.
- BlackPowderBill
  
  December 27, 2011 at 7:40 pm
  
  I was in the U.S. Navy mid 1970′s till 4/82. We supported Iran,Iraq and Bin Laden. I outfitted planes and pilots with U.S. made gear. Soldier of Fortune featured the “Afgan Freedom Fighters” as they was so warmly refered to in the media.
  This country lead the coop headed by Kermit Roosvelt CIA who let Eisenhauer believe at the insistence of the Lime’es that the commies were taking over Iran after the Iranians tossed BP oil out.
  
  So who started the crap, England again. Where did FM investments money go, London.
  Who shipped the Jews to Palastine, England.
  Follow the dots, you don’t piss in a person well and expect them to shrug it off.
- Ricky
  
  December 27, 2011 at 10:04 pm
  
  I can’t believe Jan1970 actually read the article. We need a new foreign policy that sounds like this, “If you attack the USA or ISRAEL we will wipe you out and not spend one dime to fix you up. We will not interfere in the internal workings of any nation but our own”. We have to power to wipe out anyone in the world in seconds, so if a nation harbors terrorist (even a nuke nation) and those terrorist attack the USA, we nuke them and dare anyone to come to their defense. Every nation knows if you nuke a US city the whole world will be destroyed so they will restrain themselves. That is where our defense is. Not in preemptive attacks around the world.
- carl
  
  December 29, 2011 at 5:20 pm
  
  The American sheeple just keep on getting
  dumber. When are we going to wake up and
  realize our republic is history.
Grey

December 27, 2011 at 2:38 am

More proof the statists, the mad dog leftist and the warmongering neocons are no different on foreign policy. Both aggressive warmongering chicken hawks.
Michael Carver

December 27, 2011 at 2:39 am

I haven’t seen nor heard him “excuse” anything. All I see is him saying that if you crap in your neighbors yard enough….sooner or later, they are going to throw it back over the fence.
- Eric
  
  December 27, 2011 at 1:20 pm
  
  That is a great way to put it, hahahaha =D
  not that funny when you substitute crap with bombs though =/
Jordan Bourne

December 27, 2011 at 3:25 am

To speak the truth about why we’re hated isn’t excusing the fact that we were attacked. It’s opening up the lines of communication so we can better ourselves as a nation and stop another tragedy such as 9/11 from happening again. Having armed troops patrol our streets and steal our god given freedoms isn’t going to make us safe. What will make us safe is to stop killing innocent people all across the world in the name of freedom and democracy. If we want to be a safer nation then we need to become a smarter one. I’m a veteran and I support Ron Paul. There is nothing more important than our freedom .
vet_81

December 27, 2011 at 3:55 am

Dr Paul has been talking about the same things for 30+ years….and they are now happening before our eyes. A simple reading of the founders and constitution can demonstrate the wisdom he’s tapping into. Not something he made up.
ugo

December 27, 2011 at 4:01 am

how much sense does it make to go into iraq to revenge the 911 attacks, lose another 3000+ americans in the process and a trillion dollars to boot. sounds to me like RP should be getting the support of every man woman and child walking the face of this earth unless you prefer more of the same distortion of the truth shoved down your throat like the latest round of presidents have done
Gary

December 27, 2011 at 4:10 am

Now…. there is the truth, right there in your face, in writing! Thank you for posting!
Joseph

December 27, 2011 at 4:59 am

I served in the military for 10 years. I was deployed to Iraq as a truck driver. I remember when the invasion first started in Iraq me and my buddies in the military all used to joke about the war being over oil. I really didnt care because I figured ‘hey i’m sure there’s more at stake like some secret intelligence on Al-Qaeda that can’t be shared with us or the population for security sake. The people in gov’t know better than me. What struck me as strange was when ok now we captured Saddam Hussein, he’s been executed why the f*** are we here. There were never any WMD’s found. The whole thing was a f***ing lie from the gov’t. There is no way in hell anyone is going to convince me we have to go to war with Iran. If neo-cons want to go to war with Iran they should just tell the f***ing truth and say ‘hey, we want to start a war in Iran so we can have a stable region to protect our oil interests, just in case the dollar is no longer the reserve currency or in case China and Russia decide to invade first.
ugo

December 27, 2011 at 7:46 am

you got it right joseph. they conjure up all these reasons for going to war but it isn’t cuz they attacked us. it’s political or religious and i want nothing to do with it. how much money has been passed through the hands of these war mongering contractors. trace it back and you’ll see how close the contractors are to the politicians.
we are being robbed and told to accept it cuz they are so smart and we need them to protect us. i’ve traveled the world and never felt threatened. americans are very well misinformed by those who want your daily bread. STAND UP AMERICA! RP is our last hope
denk

December 27, 2011 at 9:30 am

rip
harry browne
http://tinyurl.com/6hb9g6p
tony stephens

December 27, 2011 at 9:42 am

Tsun Tsu told us many thousands of years ago, it is more important to know your enemy than to kow yourself. He wrote the Art of War and is studied in all military swchools and the War College.
I was in the US Infantry for twenty years. Every operations order is in five paragraphs with several subparagraphs. It is a template for the orderly dissemination of information.

The very first thing in the operations order is the enemies motivation and intent. It is in the first paragraph, first subparagraph.
Situation: Enemy Situation. After that comes the freindly situation and all other information.

This is basic. It is War 101. Anyone who glosses over the enemy’s motivation and intent isn’t fit to command a broken down jeep, let alone be Commander-in-Cief of the largest military on Earth.

This is the very point which caused me to look at Ron Paul in the first place. I am gad I did. He is the only sane one in the bunch.
Aaron

December 27, 2011 at 12:51 pm

9/11 was an inside job anyway, forget the media garbage about needing to respond with war. The war is a civil one that has been going on behind the scenes for decades. How clueless are people to not realize that the patriot act and homeland security act are the real motivators for 9/11. Not only were the towers professionally demolished but the so called terrorists that were on the planes aren’t even dead and until they saw themselves as most wanted criminals didn’t even know they were apparently involved. There is a reason no person has been criminally charged for 9/11. Bush, Cheney, Rockefeller’s etc have never stood trial.
Ron Paul wouldn’t stand for the internal corruption within the U.S that is why every media outlet and politico extremist is trying to shut him down.
Sk3rzzo

December 27, 2011 at 4:38 pm

I hear comments such as “Ron Paul doesn’t care about the victims of 9/11 attacks if he supports a non-interventionist foreign policy.” What? The family of the victims of 9/11 should be happy that somebody like Dr. Paul is telling them the truth. They’ve been fed lies far too long; it’s time someone cared enough to let them know the reality of the matter.
Soldier

December 27, 2011 at 5:27 pm

Jeremy R. Hammond…….NWO sellout. You’ve been added to the list. Payback is coming.
a free bird

December 28, 2011 at 4:17 am

Mr. Hammond: Thank you for your excellent article. People, including Muslims and Arabs must vote for Ron Paul.

Saad Abulkhalil is a suspicious person and many think he is an agent who sided with the ‘colored revolution’ in Arab world. He attacked Ron Paul and is asking Muslims and Arabs not to vote for him. People should not be fooled by his claim as a’leftist’. He behaves like CIA consultant Juan Cole and cannot be trusted. Here what he wrote:

{This should be made clear. Ron Paul should not be supported by Arabs or by supporters of the Palestinians. He may have said things against Israel (although his spokesperson yesterday asserted to the New York Times that he is a “friend” of Israel), but he is a racist and a reactionary and a homophoebe. This is another example that we can’t apply one litmus test only to candidates and people. A critic of Israel who hates blacks and gays (or who hates Jews for that matter and I don’t know if Paul is anti-Semitic or not) is not a friend we need in the pro-Palestinian community.}

Tell Abulkhalil go to hell and everyone vote for Ron Paul.
Lenny

December 28, 2011 at 5:19 am

Fuck you Jeremy R. Hammond stop trying to destroy the future of our country with your ignorant slander. You cannot sell out the people and allow corporate America to continue to control our government. Your slander cannot stop the peoples will to be free, people like you cannot control us anymore, America is sick of failed promises. Where is Obama’s change? higher unemployment, bailing out wall street, selling out the people.
- Jeremy R. Hammond
  
  December 28, 2011 at 6:43 am
  
  Lenny, what are you talking about? Did you read the article before replying too it? Seems not.
  - Mike
    
    December 28, 2011 at 9:01 am
    
    Hilarious, I was wondering the same thing! lol
Diane Martin

December 29, 2011 at 8:35 am

“The only thing we have to fear is fear”

I thought this may help all of us to clearly see what has taken place and what will take place if we do not understand what really has happened .

Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one’s group.
As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda, in its most basic sense, presents information primarily to influence an audience. Propaganda is often biased, with facts selectively presented (thus possibly lying by omission) to encourage a particular synthesis, or uses loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. The desired result is a change of the attitude toward the subject in the target audience to further a political, or other type of agenda. Propaganda can be used as a form of political warfare.

Bias, a highly reseached area by psychologists, and our emotions considerably enhance our susceptibility. Fear, for example, either present or created by the propaganda, can be extremely important to our level of susceptibility. The best example here is the terrorism of 9-11, which may have been emphasized for nearly a decade and kept us at a high level of susceptibility for the entire period.
Another important characteristic is that the processes of developing and maintaining false belief(s) presented by a system of propaganda are generally unconscious, at least in part. The less we understand about our susceptibility, the easier it may be to manipulate us.
While the term propaganda has acquired a strongly negative connotation by association with its most manipulative and jingoistic examples, propaganda in its original sense was neutral, and could refer to uses that were generally benign or innocuous, such as public health recommendations, signs encouraging citizens to participate in a census or election, or messages encouraging people to report crimes to the police, among others.
Just the Facts

January 1, 2012 at 10:11 pm

For a mainstream media that couldn’t or wouldn’t vet our current “Constitutional Expert” I find it laughable but not surprising that Ron Paul is now under their review.
The message is clear, however, you (the general public can’t be trusted) therefore our “presstitutes” will bombard you with disinformation and highly questionable polls and steer you to the leader you so richly deserve.
During the Great Depression they had a saying (which I think applies here as well), “The big boys aren’t as smart as they think!”
Neo

January 3, 2012 at 3:58 am

Great read Mr. Hammond! thank you.