By John Aloysius Farrell
A gaffe, in the memorable definition by Michael Kinsley, is when someone in American politics gets caught telling the truth.
Nowhere is that clearer – or more potentially dangerous to our freedoms and long-term prosperity – then in the case of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright is just the latest American political figure to be pilloried for the “gaffe” of suggesting that radical Islamists are responding to specific acts and patterns of U.S. foreign policy.
America’s chickens have come home to roost, he said.
To which I say: Damn right. And we better face it.
Wright’s list of America’s “chickens” strikes me as silly. I don’t think Osama bin Laden and his crew hate us for destroying Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or share Wright’s fantasy that the U.S. unleashed the AIDS virus on the world.
(Though when it comes to nutty clerics, one can’t be sure.)
Nor do I quarrel with all “the chickens” we’ve let loose in the world. Some of our actions, like support for Israel, flow from our noblest inspirations.
But even noble actions have consequences. And you can bet that by supporting Israel for the last 60 years; propping up cruel Middle Eastern dictators and declaring that control of Persian Gulf oil is a U.S. national interest – and then backing up that declaration with repeated military intervention – we’ve had something to do with spurring Al Qaeda’s attacks.
For perspective, let’s remove the debate from the context of the Wright controversy and recall a moment from the Republican presidential campaign.
Last May, in a debate broadcast by Fox News, Congressman Ron Paul, the libertarian Republican from Texas, suggested that Americans should accept the reality that our actions have consequences. His rivals, and the TV moderators, reacted predictably.
(The media in America has a very poor opinion of the intelligence of American voters, and assumes that any suggestion that the U.S. can do anything wrong is a heinous gaffe.)
Here’s the transcript:
REP. PAUL: Have you ever read the reasons they attacked us? They attack us because we’ve been over there; we’ve been bombing Iraq for 10 years….
We don’t understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics. So right now we’re building an embassy in Iraq that’s bigger than the Vatican. We’re building 14 permanent bases….We need to look at what we do from the perspective of what would happen if somebody else did it to us. (Applause.)
MR. GOLER: (With umbrage) Are you suggesting we invited the 9/11 attack, sir?
REP. PAUL: I’m suggesting that we listen to the people who attacked us and the reason they did it, and they are delighted that we’re over there because Osama bin Laden has said, “I am glad you’re over on our sand because we can target you so much easier.” They have already now since that time — have killed 3,400 of our men, and I don’t think it was necessary.
Of course any mention of 9-11 was sure to trigger a response from Rudy Giuliani, who based his ill-fated campaign on the fame he gained as mayor of New York City that awful day.
MR. GIULIANI: Wendell, may I comment on that? That’s really an extraordinary statement. That’s an extraordinary statement, 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 heard that before, and I’ve heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11th. (Applause, cheers.)
And I would ask the congressman to withdraw that comment and tell us that he didn’t really mean that. (Applause.)
MR. GOLER: Congressman?
REP. PAUL: I believe very sincerely that the CIA is correct when they teach and talk about blowback. When we went into Iran in 1953 and installed the shah, yes, there was blowback. A reaction to that was the taking of our hostages and that persists. And if we ignore that, we ignore that at our own risk. If we think that we can do what we want around the world and not incite hatred, then we have a problem.
They don’t come here to attack us because we’re rich and we’re free. They come and they attack us because we’re over there.
And, dependably, other GOP candidates had to weigh in as well.
REP. TANCREDO: My dear friend Ron here — I dearly love and really respect, but I’ll tell you, I just have to disagree with you, Ron, about the issue of whether or not that — whether Israel existed or didn’t, whether or not we were in the Iraq war or not, they would be trying to kill us because it’s a dictate of their religion, at least a part of it, and we have to defend ourselves.
What pandering.
Americans love to see ourselves as innocents. Too often, to get ourselves off the hook for 9-11, we portray the attacks as an unprovoked, horribly violent Islamic reaction to modernism.
But Ron Paul was right. The truth of what makes a terrorist tick is far more complex, and includes our blundering around their world, killing lots of their wives and kids.
Lebanon. Iran. Libya. Iraq. Saudi Arabia. Pakistan. Kuwait. Afghanistan.
Hey, we’re not going to get far with the world’s billion Muslims by reassuring ourselves that “they” are all vicious fanatics who are out to “kill us because it is a dictate of their religion.” The hijackers didn’t fly those airliners into buildings because they were angry at McDonald’s, Pamela Anderson and Google.
