"Paul's point ignited an attack by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who indignantly announced that he had never heard such a theory in his life and asked Paul to retract it. Instead, Paul steadfastly stood his ground, pointing out that the CIA itself has pointed out the "blowback" that U.S. foreign policy has engendered. He cited the CIA's installation of the shah of Iran in 1953 for producing the blowback that resulted in the taking of the U.S. hostages in Iran many years later.
In a post-debate interview, Giuliani clarified his point by reciting the official U.S. canard that was issued immediately after the 9/11 attacks - that the terrorists hate us for our "freedom and values." Giuliani suggested that it was because of our "freedom of religion" and "freedom for women." When Paul mentioned Iran as an example of blowback from U.S. foreign policy, he was referring to the 1953 coup in which the CIA secretly and surreptitiously engineered the ouster of the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, who had been selected Time Magazine's Man of the Year. In his place, the CIA installed the shah of Iran, whose secret police proceeded to terrorize and torture the Iranian people for the next 25 years, with the ardent support of the U.S. government. As the Iranian people discovered the U.S. government's role in all this, their anger and rage ultimately erupted in 1979 with the Iranian Revolution and the taking of the U.S. hostages. Consider U.S. foreign policy toward Iraq: 1.. The U.S. support of Saddam Hussein. 2.. The U.S. furnishing of weapons of mass destruction to Saddam Hussein and the correlative assistance provided by the U.S. in the use of such weaponry. 3.. The Persian Gulf intervention. 4.. The intentional destruction of Iraq's water and sewage facilities, with full knowledge as to what effect such action would have on the long-term health of the Iraqi people. 5.. The more than 10 years of brutal sanctions, which contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children from sickness and disease. 6.. The deadly no-fly zones, which had not been authorized by either the UN or the U.S. Congress, and whose enforcement entailed the firing of missiles and the dropping of bombs that killed even more Iraqis. 7.. U.S. Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright's infamous statement to "Sixty Minutes" that reverberated throughout the Middle East that the deaths of half-a-million Iraqi children had been "worth it." 8.. The invasion and occupation of Iraq, which has killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of more Iraqis. 9.. The torture and sex abuse of Iraqi men at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in Iraq, photographs and videos of which are still being kept hidden by U.S. officials because of their potential blowback. 10.. The periodic rapes and murders that some U.S. troops have committed against the Iraqi people during the occupation. 11.. The arbitrary and indiscriminate searches and seizures without warrants being conducted by U.S. troops. 12.. The indefinite detentions without trial of some 20,000 Iraqi men and women in overcrowded prisons. How can anyone honestly believe that such actions would not engender horrible anger and rage throughout the Middle East and, indeed, throughout the world? As Ron Paul emphasized in last night's debate, imagine if some foreign power - such as China - had done these types of things to the United States. Wouldn't Americans experience anger and rage?" http://www.lewrockwell.com/hornberger/hornberger128.html [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
