Paul did not blame the United States or say that the United States “invited the attack.” He said the attacks were a response to U.S. actions in the Middle East and stressed the importance of understanding the motivations of those who want to attack the United States. Moreover, the media largely ignored Paul’s further comments on those remarks after the debate, including his assertion that “Americans didn’t do anything to cause” the attacks.

Media Matters: Media echoed, applauded Giuliani’s distortion of Paul’s comments about 9-11 attacks

The above is a great article on Ron Paul’s comments. The media completely misrepresented Paul’s comments, and further they hyped up Giuliani’s comments.

I still don’t understand why so many people cheered when Giuliani made his comments. He did not present counterfactuals or even a counter argument. He basically said, you cannot criticize American foreign policy without being unpatriotic. Shut up and apologize. Then the audience applauded like trained seals.

The message that was spun was that Ron Paul is a kook, Giuliani is a leader who can put kooks in their place.

I spent a lot of time this weekend listening to antiwar radio. I listened to Michael Scheuer and Chalmers Johnson.

Neither of these men are either dummies or kooks. They both paint a very sad picture of American foreign policy.

People should start listening to them more.

Japanese who are now debating changing their constitution so that they can engage in collective self-defense with America needs to have a hard look at American foreign policy. If Japan wants to be America’s Britain in the East, then Japanese need to understand what this will mean in the future.

I think the best policy for both countries is energy reform and (military) disengagement from the middle-east.

Bill Maher seems to get it:

Ron Paul spoke the truth about why America is being attacked by Islamic extremists, and was attacked by former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani for it. Giuliani is still out there trying to sell the story that the US is being attacked because Islamic ex…

He went on to explain that if you’re a very powerful state (like the US) you cannot “exercise your power to the point of humiliation for the others”.

He took a lot of grief for putting forward that idea, but maybe he was on to something, and Ron Paul seems to be thinking along those same lines too.

Should the Japanese choose to change their Constitution, Japan would need to carefully manage their relationship with the US, and not exercise their new (re-discovered) power to the point where “blowback” would surely occur.

The Japan/US alliance may go through some rough patches but in the end, Japan is a sovereign democratic state, and entitled to navigating world affairs in a way that benefits Japan and its people.

Regards,