We all remember 2007, when the heroic Ron Paul stood in front of the nation at a Republican Presidential Debate, and explained the concept known as “blowback”. It was so out of the ordinary for someone to actually speak the truth to the American people, that Rudy Giuliani’s emotions took over.
Giuliani made the great mistake of confronting Ron Paul on the idea that maybe foreigners don’t like having their lands occupied by the U.S. and use violence as a method to kick them out.
Giuliani played dumb. He’d never heard of such unpatriotic thinking, and actually asked Ron Paul to apologize!!
You can reminisce for 3min below:
Giuliani may have received thunderous applause from the war-seething Republican peanut gallery, but Ron Paul would be the one who would make the lasting impression. To this day, I still hear from people (who don’t live and breathe politics) that Ron Paul made so much sense in the debates.
Neocons still don’t utter peep about blowback from U.S. foreign entanglements. They will never write or speak one word about it.
However, with the current smackdown that the American public is delivering to Obama on his drive to war in Syria, at least one Neocon fears “blowback” of a domestic sort.
Peter Wehner warns his fellow warmongers (my emphasis):
Those who favor an active role by America in the world – hawks who have spent their lives rightly resisting the “America Come Home” siren call – need to be wise in their counsel. Because if the next military engagement isn’t well thought out, well executed, and doesn’t lead to a relatively swift and decent outcome, the blowback could be intense.
Wehner isn’t speaking about “blowback” from foreigners (He wouldn’t dare.) He’s referring to the non-interventionist voices in the U.S. that have grown by leaps and bounds since Ron Paul’s campaign. The American public waking up, and not remaining in a woozy stupor as the war machine tramples on, is the type of “blowback” that Neocons do understand.
That kind of “blowback” can be spoken of, and in neocon eyes, must also be addressed.
It’s all the more reason to keep spreading the message of peace, commerce, and no foreign entanglements!
Reprinted with permission from Economic Policy Journal.
