With Friends Like These…
by Rep. Ron Paul
Hundreds of thousands of American troops already occupy Afghanistan and Iraq, a number that is rising as the military surge moves forward. The justification, given endlessly since Sept. 11, is that both countries support terrorism and thus pose a risk to the United States. Yet when we step back and examine the region as a whole, it’s obvious that these two impoverished countries, neither of which has any real military, pose very little threat to American national security when compared to other Middle Eastern nations. The decision to attack them, while treating some of region’s worst regimes as allies, shows the deadly hypocrisy of our foreign policy in the Middle East.
Consider Saudi Arabia, the native home of most of the Sept. 11 hijackers. The Saudis, unlike the Iraqis, have proven connections to al-Qaeda. Saudi charities have funneled money to Islamic terrorist groups. Yet the administration insists on calling Saudi Arabia a “good partner in the war on terror.” Why? Because the U.S. has a long-standing relationship with the Saudi royal family, and a long history of commercial interests relating to Saudi oil. So successive administrations continue to treat the Saudis as something they are not: a reliable and honest friend in the Middle East. (more…)













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