May 3 GOP Presidential Debate
Ron Paul participated along with nine other Republican presidential candidates in a televised 2008 Republican Presidential Candidates Debate on May 3, 2007. An unscientific MSNBC online vote following the debate showed Paul with 40 percent of more than 70,000 votes,[28] higher positive ratings and lower negative numbers than any of the other nine candidates in the debate. An ABC News survey on which candidate came out on top in the debate showed Paul leading with 85 percent.[29] C-SPAN[30] had similar results with over 70 percent favorable for Paul. ABC News attributed Paul's success to viral marketing by his supporters, noting that Paul has a "robust online presence", and noted that online polls are not scientific and they do not indicate that Paul has widespread support among the actual national voting population.[31]
After the debate, Pat Buchanan told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann Ron Paul came the closest of all the candidates to classic conservatism. Donald Luskin told CNBC that Paul was his "pro-stock market candidate."[32]
May 15 GOP Presidential Debate
In a May 15, 2007, GOP debate in South Carolina, Paul took a close second (25%) to Romney, who received the most votes (29%) in a Fox News-sponsored unscientific poll.[33] On other sites, such as ABC News and MSNBC, Paul was the night's winner, according to respondents in similar polls.[34][35]
During the debate, Paul commented that America's history of interventionism in the Middle East has led to an unpopular view of the U.S. in Middle Eastern countries. Agreeing with what has previously been asserted by the 9/11 Commission Report and the CIA's specialists on al Qaeda, Paul stated that the CIA removal of an elected Iranian leader (the 1953 removal of the democratically elected leader of Iran, Mohammed Mosaddeq in Operation Ajax) and the bombing of Iraq in the 1990s, culminating in the ongoing Iraq war, has led to increasing anti-American sentiment in the Middle East. Then he said:
They attack us because we've been over there. We've been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We've been in the Middle East [for years]. I think [Ronald] Reagan was right. We don't understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics. Right now, we're building an embassy in Iraq that is bigger than the Vatican. We're building 14 permanent bases. What would we say here if China was doing this in our country or in the Gulf of Mexico? We would be objecting.[36]
Rudy Giuliani interrupted to suggest Paul was implying that America had invited the September 11, 2001, attacks; he demanded a retraction and called the idea "absurd". Paul defended his previous statement, which did not mention 9/11, and further explained, "I believe the CIA is correct when it warns us about blowback. We overthrew the Iranian government in 1953 and their taking the hostages was the reaction. This dynamic persists and we ignore it at our risk. They’re not attacking us because we’re rich and free, they’re attacking us because we’re over there."
While Paul's assertions have received criticism from some pundits from the political right (particularly FOX news commentator Sean Hannity[37] and GOP spokesman Michael Steele[38]) as well, other reports have found that Ron Paul is factually correct with his assertion;[36] as cited in the 9/11 Commission Report, Osama bin Laden's 1996 fatwa,[39] entitled "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places," published in a British newspaper, reveals his anger with specific American policies as his reason for declaring war against the country. In his fatwa, bin Laden cites his reasons for attacking America. In order, they are:
American involvement in the Middle East, including U.S. armies in Saudi Arabia
Palestine, and
Bombings of Iraq in the 1990s
The Nation detailed how the CIA's former bin Laden and al Qaeda specialist, Michael Scheuer, told CNN, "We're being attacked for what we do in the Islamic world, not for who we are or what we believe in or how we live."[36] Chalmers Johnson, a CIA analyst, political scientist and author of the year 2000 book Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire[40] spoke of blowback in regards to the September 11 attacks in October 2001.[41]
Since the debate, Ron Paul and his position have also been defended by Lew Rockwell,[42] Pat Buchanan,[43] Accuracy in Media,[44] and other conservative and libertarian as well as liberal commentators, including Joy Behar and Rosie O'Donnell of ABC's The View.[45]
In a press release following the debate, Paul's campaign chairman Kent Snyder said in response to Giuliani, "It is clear from his interruption that former Mayor Giuliani has not read the 9-11 Commission Report and has no clue on how to keep America safe"[46] and on May 16, during an appearance on The Situation Room with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Paul asked for an apology from Giuliani and suggested that Giuliani should read the 9/11 Commission's Report.[47]
Andrew Sullivan, an early supporter of the war, responded to Paul's remarks by saying:
The question serious supporters of a real war on terror must now ask is: will continuing the fight in Iraq help reverse this trend or cement it for decades to come? Is the war making us less secure and the world much less safe? Would withdrawal or continued engagement makes things better? At the very least, it seems to me, this question should be on the table in the Iraq debate. And yet the Republicans - with the exception of Ron Paul - don't even want to talk about it. Until they do, they are not a party serious about national security.[48]
In the debate, only Paul and McCain did not endorse torture.[49]
