Ron Paul is a follower of Robert Pape

Madeline Brooks writes:

This is hot. From WND:

Paul attributes his idea that U.S. “occupation” is the primary motivation of the vast majority of suicide terrorist attacks—including 9/11—to Robert Pape, author of “The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It,” who studied 2,200 such incidents since 1980 …

University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape, whose research finds religious extremism has a limited role in suicide bombings, is working secretly with a suspected Hamas front to pump up sales of his new book.” the IPT reported. “That includes a secret agreement by CAIR to have its chapters around the country buy them in bulk so they can manipulate the sales to move up the bestseller ranks.

What this article does not give is the exposure Paul had to Pape. But evidence is at Wikipedia, showing that Pape was an advisor to both Paul and Obama in the 2008 campaign. And a quick Google search shows that Paul has cited Pape in his speeches.

LA replies:

I have written about Pape’s fraudulent argument in the past. In December 2005, in an a long discussion with a reader who was promoting Pape’s ideas. I said:

Obviously, a Western presence in a Muslim country is going to exacerbate jihadist manifestations including suicide terrorism. That’s why I’m against any involvement by us in the Muslim world and any efforts to reform it from within.

But when analysts detach from Islam phenomena that are obviously deeply tied to Islam, such as terrorism, we have a problem. This is what all the mainstream intellectuals do today. They say terrorism is due to some cultural or economic or political factor that is extrinsic to Islam, so if we just remove that extrinsic factor, the terrorism will stop. So if we assimilate the Muslims in Europe better, or if we stop “discriminating” against Muslims, or if we create a global Provider State to give Muslim countries food and schools and highways, or if we betray Israel to its mortal enemies, then terrorism will go away.

My point is that while we should not do unnecessary things that exacerbate jihadism, ultimately jihadism is an expression of Islam itself. As long as Islam exists, jihadism, along with the terrorism that Allah specifically orders in the Koran, will exist as well. Thus any writer who says that terrorism committed by Muslims is not connected with Islam is promoting a dangerous delusion.

I’ve also pointed out, in “Islam’s war against humanity,” that Pape’s view that Islamic suicide bombing is only directed against occupiers of Islamic land is fraudulent, since in reality suicide attacks may be directed against anyone, including Muslims, if their murder can arguably help lead to the end of an occupation. The warrant of suicide bombing is thus infinitely extensible.

Here are VFR entries discussing or mentioning Pape.

January 12

Timothy A. writes:

Your recent postings about Ron Paul’s “blow-back” theory of Islamic terrorism reminded me of an email exchange I had with Sam Francis not too long before he passed away. In the wake of the Madrid train bombings, he had written a column basically saying that Spain had it coming because it had participated in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and that if it hadn’t been involved, it wouldn’t have been a target. I wrote him a message pointing out that Muslims had grievances with Spain that went back much further than 2003 and which shouldn’t be discounted when examining the motivations of the bombers. He wrote me a short reply from his aol.com email account (which even at that time seemed weirdly out of date) which basically told me what an idiot I was.

Anyway, I miss Sam, and wish that he had lived a longer life.

LA replies:

Sam Francis in his later years unfortunately fell into the standard palecon syndrome of reactive personal bitterness—a bitterness that often becomes a substitute for thought.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 10, 2012 11:30 AM | Send