Andrew McCarthy on Ron Paul

Here is what serves as a critique of Paul's views on the Taliban, an excerpt from McCarthy's lastest Paul bash:

Paul’s claim that the Taliban is just opposed to foreign interference in Afghanistan is patently absurd. To begin with, the Taliban’s creation was a direct result not of foreign invasion but of Afghanistan’s internecine tribal warfare after the Soviets left and the Americans lost interest. Its unabashed goal was to crush Afghan factions that impeded its establishment of a retrograde sharia state.

Moreover, the Taliban craves foreign interference, without which it would never have come to power.

So, the Taliban's creation was not a direct result of foreign invasion, although they came to exist following Soviet and American interventions, and the Taliban craves foreign intervention, which did not create them, because without intervention the Taliban would never have come to power. Hmmm. Confusing.

I think Paul is right, the original people in Afghanistan who were fighting the invasion of the USSR, are some of the same people who became the Taliban, and they don't want foreign powers controlling their nation. Our interventions have consequences, and one consequence is causing the Taliban to retaliate. It might give them more power, but McCarthy hasn't proved that the Taliban invited American intervention -- that's a convenient rationalization after our intervention had consequences -- well, McCarthy wants us to believe, the Taliban craved us killing them because it gives them power -- they brought all this on themselves. The administration has said all along that the Taliban is not the enemy -- we made them the enemy. They are people of a foreign country who played no part in an attack on America.

McCarthy sure has a lot of faith in goverment when it comes to wars, even though he has a healthy scepticism in other areas of government intervention. It's the same government in all interventions.