“Imagine for a moment,” a man’s voice intones in an urgent whisper, “that somewhere in the middle of Texas there was a large foreign military base – say, Chinese or Russian.” So begins a video produced by Revolution PAC, comprised of supporters and some former campaign staff of Ron Paul. The text of the video derives entirely from a Paul speech given in early October, in which the presidential candidate condemns what he deems to be our jackbooted foreign policy and likens our military abroad to an oppressive occupation force, while whitewashing murderous insurgents as freedom fighters.
“Imagine,” the voice continues as the text zooms and veers about on the screen,
that thousands of armed foreign troops were constantly patrolling American streets in military vehicles. Imagine they were here under the auspices of “keeping us safe” or “promoting democracy” or “protecting their strategic interests.”
The analogy, of course, is to our own troops in Iraq or Afghanistan, which Paul and his supporters cite as the reason Islamic fundamentalists hate us, along with such other offenses as our military bases on Saudi soil. And the video’s suggestion is that the justifications noted above for our presence there are mere pretexts.
The video graphics come fast and furious now, and the music and narration escalate in intensity and menace. It’s moving at a pace and volume that steamroll right over any reasoned objections:
Imagine that they operated outside of US law, and that the Constitution did not apply to them. Imagine that every now and then they made mistakes or acted on bad information and accidentally killed or terrorized innocent Americans, including women and children, most of the time with little to no repercussions or consequences. Imagine that they set up checkpoints on our soil and routinely searched and ransacked entire neighborhoods of homes. Imagine if Americans were fearful of these foreign troops, and overwhelmingly thought America would be better off without their presence.
Of course, our troops are doing anything but running around ransacking entire neighborhoods; it is the insurgents in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan who are terrorizing innocents. We have gone to such ludicrous extremes to win hearts and minds that we’re more comfortable putting our own troops’ lives at risk than offending the locals. But the video’s denigration of our military and whitewashing of the enemy get worse as the analogy goes completely off the rails:
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