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Support for Dr. Paul from Africa

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This was sent to me by a college age friend:

In a warm weekend night in the month of August 1998 in Khartoum - Sudan, my friend and I were on our way to catch up with a group of friends after a long week of preparations for the national secondary level exams, that was when we saw the huge red hallow covering up the horizon accompanied by a baffled explosion sound. The first thing jumped to our minds was - a huge fire in one of the industrial zone factories, and with least worries we carried on with our fun plans (ya, we do have fun too in the third world, believe it or not !)

After couple of hours I arrived at my home to find my family gathered in the garden, it was relatively late and past their bedtime, so I thought to myself that something serious must have happened. I was very worried and immediately asked my father if everything was ok; he didn’t seem to care about my worries or questions, but instead he asked me what was I doing out till this hour in such a dangerous night (Thankfully I didn’t have a cell phone back then or he would’ve ruined my night), although I didn’t quite get why he used the word “dangerous” to describe that nice night, but I was too distracted to inquire because there was strong Sulfate smell filling my nose, which I thought was due the factory fire.

A moment after, and before I even ask about the dangerous aspect of the night, my father broke the big news “The Americans! The Americans bombarded us! They bombarded a medicine factory!” and he was staring at me in the darkness -due to the power cut- as if he was trying to figure out whether its me in flesh and blood or an alien replica sent by the Americans that night!

For a second I was like “oh man! My father lost it” and I burst out laughing, “Americans! Bombarding a medicine factory in Khartoum ! But why?” I asked my father if he was sure about this, and he said its all over the news, but nothing is certain yet and lots of news were clashing. We didn’t know the reason behind that sudden aggressive act, or how it was initiated, and whether if fighter jets crossed our boarders or missiles were launched from military bases in the red sea!

After I settled a bit, things were getting clearer , the factory fire, the Sulfate smell, the only vague thought – and which I surprisingly found funny was “why would America bombard a medicine factory? Does it even worth trying? Or do they just need a target to check the accuracy of their weapons? After I was tired of all those stray thoughts, I surrendered to sleep after I killed the last giggle emerged out of that funny thought.

Years later, and after the US declared that the bombarding of the factory was a mistake, one of the few medicine factories in an underdeveloped country that produce cheap medicine was reduced to rubbles and been called a mistake, I still find it funny, I don’t know if anyone else is seeing the irony in it or is it just me? if so then I should thank president Clinton for introducing me to this moment of insanity!

The only aspect of this tragedy that I feel sad about is the fact that these mistakes are funded by the American tax payers, who always express regrets and show noble sentiments to whoever got hurt because of these mistakes, and always make serious effort to distinguished between their political elite mistakes and the public opinion, and I’m pretty sure they would have never let that happen if it was their call.

After I have been academically involved in international politics, specifically American foreign policy, I found out that such mistakes occur on regular basis in American foreign policy. Therefore, I decided to casually trace their root cause by discussing the issue further with some Americans and listen to their opinions, but in the course of my inquiry I got some unexpected answers such as “yes, because we can!” "we want to" “Because we don’t care” and so on. Although it was depressing, but I honestly viewed it as mere justifications for government policies and hence funding it, because American tax payers are smarter than feeling good about their tax money being misused under the notion of "we can" or "we dont care".

I always knew that I shouldn’t loose hope, someone out there should be adopting more rational political discourse, someone who understands the complexity of the interconnected nature of the international system, and the grave security and economy impacts of interventions and offensive strategies, someone who really understands what does the “Blowback” concept means. Later on I was introduced to Dr. Paul views while watching a documentary on his presidential campaign in 2008, brought to me by one of my best friends, who is a good organizer and campaigner for Dr. Paul’s.

Although I don’t want to be judgmental, but I have no other choice rather to believe that Dr. Paul’s so far has the most righteous and rational political vision which -according to my observations- is direly needed by America at this point of time. Indeed the most rational since that insanity moment I had during Clinton.

Dr. Paul seems another individual who is tired of the decision makers mistakes, not only that but equally tired of funding them as well. He seems someone who will give us as non Americans a moment of relief from observing American people funding continuous governments mistakes, while the life standards of some of them doesn’t even allow it.

From an outsider perspective, Dr. Paul seems to be the man of the next moment, the summer breeze that will cool everyone down, after long decades of committing mistakes.

Dear Americans, we know that “you can” and “you want to” and some times “you don’t care”, but you and us need a break. It wasn’t your call when those mistakes took place, but its your call now to allow this gentleman to treat all of us with this long-awaited break, which you will enjoy with an extra buck in your pocket and we will celebrate it by taking a break from counting and bearing the consequences of "the mistakes".

I always thought that President Wilson was the man who took the American Jinni out of its bottle, but now am sure that Dr. Ron is going to be the man who will return it back in.
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