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Opinions/Editorials Title: Tripoli's In Libya! Who Knew? Not The Neocons I don't know what got into the formerly sane Gene Hoyas. It's a little late in history to be signing on to the nutty neocon cause. In any event he's embarrassing himself with stuff like his recent attack on Ron Paul: There is the uncomfortable matter of the Barbary Wars (conducted almost exactly two centuries before the War on Terrorism) that were directed against Muslim pirates operating out of – believe it or not – what is present day Libya. Believe it or not? Hasn't this guy ever heard the Marine Corps hymn? I knew it by heart by the time I was 6 thanks to my World War II Marine father singing it incessantly. It begins: "From the Halls of Montezuma, To the Shores of Tripoli." I thought every kid over the age of 10 knew Tripoli was where the Barbary Pirates hung out. And that they started screwing with American ships and that's why the Marines went over there to kick their butts. Protecting American shipping was the proper constitutional role of the Department of the Navy, which of course includes the Marine Corps. As for policing the world, I can recall my father telling us kids why he left the Corps at the end of the war even though he had worked his way up to officer training at Quantico: He had heard the U.S. was going to be the policeman of the world. He was willing to die for the U.S., but not for some other country. Someone should tell this recent convert to liberal internationalism that's exactly what Ron Paul is talking about. And as Pat Buchanan noted before the first Iraq War, getting involved in the Mideast is like punching a tar baby, if I may employ an un-p.c. metaphor. It wasn't Ron Paul who said the 9/11 attacks were a reaction to the presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia. It was Osama Bin Laden. Paul long ago framed what should have been the proper reaction to the 9/11 attacks: A waron Al Qaeda in particular not terrorism in general. The War on Terrorism might as well have been termed the War on Scariness. You can't be scared if you don't panic, but that's exactly what the neocons did. As Paul notes, historically it's been the left not the right that has embarked on Wilsonian efforts to improve conditions in foreign countries at the expense of Americans. But the kind of guy who's shocked to learn Tripoli is in Libya is not about to learn from history. What's next on the foreign policy front from this newly minted neocon? Perhaps he'll discover Montezuma was a Mexican. I can't wait.
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