Ron Paul: Benghazi a result of U.S. 'interventionism'

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Former Texas Rep. Ron Paul criticized Democrats and Republicans Monday for ignoring what he sees as the true cause of the Benghazi attacks: their mutual support of military interventionism overseas and its unintended consequences.

The libertarian and former GOP presidential hopeful wrote in an op-ed Monday that the post-Benghazi discussion on Capitol Hill has been more of a sideshow than an honest investigation of what motivated the attacks that left the U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans dead.

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Neither side wants to talk about the real lesson of Benghazi: Interventionism always carries with it unintended consequences, Mr. Paul said. The U.S. attack on Libya led to the unleashing of Islamist radicals in Libya. These radicals have destroyed the country, murdered thousands, and killed the U.S. ambassador.

Mr. Paul said that both parties are playing a blame game.

Democrats, he said, are making the bogus claim that the attacks were somehow tied to Republican spending cuts. And Republicans, he said, smell a political opportunity over the Obama administrations scrubbing of the initial so-called talking points on the attack, which Mr. Paul said should not come as a shock because that is standard operating procedure for the U.S. government.

Republicans want to draw attention to the presidents editing talking points in hopes no one will notice that if the attack on Libya they supported had not taken place, Ambassador Stevens would be alive today, Mr. Paul said.

Mr. Pauls op-ed follows the high-profile testimony last week from Gregory N. Hicks, State Departments deputy chief of mission in Libya at the time of the terrorist attack, who said he was stunned that U.S. Ambassador Susan E. Rice said the assault appeared to have grown out of a spontaneous demonstration against an anti-Islamic video produced in the U.S.

It also comes days after his son, Sen. Rand Paul, a likely 2016 presidential contender, starting making the case in a Washington Times op-ed and at an appearance at a GOP dinner in Iowa that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should be precluded from holding higher office because of the way she handled the Benghazi attacks.

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Ron Paul: Benghazi a result of U.S. 'interventionism'