Ron Paul, Non-intervention, Pakistan and Terrorism

Ron Paul's a bit of an extreme/differentiated candidate, but he often speaks straight and gets important views out which would otherwise be muffled by the rest of the politicos' samespeak. He recently affirmed the view of non-intervention in other countries' affairs, referring to the US policy of arming Pakistan's Musharraf, even though he has signally failed to hold the line against the Al-Qaeda hordes. In a good article on The Huffington Post, this key paragraph is relevant.

Terrorism is a tactic adopted by weak actors. Having limited resources with which to wage war, groups like al Qaeda resort to a sort of foreign affairs judo: using the enemy’s power against itself – in this case, us. The action for them is in the reaction. Al Qaeda's strategy is to recreate the old Afghan jihad against the USSR: hit the U.S. and our allies hard in order to provoke invasion and occupation to bleed our treasury and military dry. They celebrate our occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq as steps towards our eventual total withdrawal from the region.