i need to convince a friend of the idea of blowback

It was kitschy and all, but the point is a real one.

and start eating his food, take over his tv controller and boss him around a little.

When he reacts point out that this is blowback and it happens when someone or some country intrudes into the lives of others.

... Chalmers Johnson
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3067364950234559926...

If your friend really wants to know he needs only look at specific historical facts that are taught in college, not those thaught in High School but those taught in college, I wish they were not different but they are drastically.
For instance, Ho Chi MIn from Vietnam, went to the treaty of Versailles and asked to see The Preident and the Prime minister of England concerning The French being in Their country, He did this to try and excersice the self reliance rule of the treaty, the U.S. and England would not talk to him, this was doen several times and still no reaction until he spoke with the communist and received money to start an offensive against the French, and eventually the U.S. because the French pulled out leaving us holding the ball, we would have pulled out but President Kennedy would have seemed weak to the russians. Blow Back is us not listeneing in the first place our arrogance caused us to go to war, if we practice what we preach we would be ok but we do not.
Blow back is us giving money to Osama Bin Laden to fight the Russians in Afghanistan, we armed him and then now have to fight him. Blow Back is the U.S. giving money to Saddam Hussien to fight the Iranians then we fought him, getting the picture?

I don't believe that, 6 years ago, the terrorists were committing blowback. I live in Europe and I was convinced that they wanted to capture Europe to obey their will. But that was 6 years ago. Now the Islamic world is split and, with guys like Sarkozy elected in France, they know that they will never control Europe.

My point is:

1) Since the war is over in the minds of most Americans, you can convince a pro-war person to vote for Ron Paul based on any number of his other policies besides being anti-war.

2) You don't need to convince anyone that the WOT was not worth fighting in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and even 2005. We are talking about whether war in 2009 is still worth fighting. There comes a time in all wars when you give the enemy a way of saving face and work with them.

Don't let anyone tell you that permawar is a historically proven strategy for success. World War Two was over in 3.3 years after Pearl Harbor was attacked. That means we should have "won" this war by Christmas of 2005...which was about the time the Neocons started to regulate the Internet on us.

After the Ostia terrorist pirate attack near Rome in 68BC, Pompey was given dictatorial powers "temporarily" by the Roman Republic to eliminate the terrorists. Pompey pulled an Afghanistan War-style move and wiped out the terrorists within months just like the US military would do in late 2001. But then he pushed for and got another war against Mithridates, etc, etc.

Pompey went on to circle the Black Sea and capture Jerusalem all of which had nothing to do with terrorist pirates.

Ostia was the 911 of ancient history.

In 2008, the Neocons want to continue to "confront Islam". For instance they want to continue to promote feminism in Muslim countries and recently tried to foist Bhutto on the Pakistani people.

Ask your friend if he is OK with continued war in 2009 and 2010. If he says no, tell him that 2009 is when Ron Paul would take office.

President Bush still has a year to fight "Islamofascism" if he thinks that is the right thing to do. No need for your friend to vote now for an extension of that fight instead of looking at other issues.

Just turn the situation around for him. Iraq invades us because we have WMD's. They take out our government and insist that a dictatorship is WAY better than a democratically elected government. Militia groups pop up all over the US trying to get our country back from the Iraqi forces. The Iraqi forces start training a US military to fight against the Patriot militia groups. Iraq builds bases all over the US and patrols the streets. Etc. Etc. Sounds scary right? Wouldn't we hate them? Sorry if that offends anyone.