Paul: ‘Radical Jihad Has Run Amuck’ Because ‘Intervention Has Toppled Secular Dictators’

"Radical jihad has run amuck in the Middle East because intervention has toppled secular dictators. There weren’t radical jihadists doing much of anything in Libya until Gaddafi was gone. He kept them in check. Was Gaddafi a great humanitarian? No. He was an awful despot. But his terror was on his own people, not the United States. The people in charge — if you can say anybody is in charge in Libya --  their terror is to be exported. Some of them are fighting in Syria.

Where I differ with this administration is whether to arm the same side as the jihadists. We will be in a war on the same side as the jihadists. They say, 'Oh, no, we can make it a three-way war.' War is very confusing, but can you imagine we’re going to be in the middle of a three-way war where many analysts say when you’re in the trenches, when the so-called moderates that your money is going to buy arms for, when they are in the trenches, they are side by side with al-Nusra, they are side by side with al Qaeda. Do you want your money and your arms being sent to support troops that are fighting alongside al Qaeda?

Here’s the great irony of this. The use of force resolution that they predicate this whole thing upon from 2001 says that we can fight terrorism. They have interpreted that to be al Qaeda and associated forces. Well, guess what? The moderate rebels are fighting with al Qaeda. We can use the 2001 use of authorization of force, as Secretary Kerry understands it, we could use that authorization of force to attack the same people we’re giving the weapons to. Think about the insanity of this!

We’re giving weapons to people fighting in trenches with al Qaeda, and if you interpret the use of force resolution as the Secretary Kerry does, we could actually attack under that formulation the very people we’re giving the weapons to. It’s absurd. We shouldn’t be fighting alongside jihadists. This administration and its allies have been really on both sides of this civil war. It’s messy, it’s unclear. There are bad people on both sides. We need to stay the heck out of their civil war. I have opposed them for reasons that I think are becoming clear and that I think that the American people will understand. It’s not that I’m against all intervention. I do see ISIS as a problem. ISIS is now a threat to us, but I see our previous policy has having made it worse.

I supported the decision to go into Afghanistan after 9/11. There are valid reasons for war. They should be few and far between, they should be very importantly debated and not shuffled into a 2,000-page bill and shuffled under the rug. When we go towards the most important vote that any senator will ever take many on the other side have been vetted on this issue. When there was Republican in office there were loud voices on the other side. I see an empty chamber. There will be no voices against war because this is a Democrat president’s war.

That is something the hypocrisy of what should resound in this nearly empty chamber - is that where are the voices on the other side who were so hard on George Bush, who actually by the way, actually did come to Congress and we voted on an authorization of force. Agree or disagree, we did the right thing. But now we’re going to fight the war for three or four months, see how it’s going, see how the election goes, and then we’re going to come back and maybe we’ll talk about the use of authorization of force, maybe we’ll have amendments.

Colin Powell wrote in his autobiography - he said, 'War should be the politics of last resort and when we go to war, we should have a purpose that our people understand and support.' I think that’s well thought out. I think he had it right. America should only go to war to win. We shouldn’t go to war sort of meandering our way to a spending bill. War should only occur when America’s attacked, when it’s threatened or when our American interests are threatened or attacked. I’ve spent about a year and I will probably spend a couple more years trying to explain to the American people why Secretary Clinton made terrible decisions in Benghazi, not defending the consulate. Not the night of, not the day after, not the talking points - the six months in advance when security was requested. And this is one of the reason it persuades me that as reluctant as I am to be involved in Middle Eastern wars, that we have to do something about it. We have to either leave Iraq or we have to protect our embassy, protect our consulate.

So I think there are valid reasons for being involved, and I think we are doing the right thing but just in the wrong way. If you want to have less partisans sniping about war, if you want to unify the country, think back to December 8, 1941. FDR came before a joint session of Congress and he said, 'This day will live in infamy,' and he united the country. People who had previously been opposed to war came forward and said, 'We can’t stand this attack. We will respond. We will be at war with Japan.' He didn’t wait around four months. He didn’t wait and say, 'Hmmm, let’s wait until the midterm elections, and then we’ll come back maybe in the lame duck, if there is a lame duck, and maybe we’ll discuss whether or not the Japanese should be responded to.'

War is a serious business, but we make it less serious by making it political, hiding and tucking war around, tucking war away into a spending bill, we make it less serious."