Dem Rep. Slotkin on Israel-Hamas War: ‘We Want to Make Sure that You Don’t Create More Terrorists by the Way that You Act’

EXCERPT:

SLOTKIN: “Well, obviously, this one rings home for me because I did, you know, three tours alongside the military in Iraq, so I’ve seen this up close. I don’t think anyone is questioning Israel having a right to respond to the perpetrators of this terrorist attack. It was a grievous, grievous attack. But I think our experience after 9/11 is actually instructive here, right? I mean, we had — we took a second, we did a bombing campaign in Afghanistan and began over a decades-long hunt for the perpetrators of this attack. We also went ahead and occupied Afghanistan and invaded and occupied Iraq. And I think if you ask most Americans, in hindsight, they would have said, 'Hey, you know, a bombing campaign, going after the perpetrators, that’s one option that might have made more sense, as opposed to 20 years of war.' So I think that for those of us who served in places like Fallujah and Ramadi, we just want to make sure there is an end game that is not fantasy, that is actually real. We want to make sure that you don’t create more terrorists by the way that you act. And we want to make sure that we get the people who perpetrated this attack. You can want all those things all at the same time. Sometimes, being a good ally and a good partner is telling those hard lessons from our own experience."