FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

Sen. Rand Paul Rips Into ‘War Caucus’ That’s Attacking President Trump for Ending Permanent War

Feb. 5, 2019 (EIRNS)—Not present in the Senate for the Feb. 1 vote on Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s craven resolution condemning President Donald Trump for pulling U.S. troops out of Syria and Afghanistan, Sen. Rand Paul took to the Senate floor yesterday to demand that the Senate adopt a resolution applauding the President for doing what no Democratic or Republican President has thought of doing in decades: ending the wars. He then issued a press release and tweet to ensure his speech is heard.

Senator Paul lambasted “the war caucus—on both sides, Republicans and Democrats—those who will not ever let the soldiers come home.” They say that President Trump acted “precipitously,” after 17 years of war. “The same people—the war caucus—and they’re on both sides of the aisle—will also tell you, if you announce that you’re leaving in six months, then you’re telegraphing to the enemy that you’re leaving. So they don’t want us to leave precipitously. They don’t want us to flee a planned way. They have left us no way to leave.

“People talk about bipartisanship. What is the one thing that brings Republicans and Democrats together? It’s war. They love it. The more the better. Forever war. Perpetual war.”

The McConnell resolution should be ripped up, he proposes.

“I would like to ask unanimous consent that we get rid of the resolution condemning the President and that we replace it with a resolution that says simply this: that we applaud President Trump for being bold and brave enough to consider bringing our troops home, declaring victory and ending America’s longest war.”

Paul is scathing about what we are sending our soldiers to fight for: in Afghanistan, for a government which produced more opium than anywhere in the world for a decade, headed by a man who has a brother who is a drug trafficker and another who is a thief who ran off with the money. To build half-completed luxury hotels from which snipers now shoot on American soldiers, in the capital where after 17 years of our soldiers fighting there it is too dangerous to go a few blocks without an escort of Marine contingents and helicopters.

“With regard to the troops in Syria, President Trump said, I will defeat ISIS, and we’ll come home. Now the people are changing the mission. They say, we have to stay there until the Russians leave. We’ve to stay there until the Iranians leave. They’ve been there a long, long time. They’re not leaving. That means we stay there forever. We have 2,000 troops compared to tens of thousands of other troops, compared to a couple hundred thousand Turkish troops along the border. Do we really want to be involved in another enormous land war in the Middle East?”