REMARKS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY: Sen. Paul Delivers Foreign Policy Address
September 18, 2014 in Politics & Elections
Sen. Rand Paul today took to the Senate floor to offer a unanimous consent request to separate the Syria rebel funding language from the Continuing Resolution. Senate Democrats objected to this request. Sen. Paul then delivered a foreign policy address outlining his opposition to arming the Syrian rebels. A video and copy of Sen. Paul’s remarks as prepared for delivery can be found HERE or below. SEN. PAUL DELIVERS FOREIGN POLICY ADDRESS REMARKS:If there is one theme that connects the dots in the Middle East, it is that chaos breeds terrorism. What much of the foreign policy elite fails to grasp is that intervention to topple secular dictators has been the prime source of that chaos.From Hussein to Assad to Ghaddafi we have the same history.Intervention topples the secular dictator. Chaos ensues and radical jihadists emerge.The pattern has been repeated time after time and yet what we have here is a failure to understand, a failure to reflect on the outcome our involvement in Arab civil wars. They say nature abhors a vacuum. Radical jihadists have again and again filled the chaotic vacuum of the Middle East.Secular dictators, despots who terrorized their own people, are replaced by radical jihadists who seek terror at home and abroad.Intervention when both choices are bad is a mistake.Intervention when both sides are evil is a mistake. Intervention that destabilizes the region is a mistake.And yet here we are again, wading into another civil war in Syria. I warned a year ago that involving us in Syria’s civil war was a mistake.That the inescapable irony is that someday the arms we supply would be used against us, or Israel.That day is now. ISIS has grabbed up U.S., Saudi, Qatari weapons by the truckload and we are now forced to fight against our own weapons.Now, even those of us who have been reluctant to become involved in the wars of the Middle East feel that American vital interests are at stake, that our consulate, our embassy are threatened and that left to their own devices ISIS will fulfill what they have boasted-an attack on us at home.So, yes we must now defend ourselves from these barbarous jihadists, but let’s not compound the problem by arming feckless rebels in Syria who seem to be merely a pit stop for the arms that are inevitably scarfed up by ISIS.Remember clearly the President and his Republican allies that …read more
Source: RAND PAUL
Recent Comments