Sen Rand Paul Appears on CNN #39;s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer November 5, 2013
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Sen Rand Paul Appears on CNN's The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer November 5, 2013 - Video
Rand Paul and John McCain are at odds over whether the Senate needs to declare war on ISIS. Paul insists that the Senate has no choice, as under the War Powers Clause of the US Constitution only Congress is empowered to take the country to war. McCain is derisive of Paul and his proposed war resolution, and has the support of his Senate colleagues, who have shown no interest in voting on the war. For some, this dispute may seem to be a technical matter--after all we have fought wars for decades without actually following the Constitutional rules. For others, Rand Paul among them, fealty to the Constitution demands that any decision to go to war be put to a vote. This may seem to many observers to be an intra-party skirmish that is of little import, but it is actually a rare opportunity for the country to consider whether and why we should go to war.
We are not good at having national debates about important issues. When issues of importance come up, we run to our corners--Red vs. Blue. Fox vs. MSNBC--it is rare that we have substantive, thoughtful exchanges of ideas and views. On matters of war and peace, there are particular ironies. Despite having led the nation into two long wars that are now widely viewed as mistakes, the public continues to trust Republicans more than Democrats on matters of war and national security. Since the Vietnam War, Democrats have been viewed as the anti-war party, and for decades now they have struggled to change this image to little avail. The difference between the parties was most clearly on display in the vote to go to war in Iraq. Republicans wanted to vote yes, Democrats were afraid of voting no. Given this reality, the fight between Rand Paul and John McCain is the best chance we are likely to have for a real and substantive debate over US war policy.
Rand Paul and John McCain start from very different positions. John McCain's moral authority as a hawk on matters of national security is rooted in his time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. He is a decorated veteran at a time when the percentage of Congress that has served in the military has declined to 20 percent from around 75 percent several decades ago. Rand Paul's credibility is largely rooted in his commitment to constitutional principles and his libertarian skepticism of governmental that is deeply rooted in the American ethos.
If Vietnam is the source of McCain's moral high ground, it is also the source of his vulnerability in this debate. McCain has been an unmatched advocate of military intervention in recent years. At the same time, he fails to see that the Vietnam experience that took years of his life remains pivotal to American skepticism when our leaders sound the trumpets for a new war. The Gulf of Tonkin resolution that launched that decade-long war turned out to be predicated on a lie, and the communist regime that we feared is now our trading partner and ally. The Vietnam experience was followed by other wars and missteps that further demonstrated the unpredictable consequences of our war policies. In the 1980s, we partnered with Saudi Arabia to build an Islamist force to defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, only to watch those Islamists morph into the Taliban, Al Qaeda and ultimately ISIS. In the 2000s, we went to war in Iraq on false pretenses to -- in the minds of the Neocons -- lay the foundation for a democratic transformation of the Arab world, only to wake up to the realization that we had delivered Iraq into Iran's sphere of influence.
We have learned through painful experience that power on the battlefield is not enough to win a war. During the Vietnam War, Charles Colson, a senior aid to President Richard Nixon, had a plaque on his wall that said "When you've got 'em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow." That slogan summed up what was mistaken about our war policies. It turns out that it simply is not true. Hearts and minds do not follow, they generally go in the opposite direction. And people have long memories.
ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has proven to be a skillful manipulator of the American psyche. He has used public beheadings and threats to whip up our emotions to draw us into a ground war, and for good reason. Fighting America mano-a-mano would elevate ISIS's prestige as the front line of Islam's battle against the west. It would be a powerful recruiting tool and build support within Muslim community across the world that harbor resentments against America and the west. And Baghdadi's efforts have been successful. While a few months ago, the consensus across the political spectrum was that we would never send ground troops to this new war, now Speaker of the House John Boehner has suggested that it as inevitable, that we have "no choice."
Rand Paul and John McCain should debate why, given our history in recent wars and our history in the region, going to war with ISIS is the best approach for achieving our goals.
ISIS has many enemies in the region, and most of them have armies with far greater capability than ISIS. According to Wikipedia, Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia have between them over 1.25 million active duty military personnel, or just 150,000 fewer than the active personnel of the United States armed forces. Add to that the quarter million Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga force and the quarter million Syrian army and one can safely assert that the frontline states that are most immediately threatened by ISIS have the military capacity to deal with the threat that ISIS poses to the region.
But each of these countries has other agendas, and as long as we are prepared to fight ISIS in their stead, they will not come together to address the threat that they each face. And certainly, each of them understands the threat that an American presence on the ground would creates a galvanizing force for ISIS. This is a fight for the hearts and minds of Sunni Islam, in the region and worldwide. It is a fight that Muslims must lead, that Muslims must win.
If we expand our fight with ISIS, the outcome will not be what we expect. Despite all of our experience over the years, we still seem to ignore the fact that our presence on the ground changes things. Baghdadi understands this well. Every fighter killed by an American will win him three new recruits. Every photograph of a maimed Muslim mother holding a dead Muslim baby will amplify resentments toward America and increase the sympathy for and support of ISIS in Muslim communities across the world. How can he lose that fight?
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Rand Paul Is Demanding a Real Debate About Going to War ...
Rand Paul can expect Mitch McConnell to have his back if he runs for president but the GOP Senate minority leader predicted it would be a tough task for his junior colleague from Kentucky to run for both the Senate and the White House at the same time.
Paul has officially announced his bid for reelection to the Senate but is currently barred by state law from seeking both that office and the presidency. He has not officially announced a presidential campaign but has laid the groundwork to build an infrastructure for a White House run. His ambitions to run for both offices simultaneously took a blow when Kentucky Democrats held the state house this fall, making it more difficult to change the law.
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McConnell called the dilemma something Paul has to grapple with at POLITICOs Lessons from Leaders summit on Wednesday morning.
Its a tough challenge in Kentucky. We have a very early filing deadline, late January. I think the Iowa caucuses start in February now, McConnell said. If that werent bad enough, after youre the nominee [in Kentucky], the only way to get off the ballot is if youre dead or declared insane by a judge.
(LESSONS FROM LEADERS: Brothers Castro: No immigration reform until 2016)
Paul is something of a trailblazer and would become perhaps the first major candidate to run for both offices at the same time. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has said he would not pursue reelection and the White House at the same time.
It is noteworthy that everybody that has run for two things at once has been the vice presidential candidate. Theyve been picked by someone else, they havent started out from the beginning and said, I want to run for both at the same time, McConnell told POLITICOs Susan Glasser and Mike Allen, who were moderating the event.
Still, the GOP leader broadcast that everyone should be prepared for him to forcefully back Pauls presidential ambitions. Though Paul defeated McConnells hand-picked Senate candidate in 2010, the two men have grown to be steady allies in the years since, sharing political advisers and coordinating strategy as they seek to balance their stewardship of the GOPs business and grassroots wings.
Rand Paul and I have a close relationship. We didnt start out that way, but we ended up being big allies. He was very helpful to me , McConnell said, referring to Pauls assistance with his reelection bid, and obviously Im going to support somebody from my own state. And everybody understands that.
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McConnell on Rand Paul's 2016 dilemma
WASHINGTON - Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., tangled on Tuesday with Secretary of State John Kerry over the administration's military action against Islamic State terrorists in Syria and Iraq.
Paul, a possible 2016 Republican presidential candidate, said Congress should have acted to declare war when the U.S. first carried out air strikes against the terrorist group in late September.
"The Constitution is quite clear that this responsibility lies with Congress," Paul said at a hearing by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "For four or five months we've been derelict in our duty."
And, he added, "I think this president has been derelict."
The foreign relations panel is expected to vote Thursday on a draft "authorization for the use of military force," more limited than a declaration of war, authored by the committee's chairman, Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.
Paul and, it appears, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., are likely to propose an amendment that would be a declaration of war that limits military action to a year and bars the use of U.S. ground troops in most cases.
"Every day we've been on offense without Congress, we believe, is an unauthorized war," Kaine said. "I don't think we can wait until January or February."
Kerry, appearing before the lawmakers to discuss that authorization, urged lawmakers not to tie President Barack Obama's hands in prosecuting the fight in Syria and Iraq.
"It would be a mistake to ask for a declaration of war," said Kerry, a former chairman of the foreign relations panel. "A declaration of war has only been used against states."
"We are not going to war in the way we went to war in Iraq; we are not going to war in the way we went to war in Afghanistan," the secretary argued.
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Paul, Kerry spar over Islamic State, war powers
Sen Rand Paul Appears on Fox #39;s On the Record with Greta Van Susteren July 10, 2014
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Sen Rand Paul Appears on Fox's On the Record with Greta Van Susteren July 10, 2014 - Video