Opinion: Rand Paul Gives Refreshing Take on Foreign Policy and Endless Wars

Greg Nash/Pool via AP

For decades, America has had politicians in Congress who think that going to war will solve our foreign issues. For decades, they have been proven wrong, yet some in Congress today, and those who held office recently in the past, believe war is the answer. 

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How many more military members need to die in senseless wars due to career politicians who oftentimes profit from these wars? While some politicians line their pockets as these wars persist, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is one of the few members of Congress who opposes war. He joined journalist Glenn Greenwald to speak about "reprehensible foreign wars."

Watch the full interview here:

Greenwald mentioned that over the past decade, Americans overwhelmingly want to be done with Middle East wars, yet America continues to find themselves in more, not fewer, wars in the Middle East. Paul responded, saying:

Even when there is a success like... destroying ISIS and we were a big part of that, we never come home.

Recently, when people said 'what should we do? They've attacked, you know, 100 different places where we have troops in the Middle East,' and my response is, why do we need 100 different places in the Middle East?

Sen. Paul told Greenwald that there needs to be a reduction in the quantity of small United States military installations scattered across the Middle East.

Who goes to war with 200 people? They're ineffectual, they're not militarily strategic to do anything but they end up being a target. Iran can't attack us over here... They can attack us when we're in close proximity to them... It's of no military strategic value to be in all these small little locations all over the Middle East.

He continued, saying that when Trump tried to pull troops from Syria, the Military Industrial Complex strongly objected to that decision. 

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It ends up being a tripwire to draw us into conflict... Trump tried to take 200 troops out of Syria and the Military Industrial Complex machinery went crazy on him... And in the end he backed away. I said at the time, 200 troops is of no value in Syria other than being a target.

While debating it on the Senate floor, Paul said the Foreign Aid Supplemental Bill should be renamed to "Ukraine first, America last." 

In the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan was president, he coined the term "Peace Through Strength." During former President Trump's first term, he took pride in that term and made it a big part of his foreign policy. The result? Four years in office, no new wars. If politicians wanted to stop America's involvement in wars, the blueprint has been laid out for them. Peace Through Strength is not just a slogan; it is an effective policy that keeps our troops out of harm's way as they continue to defend the freedoms that we love. 

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