Taking a Stand

by Rand Paul

  “A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou…”

  The library in Alexandria, Egypt, was not only a treasury of literature—it contained 700,000 scrolls, the equivalent of 100,000 books—but also an architectural wonder, towering over the world’s most traveled trade route. Greeks, Indians, and Chinese all passed through Egypt, taking the knowledge they found in the library of Alexandria and spreading it wherever they went.13 It was the Muslims who mastered pens and printing. As late as the 1960s, it was said that books were written in Cairo, printed in Beirut, and read in Baghdad.

  Muslims paved the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment. They invented or helped develop the magnetic compass, coffee, zoology, eyeglasses, the technique of inoculation, the crankshaft (perhaps the biggest mechanical advancement after the wheel), and if not the fiddle, the great-grandfather of the violin, the rebab. Islam was known for its scholarship, its resourcefulness, and its art.14

  The whole of Islam has seemingly forgotten its tolerant past.

  Yes, it is true that most Muslims are not committed to violence against Christians, but that’s not the whole truth. The unfortunate whole truth is that far too many Muslims are dedicated to a single and unimaginable objective: to wipe Christianity from the face of the Earth. These are the militants, the suicide bombers, and the terrorists who incinerate churches, kill priests, and murder innocent Christian children. These are the ones who target the defenseless. These are the ones who condone this violence or simply look the other way.

  These are the ones Islam must stop.

  The war on Christianity will cease only when Islam gets its own house in order and condemns the element of hate that is distorting it. The war will end only when civilized Islam steps up and destroys the aberrant barbaric offshoot that condones the murder of innocents.

  Sometimes poetry can make sense out of a world that defies logic. Parveen Shakir, a Persian poet in the Urdu tradition, wrote, “they insist on examining the firefly in the daylight. The children of our age have grown clever.” Radical Islam will end only when Islam has had enough of its extremists. Until Muslims stop tolerating their own intolerance the war will continue. Only when Islam allows her children, like Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl who was shot by the Taliban for promoting education for girls and survived to accept the Nobel Peace Price, to examine the firefly in the daylight will things begin to change. Only then will knowledge and enlightenment begin to grow. Only then will violence recede.

  I pray for that moment to come sooner rather than later.

  In 1903, my great-great-grandmother wrote to her son who was working a few hours away from their home in Youngstown, Ohio. “Our Sabbath was lovely which I spent at home as usual,” she penned. “But the dear Lord willing I hope I can soon go to his house again. Anyway His grace is sufficient for me. There is a song in my soul today, a blessed sunshine that no outward circumstances can take away. The Lord is a sun and a shield to all that trust in Him. May He always be your guide.”

  My faith has never been easy for me. Never been easy to talk about and never without its obstacles. Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote, “I did not arrive at my hosanna through childlike faith but through a fiery furnace of doubt.” I don’t wear my religion on my sleeve. I’m a Christian and proud to be one, but maybe not always a good one. Like Dostoyevsky, one of my literary heroes, I have had my doubts. As a medical student and then as a physician, I have struggled with understanding God’s role in inexplicable diseases like terminal tumors in children. My first patient as a medical student on the surgical service was a beautiful young woman about my age with metastatic melanoma to her ovaries. Though I still had much to learn then about medicine, I knew enough to know her time left on Earth was very short. How could a tragedy like this occur in a world that was supposed to have purpose and design?

  I struggle, too, to understand the misery and pain that war inflicts on our young men and women. I struggle to understand man’s inhumanity to man.

  I pray for understanding, and the Bible says that if you act as if you have faith it will be given to you.

  There’s an old story about the man whose neighborhood begins to flood. He climbs to his roof and prays to God to save him from the rising waters. Rescuers come in a boat and then a helicopter. But the man tells them that his faith in God will save him. Eventually, the man drowns and goes to heaven, where he meets St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. “Why didn’t my faith in God save me?” the man asks. “He sent you a boat and a helicopter,” St. Peter says. “What more did you want?”

  Prayer is a great start, but prayer without action won’t stop the onslaught of atrocities against Christians.

  We need to shout down the silence. We need to stem the flow of American taxpayer cash that funds this war on America and Christianity, and we need to use our military wisely.

  We need someone to take a stand.

  As William Lloyd Garrison stated, “I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation… I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—and I will be heard.”15

  13

  Defending America

  If we destroy our enemy but lose, what defines our freedom in the process? Have we really won?

  There is no greater priority for the federal government than national defense. When I deliberate on spending, and when I consider what rises to the greatest of importance under the Constitution, I unequivocally conclude it is absolutely necessary to defend our freedom.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower once said that America’s foreign policy is simple: “We’re for peace, first, last and always.” I believe, even in today’s complicated world, that America should still hold fast to Eisenhower’s belief as the root of our foreign policy. In an ever-changing world, though, foreign policy must understand and see the world as it is, not at we wish it to be.

  I believe a strong foreign policy should consist of fundamental beliefs—for example, that war should be the last resort. No matter the events of the day, our foreign policy should reflect who we are as a people. We can and should adapt to a fast-changing world, but guided by the principle that we are a nation that does not seek new territory, that we are a nation that acts in self-defense, and that we are also a nation that will react with overwhelming force to defend our nation and our liberty.

  So how do you assemble a foreign policy for today’s world while holding on to what defines us? Well, maybe the first thing to do is not repeat the mistakes of those who came before you.

  From George W. Bush’s rush to war to Barack Obama’s just don’t do anything stupid, stance,1 our foreign policy can be categorized by its extremes. Obama’s handling of the Middle East—from his misuse of troops in Afghanistan, to his bungled withdrawal from Iraq, to his arming of rebels, his heated proclamations and red lines (which turned out to be so much hot air), and his active role in regime change, which, in my opinion, produced the volatile environment that reigns in the Middle East today—has not only been inept but has put America and Americans in further danger. Obama’s approach to Syria alone is so convoluted that his own ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that he quit because he could no longer “defend America’s policy.”2

  Regime Change

  If there is one theme that connects the dots in the Middle East, it’s that terrorism is a direct result of chaos, and chaos is a direct result of toppling secular dictators. The removal, or attempted removal, of Saddam, Gaddafi, and Assad can be directly tied to the emergence of radical jihadists. The pattern has been repeated time after time after time, and yet, still today, those who steer our foreign policy either refuse to understand or are incapable of understanding the indisputable fact that the same actions produce the same results.

  This pattern began with the war in Iraq. Just about every false assumption imaginable about the cost, challenge, and purpose of the Iraq War occurred. Perhaps most disturbing of all was the utter lack of consideration of what an Iraq without Sad
dam would look like. In the Iraq War, over four thousand American soldiers were killed, and over thirty thousand were injured. Taxpayers spent trillions of dollars on a war that removed the balance of power and destabilized the region. With Saddam gone, Iran is stronger. Where Saddam once counterbalanced Iran, a vacuum now exists, and into that vacuum has poured radical Islam.

  Then there is Hillary’s war in Libya. In March 2011, Obama ordered airstrikes at Hillary’s request, including Tomahawk missiles, to support rebel fighters who overthrew Colonel Muammar el-Gaddafi. He did so in direct contradiction to the Constitution, which explicitly reserves the power to declare war to the legislature. In going to war in Libya, President Obama not only overruled top Pentagon lawyers but his own Justice Department.3 After Gaddafi fell, Libya became a sanctuary and training ground for terrorists from Northern Africa to Syria. Today, Libya is awash in American guns, rockets, and ammunition, much of which has found its way to all sides of fighting in Syria. It’s not only America who is arming the rebels, but our supposed allies: Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait. Militants control our deserted embassy in Tripoli.

  Libya now is a jihadist’s wonderland. Extremists swim in the pool of our embassy. Our ambassador was assassinated in the attack on Benghazi, and the remaining embassy staff ultimately was forced to flee overland to Tunisia. Hillary’s war may well have ramifications that make the whole world less safe.

  A few years before this, the U.S. government had sent a message to Gaddafi: give up your weapons of mass destruction and help us with the war on terror—or else. Interestingly, this seemed to be the whole point of the Bush Doctrine in the Middle East: you are either with us, or you’re with the terrorists. In Libya, the Bush administration had what could have been considered a resounding success for this doctrine. Except we grasped defeat from the jaws of victory.

  Both parties are to blame for this. Just a year before Hillary’s war in Libya, Senators McCain and Graham were there, celebrating Gaddafi’s newfound cooperation with America, and taking a victory lap with him over ridding his country of weapons of mass destruction. In other words, he did what we told him to do, clearly and verifiably.

  Then just a year later, Senators Graham and McCain were stridently joining Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in a chorus clamoring for a war to take out Gaddafi. It made no sense. While a dictator and not a good man, Gaddafi had done exactly what we ordered him to do. Gaddafi gave up his nuclear ambitions voluntarily, and yet we toppled him anyway.

  Now we sit in negotiations with Iran, another troublesome country in the region, and we tell them to rid themselves of their desire for weapons of mass destruction. The problem is, we’ve already sent the wrong message: the last time a leader gave up his desire for weapons of mass destruction, we bombed his country and took him out.

  In September 2013, Obama sought the same strategy in Syria. I opposed bombing Assad because there was no clear, discernible American interest, and I feared that toppling another secular dictator would once again embolden the radical Islamists. I thought it would increase the safe haven for terrorists that had already begun to develop, and I said so. Repeatedly. I thought it would put Christians in further peril. On the Foreign Relations Committee, I made it clear we would rue the day we sent arms to Islamic rebels in Syria. The ultimate irony is that someday our own weapons will be used against us or Israel.

  The president backed down only because he knew that Congress was not going to support him and that his plan wasn’t popular with the American people. If he hadn’t, who do you think would be the ruling faction in Damascus? With little doubt, ISIS. Despite our air assaults on the terror group, ISIS still remains a threat.

  As it turned out, under diplomatic pressure, Syria agreed to turn its chemical stockpile over to be destroyed. That option was always open, but Obama had to be forced into taking it. Some would argue that the threat of force convinced Assad to take the deal. Perhaps, but the extended debate that others and I forced the country to have also gave time for diplomacy to work.

  As I said in a speech in front of the Senate, “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.”

  As Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain wrote on The Intercept, “anyone paying even casual attention now knows that killing the Bad Dictator of the Moment (usually one the U.S. spent years supporting) achieves nothing good for the people of that country…”

  Unfortunately, Obama’s decisions, disengaging diplomatically in Iraq and the region and fomenting chaos in Libya and Syria, leave few good options and many more terrorists. Since 2010, jihadist groups worldwide have increased by 58 percent, with twice as many jihadist fighters, according to a 2014 Rand study written by Seth Jones.4 Al-Qaeda affiliate attacks have tripled in that time. There’s a greater threat of radical Islam attacking the U.S. now than there was before these policies were enacted.

  Arming Rebel Soldiers

  Two years ago in Syria, Hillary Clinton’s desire was to arm and aid al-Qaeda and ISIS-affiliated rebels against Assad. President Obama requested $500 million to arm some three thousand “moderate” Syrian rebels with varied loyalties to fight ISIS. How ridiculous is that? We didn’t even see the Arab Spring coming, and now all of a sudden we’re experts on who is a moderate rebel or who is not?

  One of the so-called “moderates” in Libya, hailed by Republican and Democrat interventionists alike, is Abdel Belhadj, who is linked to terrorism and al-Qaeda in four different countries.

  Our past performance in picking the moderates in civil war hasn’t exactly been stellar. We spent billions to arm and train the Iraqi army only to see them strip out of their uniforms, drop their weapons, and head for the hills at the first sight of ISIS.

  Back in 2013, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Martin Dempsey, had this to say about arming rebels in Syria: “Risks include extremists gaining access to additional capabilities, retaliatory cross-border attacks, and insider attacks or inadvertent association with war-crimes due to vetting difficulties.”5 He further admitted that telling friend from foe in Syria was increasingly difficult. In other words, weapons stamped “Made in the USA” could be used against innocent civilians or used against our own soldiers. In voicing his country’s reluctance to go along with Obama’s plan to arm Syrian rebels, the German ambassador to the United States said in the New York Times, “We can’t really control the final destination of these arms.”6

  I’m as vehemently opposed to sending aid to the rebels in Syria today as I was in 2013 when I told my colleagues on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations that they would be funding allies of al-Qaeda. Even Ambassador Ford admitted as much when he said it was inevitable that the “moderate” rebels would at times fight alongside al-Qaeda or al-Nusra. If that is true, we shouldn’t send weapons and aid to allies of al-Qaeda. Haven’t we learned our lesson? Our aid money should not be sent to enemies of America. With Syria, we were promised that rebels who received our help would be “vetted.” We’re now years into the conflict and years into sending aid and arms, and still no one really knows to whom we’re giving the guns and money. I warned the Senate committee that giving aid to the Syrian rebels could come back to haunt the United States.

  Some rebels are indeed stronger because of our aid. Some rebels gained territory and accumulated U.S. weapons, and those rebels belong to the ISIS terrorist group. So the group that is now perhaps the largest threat to U.S. interests and citizens is stronger simply because we and our allies pumped weapons into this civil war. Still, the neocons and hawks complain that we didn’t send enough weapons into Syria.

  One former CIA agent had it right when he wrote that the only thing “moderate” about the Islamic rebels we are arming is their ability to fight! How did President Obama respond? By sending more weapons into that cesspool of a civil war.

  Mrs. Clinton often talks about America not having “skin in the game” in Syria. I wonder just whose skin she
’s talking about. Is it the skin of our brave men and women in the armed forces? The truth is, we had “skin” in the game for months before Obama ordered airstrikes in Syria. The CIA has been arming Syrian rebels since at least the spring of 2014. It hasn’t exactly been a secret mission. Frontline and PBS filmed a documentary that included footage of an American-run “moderate rebel” training camp in Qatar. One rebel who was interviewed was disappointed that he wasn’t being trained in antiaircraft weapons.

  It’s a wonder he hadn’t been. The amount and type of weaponry making its way into Syria is staggering. Here’s a short list of it.

  Reports show that the CIA, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan supplied roughly six hundred tons of weapons to the militants in Syria in 2013 alone.

  According to U.N. records, Turkey sent forty-seven tons of weaponry to the Syrian Rebels over a period of a few months—sending twenty-nine tons in just one month in late 2014.7

  Videos appear online of Free Syrian Army rebels with downed M-8 helicopters and MANPAD surface-to-air missiles.

  An American-made TOW antitank system was shown in the hands of Harakat Hazm, a group of so-called moderate rebels. According to the Wall Street Journal, Saudi Arabia, in partnership with the United States, provided these weapons to the rebels as part of a “pilot program” that would test the rebels’ trustworthiness. The report also detailed millions of dollars in direct U.S. aid to rebels.8

  The New York Times reports that Qatar used “a shadowy arms network to move shoulder-fired missiles” into the hands of Syrian rebels.9

  According to Gulfnews.com, Saudi Arabia has also partnered with Pakistan to provide a Pakistani-made version of Chinese shoulder-launched missiles to the rebels.10