by Rand Paul
Those who love freedom and want to see a free Cuba should continue to demand nothing less than a democratic republic that defends the rights of the individual. After fifty years of embargo and no evidence of tyranny losing its grip, maybe it’s time for a new approach.
Public opinion is changing on this issue. Young Cuban Americans have shifted their position on the embargo, and many young people support a change in policy. American farmers and other exporters would benefit by being able to sell more products to a country off the coast of Florida.
Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute writes that proponents of the embargo have it all wrong when they make the fear-mongering claim that diplomacy with Cuba will make America less safe. For seventy years we had diplomatic relations with Russia, despite the gulags, despite the atrocities of Stalin and others. President Reagan himself engaged and negotiated with Communist Russia.
The fifty-year embargo against Cuba has simply not worked. If the goal was regime change, then it sure does not seem to be working. It also hurts the Cuban people more than the regime, because the regime can blame the embargo for hardship.
Emotions understandably run high for those whose parents and grandparents had their land and their lives taken from them. But if we allow the passions to cool, maybe, just maybe, we might conclude that trade is better than war and that capitalism wins every time people get a chance to see its products.
Let’s hope cooler heads will ultimately prevail and we unleash a trade tsunami that washes the Castros once and for all into the sea.
Trade with the Middle East is also in our best interest. Trade helps to alleviate poverty and enriches both sides. If the long war in the Middle East is ever to end we must realize that poverty and lack of freedom are part of what incites the Arab street. In order to understand the frustrations of the Arab street, we must come face-to-face with Mohamed Bouazizi and understand the origins of the Arab Spring.
Contrary to accepted wisdom, terrorists often come from people frustrated by a government’s heavy hand in preventing entrepreneurship. It isn’t always abject poverty or religion that motivates recruits for terrorism. Often it is the despair that comes from overbearing government. The rule of law is not only a route to prosperity, it is a path away from terrorism.
Mohamed Bouazizi was not just a street merchant who set himself afire. He was an aspiring entrepreneur foiled by an overbearing government. Hounded by government inspectors, his dreams dashed by bribe-seeking bureaucrats, he saw suicide as his only recourse.
His family recalled that he had wanted to buy a truck to expand his business but cronyism and corrupt government stifled his dream.
My great-grandfather was little more than a street merchant like Bouazizi until he saved enough to purchase a truck, which elevated him economically to a level that allowed him to purchase a home and small bit of land.
The difference between America in the late nineteenth century and the Arab world today is that bribes and cronyism were not necessary to get a license to purchase a truck or sell vegetables here.
At least part of the answer to winning the long war against terrorism is stopping the pipeline for terrorists by instituting laws that let capitalism grow.
According to Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto, who writes about poverty and property rights, Bouazizi’s motive for suicide was not theistic or civic. “Bouazizi and the others [there were some sixty-three other immolations that preceded the Arab Spring] who burned themselves were extralegal entrepreneurs: builders, contractors, caterers, small vendors and the like,” de Soto writes. “In their dying statements, none referred to religion or politics. Their great objective was ‘ras el mel’ (Arabic for ‘capital’), and their despair and indignation sprang from the arbitrary expropriation of what little capital they had.”1
Bouazizi’s brother Salem told de Soto that his brother’s legacy was that “he believed the poor had the right to buy and sell.”
De Soto investigated the black market in Egypt and discovered that the poor in Egypt owned a hundred times more “off the books capital” than Egypt receives in foreign aid each year.
Informal working assets, this off the books capital, according to de Soto, amounts to $360 billion, which is “eight times more than the value of all foreign direct investment in Egypt since Napoleon invaded more than 200 years ago.” But off the books capital does not go back into the free market. It is not invested or saved. It just sits there in the shadows.
Instead of sending foreign aid to corrupt leaders in foreign countries, we should be helping these countries create the rule of law to take advantage of the capital that already exists but is confined to “off the books” because of byzantine rules and poor protection to title.
The money we send does the exact opposite of what we intend it to do—it foments anger toward us and helps our enemies.
“Policy makers are missing the real stakes,” de Soto writes. “If ordinary people in the Middle East and North Africa cannot play the game legally—despite their heroic sacrifices—they will be far less able to resist a terrorist offensive, and the most desperate among them may even be recruited to the jihadist cause.”
What we’ve failed to understand is that when the crowd burns the American flag in Tahrir Square they are protesting our monetary support for autocracy, for a regime that allows for indefinite detention and mass trials and stifles their ability to make a living. Our enemies are not so different than us. They want a roof over their head and food on the table. America should be on whatever side allows that to happen for them.
To have a strong national defense we must also have a strong economy at home.
If we keep going in the direction we’re headed, in less than five years the interest we pay on our debt will equal what we spend on defense. If we do nothing, by the year 2030, or when your three-year-old daughter or son graduates from high school, entitlement spending will exceed tax revenue. What does that mean? It means we will have to borrow money to pay for everything, including our defense budget.
Right now, the Pentagon cannot balance its books. It can’t be audited because it recently admitted it’s too big to be audited. The defense budget accounts for one-fifth of federal spending. National defense is the most important thing we spend money on. I believe that it is the primary constitutional function of the federal government. But that does not mean it should get a blank check. We need to know how and where our defense dollars are being spent to know whether they are being spent wisely.
As our debt continues to expand, our ability to spend on defense becomes more and more precarious. We should be very concerned. We are not bulletproof. History is rife with examples—the British Empire, the Soviet bloc—of the havoc debt can wreak.
We need to reduce areas of government that are beyond the scope of what was intended by our Constitution. When the size of government is scaled back through reform and devolution to the states, resources can be more efficiently prioritized. In other words, reducing the overall weight of government allows more resources to be available during times of crisis, such as war or natural disasters. My plan to balance the budget in only five years will draw down the debt and our dependency on China and other countries to which we would rather not be financially beholden. It will also ensure that we can wisely fund our national defense to keep America safe.
15
Libya: A Jihadist’s Wonderland
As commander in chief, I would not allow our enemies to kill our citizens or our ambassadors. Peace through strength only works if you have and show strength.
Somewhere around 3 A.M. on the morning of February 14, 1979, a phone rang in the White House. Jimmy Carter was then the president. The voice on the line informed him that his embassy in Tehran was under attack. Armed Islamic fundamentalists had breached the walls and opened fire. The ambassador, William H. Sullivan, had ordered his staff to retreat to the communications vault, the embassy’s safe haven. The small attachment of Marines valiantly turned back the attackers, but the
event in February was just a prelude to worse things to come.
Leading up to that first attack, Tehran was the center of the civil unrest in Iran. By then the shah was the leader of his country in name only. He had ceded much of his power to the Iranian military. In January 1979, terminally ill from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, the shah fled Iran and Ayatollah Khomeini returned, triumphantly, from exile.
Yet, as the political turbulence roiled in Tehran, little was done to improve the security for our diplomats. According to the State Department’s own report,1 Victor Tomseth, one of the American hostages, remarked that our government showed an “absence of will and capacity” to protect the embassy.
According to another State Department report,2 terrorism directed at our foreign missions changed fundamentally during the Carter administration. During the previous two decades, attacks against our embassies were primarily carried out by individuals and small groups and involved mostly kidnapping of diplomats who were held for ransom or for the release of prisoners. By the late 1970s, however, attacks were violent, meant to be symbolic, and were sponsored by states that hated what America stood for.
Countries, movements, and organizations that despised America were nothing new. What had not been seen before was the mindset these anti-American groups brandished. They had little respect for us and no belief that we had the resolve to retaliate for attacks against us.
Ten months after Carter received the 3 A.M. phone call, the embassy was attacked again. This time, radical Islamic students took hostages and kept them for 444 days. Nightly, the embarrassment of the hostage crisis was broadcast on televisions around the world. A rescue attempt ended in disaster. To be fair, Jimmy Carter negotiated tirelessly for their release, but it would not be until Ronald Reagan’s inauguration and his promise to restore America to its once proud strength that the hostages would come home.
Nearly thirty years later, Hillary Clinton’s campaign office ran one of the most provocative ads of the 2008 Democrat primary. I’m sure you remember it.
It’s 3 A.M., and your children are safe and asleep, but there’s a phone in the White House and it’s ringing. Something’s happening in the world. Your vote will decide who’ll answer that call. Whether it’s somebody who knows the world’s leaders, knows the military, someone tested and ready to lead in the dangerous world.
It’s 3 A.M.
A concerned male voice delivers the words over images of children sound asleep in their beds, shadows fall on their peaceful faces, a phone rings and rings in the background. Finally, the commercial cuts to Mrs. Clinton picking up a receiver while the narrator asks, “Who do you want answering the phone?” The spot was meant to portray Mrs. Clinton as a leader who could keep the American people safe. At the time the ad was released, her primary campaign was running behind the junior senator from Illinois, a position that surprised most political observers. Mrs. Clinton was supposed to win that primary, at least according to those who are supposed to know what they’re talking about. But what was once thought to be a coronation began to slip away, and the ad was something of a Hail Mary pass. Mrs. Clinton’s campaign believed that it represented the most important thing that their candidate had and Barack Obama didn’t: the experience to protect the American people from threats unfolding around the world.
Playing on people’s fears is a formidable tool in politics, and the ad was effective. It was timed to run prior to the important Texas and Ohio Democratic primaries, both of which Mrs. Clinton won. As we all know, however, the ad wasn’t enough to carry her to victory in the overall primary.
But the commercial did raise a very important question. Who do you want answering the phone in the White House?
Apparently, the answer isn’t Hillary Clinton.
I wish Hillary Clinton had paid more attention to Ambassador Chris Stevens’s cry for help. I wish she’d been more responsible in providing adequate security, and I wish she had acted more decisively in Benghazi.
But she didn’t answer the call, and half a world away Americans were murdered.
Because of Mrs. Clinton’s inability to secure the safety of her employees, a message was sent to those who hate us around the world: you can murder our diplomats and get away with it. President Obama can say all he wants about bringing those responsible to justice; the people who murdered Ambassador Stevens don’t care whether they’re caught. Just months before the attack, an America hater posted on Facebook a death threat to Ambassador Stevens along with the route he jogged each morning. On Facebook.3
In January 2013, when Mrs. Clinton testified in front of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, I told her that had I been president at the time I would have relieved her of her post.
Pundits and politicians alike took me to task. They said I was grandstanding and using the moment for my own political motivation. The truth is, I decided what I would say to her on the walk over from my office to the hearing. It was not some orchestrated political moment. And, in any event, if calling attention to the preventable death of an American ambassador and the failure to heed clear warnings and respond to requests for security for an American embassy, and then covering up the tragedy to save political capital, is grandstanding, then you bet I was.
For me, the debate about the Benghazi attack has never been political. I know that statement will be met with derision by the hard left, but it’s true. In fact, I think the politicized rhetoric surrounding the White House’s original contention that an anti-Islamic movie had riled fundamentalists who then stormed the compound drowned out the more important discussion that should have been had, one I will go into below. I will never understand how politicians can give so little credence to the intelligence of the American people.
I knew, like most of us knew, that the talking points and the heated shouting on both sides that followed them were the antics of politics. That I could put behind me.
Here’s what I can’t put behind me and why the discussion about Benghazi remains as important today as it was in September 2012: I believe that our commander in chief has no greater responsibility than to defend the homeland, defend vital American interests, and defend our personnel abroad. I also believe that anyone who seeks the office of the presidency cannot have been derelict in that duty. If they were, it should preclude them from holding the office.
So let’s look at Mrs. Clinton’s record on Benghazi.
In the six weeks prior to the attack in Libya, Ambassador Chris Stevens sent cable after cable to the State Department describing the deteriorating political climate surrounding the Libyan diplomatic compound and the need for additional guards. The missives had titles such as: “Libya’s Fragile Security Deteriorates as Tribal Rivalries, Power Plays and Extremism Intensify”; and “The Guns of August; security in eastern Libya.” His diary, found on the floor of his living quarters by a reporter days after the attack, told of the ambassador’s concerns about the buildup of al-Qaeda in Benghazi and even expressed fear that he was on an al-Qaeda hit list.4 Except for a small complement of Diplomatic Security (DS), protection of the embassy and Ambassador Stevens mostly fell to a local Libyan militia called the 17th of February Martyrs Brigade. Made up of shopkeepers with ties to al-Qaeda, brigade members hadn’t been paid for months prior to the attack.
Eric Nordstrom, the Regional Security Officer at the U.S. embassy in Tripoli, twice wrote to the State Department requesting additional security for the Benghazi embassy. Nordstrom told congressional investigators that he thought the security for the compound was “inappropriately low.”5 In one report, he cited fifty security incidents in Benghazi over the three months prior to the attack.6 Nordstrom had also verbally requested twelve additional agents for the Benghazi mission, but that request, too, was denied.
“For me and my staff, it was abundantly clear that we were not going to get resources until the aftermath of an incident,” Nordstrom would later say.
Three months before the attack on the diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Mrs. Clinton’s State De
partment denied a request from the U.S. embassy in Tripoli to keep an old DC-3 that was used to shuttle weapons and Special Forces around Libya to protect embassy personnel. An elite sixteen-member Special Forces security team assigned to the Libyan mission used the plane. Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Wood led the team. His request to extend his team’s assignment in Libya was also denied. The last vestige of the elite squad was pulled in the weeks before the diplomatic compound was stormed. Colonel Wood still believes that his team might have been able to save the lives of the four Americans who died in Benghazi. “I think about that,” he told a reporter from CBS.7 “I spend a lot of time thinking about that.”
On August 15, less than a month before the Benghazi assault, embassy personal held an emergency meeting to discuss the ten Islamist militias and their training camps in the area, among them al-Qaeda and Ansar al-Sharia.
The following day, August 16, the embassy sent a cable to the State Department with the warning that the compound couldn’t defend itself against a “coordinated attack.”8
Ambassador Chris Stevens signed the cable. It was addressed to Hillary Clinton.
Time and time again, the State Department denied requests for security at the Benghazi compound.
Time and time again the cables arrived at the State Department.
Time and time again those calls went unanswered.
Given the coordination and scale of the attack—a force consisting of 150 Islamic militants armed with automatic rifles, grenades, and shoulder-held rocket-propelled grenade launchers—there is little doubt that it had been planned for months or even longer. One can only wonder what those who watched the compound over those months reported back to their superiors. Did they think we didn’t care about the safety of our diplomats? Did they believe we were too busy with other, more important things? Or did they think we were just plain stupid?