Reason’s Fiona Harrigan writes, “Just days into 2022, multiple military bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria came under attack. Two drones carrying explosives were destroyed last Tuesday as they headed toward U.S. troops in western Iraq. The next day, rockets and indirect fire hit bases in western Iraq and eastern Syria. And last Monday, two armed drones were shot down as they approached a facility housing American advisers at the airport in Baghdad.

19 years in Afghanistan and we’re finally out. Now, 19 years in Iraq, and we still fight. @Fiona_Harrigan explains what @JoeBiden should do:https://t.co/glvan793VI

— John Stossel (@JohnStossel) January 13, 2022

Though there were no casualties, the Iran-backed militias behind the attacks have made clear that they will continue. That alone should encourage the Biden administration to get American soldiers out of harm’s way—and if it doesn’t, the faulty justifications keeping troops in Iraq and Syria should…

Dan Caldwell, vice president of foreign policy at Stand Together and a Marine veteran of the Iraq War, calls this change in mission ‘a distinction without a difference’ and says ‘an American military presence in Iraq and Syria is not required for our safety nor for the protection of our vital national interests.”

Read the entire column.

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If more people had listened to my father our war in Afghanistan would have been less tragic

By Sen. Rand Paul

After America was attacked by al-Qaeda on September 11, 2001, my father, Republican Congressman Ron Paul, voted for a U.S. strike on the Taliban in Afghanistan for harboring the 9/11 terrorists.

We were attacked, so we struck back. This is the reason we have and need a strong military: Actual national defense.

But our military is not meant for nation building. Not for policing the world. Not for imposing democracy in places that have never known it.

Not only are these bad ideas, but they aren’t the point of our military and they do nothing for our national defense.

Unfortunately, that was the George W. Bush-Dick Cheney neoconservative vision of perpetual U.S.-led wars around the globe. We know how that worked out in Iraq. Now we are learning how it ends in Afghanistan.

But this isn’t hindsight.

It was always doomed for failure, and some have said so for a very long time, and proved right time and time again through our recent foreign policy disasters.

It was my father, often alone in his party, who said for decades that the neocons’ endless wars would always come back to haunt us.

He did it early, and often. Over the weekend, a video compilation of warnings my Dad issued years ago went viral. Why was a 13-year-old video of a Congressman who retired in 2012 going viral?

Because he was right and more people should have listened to him, to me and to others who have been saying for a decade that this war needed to end.

Ron Paul asked questions like, “What if occupying countries like Iraq and Afghanistan and bombing Pakistan is directly related to the hatred directed toward us?” The scenes we see coming out of Afghanistan today are rage-filled. We honor and respect the brave men and women who served there for so long, but to ask them to stay another year there would be unconscionable. They did their duty.

“What if all wartime spending is paid for through the deceitful process of inflating and borrowing?” Dad asked. Considering that we were never able to afford the trillions spent in Afghanistan and we are now more concerned about inflation at home, Dad seemed ahead of his time.

My father asked, “What if we finally see that wartime conditions always undermine personal liberty?” Thanks to whistleblower Edward Snowden, we have a clearer picture of how our government abuses our constitutional liberties every day, often using post-9/11 jargon to justify it.

And again, on Afghanistan, my father had long urged to bring American troops home after the U.S. accomplished its original mission early on.

If the neoconservatives and others at the time had listened to Ron Paul back then, the tragedy in Afghanistan would not have been prolonged. Most importantly, it would have saved thousands of American lives and also money that we don’t actually have.

During the Tea Party-era ten years ago, I and other libertarian-leaning Republicans followed in my father’s footsteps and managed to change some formerly hawkish minds about war. When Donald Trump became president by blasting the Bush administration’s interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan and condemning “endless wars,” Dad’s foreign policy message had come full circle within the GOP.

Yet, if the Republican Party had been more like Ron Paul than Dick Cheney throughout the aughts, it would have saved our country a lot of heartache. If Barack Obama had actually ended the wars he promised too, like Dad had long urged, we would have been better off.

Now the same people who still defend the Iraq War and who also wanted to stay in Afghanistan forever are some of the loudest voices criticizing the Taliban retaking control of that country. If after 20 years of preparing Afghanistan to govern itself, it immediately bends to extremists the moment we leave, what did hawks think we were going to accomplish over another decade—or ever? Was two decades not enough time?

The fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban is sad but the blame should attach to the naive neocons who thought they could create a Jeffersonian democracy in a land clinging to the Stone Age, not to those who warned that it would inevitably end in a mess.

What’s clear today is that no one with the last name Cheney should even be speaking publicly right now. This origin of this debacle lies at their feet.

What’s even clearer, is that unfortunately the warnings of a Republican congressman from Texas years ago now feel more prescient than ever.

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More people should have listened to Ron Paul years ago

My father retired from Congress a decade ago. But he had a few questions that we should have paid closer attention to.

America would have been better off if our leaders had listened to Ron Paul years ago:

“What if our foreign policy of the past century is deeply flawed and has not served our national security interests?

What if we wake up one day and realize that the terrorist threat is a predictable consequence of our meddling in the affairs of others and has nothing to do with us being free and prosperous?

What if propping up repressive regimes in the Middle East endangers Both the United States and Israel?

More people should have listened to @RonPaul years ago.

Come over to https://t.co/1sAnMwUZeq today and all this week for if you’re tired of Big Tech censorship and want unfiltered news on Afghanistan and what we should learn (hint a the neocons were wrong then and wrong today). https://t.co/W7sJT4J3pU

— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) August 16, 2021

What if occupying countries like Iraq and Afghanistan and bombing Pakistan is directly related to the hatred directed toward us?

What is some day it dawns on us that losing over 5,000 American military personnel in the Middle East since 9/11 is not a fair tradeoff for the loss of nearly 3,000 American citizens (on 9/11).

What if it is finally realized that war and military spending is always destructive to the economy?

What if all wartime spending is paid for through the deceitful process of inflating and borrowing?

What if we finally see that wartime conditions always undermine personal liberty?

What happens if my concerns are completely unfounded? Nothing.

But what happens if my concerns are justified and ignored? Nothing good.”

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Never Trump Republicans biggest problem with Trump has always been his ‘America First’ foreign policy

What does every current Never Trump Republican member of Congress have in common besides being against Donald Trump? They are staunchly opposed to the former president’s ‘America First’ foreign policy.

For these Never Trumpers, this is not a bug, it’s a feature.

I am not saying that Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney and Adam Kinzinger were not legitimately horrified by the Capitol riot on January 6, 2020. I was too. It was a terrible and embarrassing day for the United States.

I am saying that if President Trump pursued the same foreign policy as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, you would not have heard as much criticism of Trump from Mrs. Cheney, Romney and Kinzinger. Even about January 6.

If Trump was a neoconservative “warmongering fool,” Liz Cheney would be his greatest supporter. Even after Trump claimed the election was stolen. Even after January 6.

— Jack Hunter (@jackhunter74) May 12, 2021

Because before January 6, there was March 20, 2003 – the day the U.S. invaded Iraq. I don’t have to revisit every granular detail of that debacle to recall what most Americans and the world have long known: The U.S. intervention in Iraq was arguably the worst foreign policy mistake in our nation’s history. Trump rightly called the Iraq war “the worst mistake, the most costly mistake in the history of our country.”

Liz Cheney does not think the Iraq war was a mistake, and has long appeared to want to repeat that mistake in Iran. Mitt Romney has always adhered to Bush-era neoconservative foreign policy, has long defended the Iraq war, and like Cheney, wouldn’t mind doing it again in Iran. Similar to Cheney and Romney, Adam Kinzinger is not a fan of the U.S. pulling troops out of any combat zone at any time.

Not surprisingly, Kinzinger is opposed to the removal of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Here is the congressman’s recent comments on that front, including bashing Trump for pursuing troop withdrawal, along with a follow up by advisor to Sen. Rand Paul, Doug Stafford:

No, warmongers like you who want to nation build and police the world forever own this. 15 years ago or 15 years from now, it would be the same result.

But much like your political judgement, your foreign policy judgement is god awful.

Enjoy your last few months in office. https://t.co/sC0lTKgu81

— Doug Stafford (@dougstafford) August 13, 2021

Romney predictably hates that U.S. troops were withdrawn from Afghanistan.

The Biden administration’s unwillingness to alter the Afghan withdrawal plan based on changing circumstances on the ground & the grave implications for US security interests is a tragedy & a cause for serious concern about how the administration will deal with global challenges. https://t.co/rM43t2uakH

— Senator Mitt Romney (@SenatorRomney) August 11, 2021

And of course for Liz Cheney, permanent war is a religion.

What’s happening in Afghanistan is catastrophic. US forces on the ground were working w/Afghan forces to prevent terrorists from establishing safe havens from which they can attack us again.

Withdrawing US forces is allowing terrorists & their allies to take over the country.

— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) August 9, 2021

Stafford is right that in 15 years or even 100 years, the chaos happening in Afghanistan right now after troop withdrawal was always inevitable. The only alternative is the U.S. staying there forever.

Which Cheney, Romney and Kinzinger would have no problem with.

There is no time that Cheney, Romney or Kinzinger would advocate for avoiding war or ending a war that the hawkish Washington foreign policy establishment wanted to start or continue.

They will never say it forthright in public, but what the current Never Trump Republicans in Congress hate most is that Donald Trump significantly changed the conversation about what Republican foreign policy should be. Liz Cheney is part of a family that was able to almost exclusively define Republican foreign policy for a generation.

No more. ‘America First’ has now replaced the tired and disproven ‘If we don’t fight them over there, we’re going to have to fight them here.’ After all these war-weary years, fewer Americans than ever believe that anymore.

Fewer Republicans than ever believe it – and Never Trump perpetual war propagandists can’t stand it.

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