Rand Paul Smears "GOP Hawks" As "Creators" Of Islamic State

by JASmius



Looks like Hillary Clinton has found her presidential primary challenger; problem is, he's in the other - and quite clearly the wrong - party:

Senator Rand Paul on Wednesday blamed the growth of the Islamic State (ISIS) on the "hawks in our party who gave arms indiscriminately," in the Middle East, with the weapons eventually ended up in the hands of the militant fighters.

"Most of those arms were snapped up by ISIS," the Kentucky Republican and 2016 presidential candidate told MSNBC's Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough, responding to people in his party such as Senator Lindsey Graham, who "want to bomb [Syrian leader Bashar al-]Assad, which would have made ISIS' job easier."

ISIS is also all over Libya because of "hawks in my party," said Paul. "They loved Hillary Clinton's warning. They wanted more of it ... everything they have talked about in foreign policy, they have the gall to point the finger otherwise."

I'm not sure if this is just more of the same pissing match between Paul and McCain/Graham that's been going on, off and on, ever since the Ronulan arrived in the Senate, or whether he's either lost his mind or suffered some sort of memory engram re-sequencing.  I'm also not sure to what GOP constituency he's attempting to pander with this nonsense unless the Paulnuts are still considered within the "big tent," which would probably be news to them, or Senator Paul is contemplating a party switch.

The fact of the matter is that it was the Obama Regime that flirted with Syrian "red lines" and bombing Assad - for which McCain and Graham were, indeed, rooting (though I sure as hell wasn't, for reasons the opposite of Rand's - i.e. It wouldn't have been a comprehensive intervention to liberate Syria altogether).  But....the Obama Regime didn't bomb Syria.  Just as it was the Obama Regime that did arm the proto-Islamic State under the loopy guise of empowering "moderate" anti-Assad elements that never, in fact, existed.  Which, again, McCain and Graham supported, but which they did not have any hand in carrying out.  And they were hardly any kind of majority among Republicans overall.

Same thing applies to Operation Just Because in Libya - a dubious intervention undertaken for anti-American/pro-jihadist purposes that a tine fraction of the powerless congressional GOP - mainly McCain and Graham - mindlessly supported.  It's like Senator Paul is accusing his two co-partisans of somehow manipulating The One into these actions with Dick Cheney's superdupersecret mind control apparatus or something and compounding the offense by overgeneralizing to "GOP hawks" for good measure.  Does Rand really feel that threatened by the high comedy candidacy of Lindsey F'ing Graham?  Or is that a Freudian omission that Rand's candidacy belongs in the same joke category?  I don't get it.

But what is unquestionable offensive, obnoxious, and shall we say, "counterfactual," is the accusation that "GOP hawks" had any hand in "creating ISIS," when it was precisely the pell-mell withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq - which Rand Paul presumably supported, or he can't very well call himself an isolationist "non-interventionist" - that was responsible for the Islamic State's rise.

What is not at all difficult to grasp is Senator Paul's promised foreign policy, which sounds barely distinguishable from that of the man he purports to succeed:

The ultimate answer to dealing with ISIS, Paul said, is to get an "Arab coalition and boots on the ground that will stop them ... Turks need to have their army up on the border. They need to fight."

He also believes that the United States should work toward recognizing the Kurds and encourage them to fight with Turkey to wipe out ISIS.

"Also, Assad does need to leave," Paul said, and then be replaced by "a government we can support. Right now there are 1,500 groups that hawks in our party have been arming."

The self-evident problem with these suggestions?  None of them are possible or workable or feasible without U.S. military power.  If the Turks were capable of ousting Assad, they'd already have done it.  If the "Arab coalition" and/or the Kurds were capable of defeating the Islamic State, they'd already have done it.  That neither has taken place clearly indicates that none of the aforementioned parties are capable of doing what Senator Paul is calling on them to do.

And so, under a Paul administration, the Middle East would continue to disintegrate into chaos and mass murder and war that would only empower and triumphalize the Iranian mullahgarchy and the Islamic State.  Almost as if Barack Obama had never left office at all.  Because the only way to turn that around is via U.S. leadership and certainly, at this sorry stage of the game, U.S. military intervention.  You know, what those warmongering "GOP hawks" can't wait to do.

But then this is the same man that has more or less single-handedly killed the Patriot Act, which was designed to - yes, constitutionally - protect the American homeland from rabid jihadists like the Islamic State, whatever one deludes oneself into believing was its "REAL" origins.

And that is the context for this story:

Social media-savvy Islamic State (ISIS) supporters and propagandists are overwhelming U.S. investigators trying to keep up with the jihadist plots and threats that, according to an ominous bulletin, suggest "military bases, locations, and events could be targeted in the near-term," Fox News reports.

The six-page bulletin obtained by Fox News warns that law enforcement and military personnel should be wary at upcoming national holidays and military events due to the "heightened threat of attacks by the Islamic State of Iraq and [Syria]."...

The bulletin was sent from the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and National Counterterrorism Center one day before the Memorial Day holiday weekend, Fox News reports.

And all of it solemnly, sacredly, and sacrosactly protected by Rand Paul's....creative reinterpretation of the Fourth Amendment.

So in essence, under a Paul White House, directly resisting jihadism would be both seen as both breeding, if not justifying jihadism and considered unconstitutional at the same time.

Forget Julian Castro, Hillary - which is to say, Elizabeth Warren - has found her true running mate - or at least her Commissar of State.


UPDATE: I'm not with the Big Man on much, but on the Patriot Act, Chris Christie nails it:

"I agree with the folks in the intelligence community who have kept us safe for fourteen years since 9/11," the governor said. He added that, unlike people in the Senate who are talking about the act, none have actually used it, while he did use it while he was a federal prosecutor trying 9/11 cases in New Jersey.

"They talk about it from a speculative perspective; I talk about it from a real life perspective," Christie said. "Nobody that's in this national conversation right now has the practical experience I've had."

And Christie denies that lawmakers need to choose between the Fourth Amendment and national security.

"The Patriot Act hasn't led to us making that choice," said Christie. "We can protect our homeland and our civil liberties. We've been doing it for nearly fourteen years."

While opponents say they want to see an example of how the collection of metadata has prevented an attack, Christie said he wants to see "just one" time when the act violated a person's civil liberties.

"You have people just making things up that the NSA is sitting and listening to people's conversations," said Christie. "They're not. And the fact is, we want them to be connecting those dots."

And if there is another attack, Christie said, the same people opposing the Patriot Act will be the ones calling the FBI and CIA to testify about what went wrong.

Precisely.  Amen, Governor.

I might have to lift Double-C up my primary campaign candidate list (though certainly not the top).  Even if I have to rent a crane to do it.


UPDATE II: Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal piles on:

“This is a perfect example of why Senator Paul is unsuited to be Commander-in-Chief,” Jindal said in a statement from his governmental office. “We have men and women in the military who are in the field trying to fight ISIS right now, and Senator Paul is taking the weakest, most liberal Democrat position.”

“We should all be clear that evil and Radical Islam are at fault for the rise of ISIS, and people like President Obama and Hillary Clinton exacerbate it,” he said. “It has become impossible to imagine a President Paul defeating radical Islam and it's time for the rest of us to say it.”

Couldn't have put it better myself.  And that's saying something.