Rand Paul: Why We Need to End the Forever Wars Now
I have continuously led the fight to reassess our foreign policy, to end
our “forever war,” and bring our fighting forces home.
by Rand Paul
After almost twenty years, we have lost
over 7,000 killed, suffered over 50,000 wounded, and spent over $5.4 trillion, in Iraq and Afghanistan
alone. And that doesn’t even account for our total human and monetary costs in
the greater Middle East over the same period of time. More so, there is no
way to begin to count the impact of lives shattered, relationships destroyed,
and continued loss of life through suicides.
Some would say this is the cost of war. Perhaps.
But in a war, the loss should have an objective.
That objective must be to deliver a better state of
peace. It should have a theory of victory to make that happen. We teach this to
our strategists and future general officers at our war colleges. Under our
Constitution, war should have the approval of Congress, and thereby consent of
the people, to achieve those war aims.
But yet, after almost twenty years of war we
don’t have any of this in a coherent fashion. We are still no
closer to victory nor do we even really have a realistic idea of what victory looks
like. We haven’t been honest about the conduct of the war. We have continuously
shifted our war aims. We have paid staggering opportunity costs, immeasurable
amounts of treasure, and most importantly, an unimaginable number of
lives—again over 7,000 dead and over 50,000 wounded. After all of this, we owe
it to those in uniform, some of who weren’t even born on 9/11, to be brave
enough to ask, “When will it be enough?”
With a new year and a new administration, we have
the opportunity to answer that question. I had hoped that we would begin to see
the light at the end of this tunnel. However, with such appointees like newly
confirmed U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his proven track record of
military intervention, we are reminded once again that the more things change
the more they stay the same.
When it was my time to question Antony Blinken at his
nomination hearing on the lessons learned from his involvement in continuing
our combat operations in the Middle East, he proceeded to dance around the
issue, standing firm in his beliefs that we must advance American diplomacy as
our first answer, rather than engage in war and conflict. We can only hope he
believes that.
During the questioning, we addressed the fact that
he, along with then-Vice President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama supported toppling
Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. It wasn’t long after that they realized no rival power
is capable of replacing Gaddafi and chaos ensued.
One would think they would have learned from what
happened in Libya. Why then did they advocate for invading
Syria? The
failure in Syria, he said, wasn’t doing enough. I disagree. We have seen time
and again that regime change does not work.
My concern for us as a country, however, is that it
seems that Mr. Blinken will default to the past, continuing on an interventionist
path using military force with no clear objective. A path that has had a
consistent track record of failure in past administrations.
President Biden has a golden opportunity in the
coming days to reset American foreign policy and end our seemingly endless war.
We must return to thoughtful diplomacy that doesn’t rely on the bayonet to
achieve something we can’t clearly define. We must be willing to keep open
lines of communication. To stand firm when necessary, but have an open ear
where possible. We must return our military “over the horizon” to reset and
refocus on our true national security interests.
But it seems the confirmation of Mr. Blinken means
we are far from taking that path.
It would be so easy to neglect my duty as a U.S.
Senator and “go with the flow.” I will not. I have continuously led the
fight to reassess our foreign policy, to end our “forever war,” and bring
our fighting forces home. I have been and will continue to be vocal about
finding a way to make this happen. And now that means reminding Mr. Blinken,
and all those who he brings with him, the errors of their past ways. I urge my
colleagues in the 117th Congress to do the same.
Rand Paul is a U.S. senator
from Kentucky.
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