Rand Paul: ‘ISIS Exists and Grew Stronger Because of the Hawks in Our Party’

[Valin]

Washington Free Beacon:

Washington Free Beacon Staff

May 27, 2015

 

 

Presidential hopeful Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) said Wednesday on MSNBC that the Islamic State terrorist group “exists and grew stronger” because of hawkish members of the Republican Party, going on to say that they “created these people.”

 

“A guy that works very closely with John McCain and is going to be running against you, we think he’s going to be a heat-seeking Rand missile during the entire campaign, Lindsey Graham,” said Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough. “Lindsey Graham would say ISIS exists because of people like Rand Paul who said, ‘Let’s not go into Syria.’ What do you say to Lindsey?”

 

“I would say it’s exactly the opposite,” Paul said. “ISIS exists and grew stronger because of the hawks in our party, who gave arms indiscriminately and most of those arms were snatched up by ISIS. These hawks also wanted to bomb Assad, which would have made ISIS’ job even easier. They created these people.”

 

(Snip)

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Whole Clip

 

[Valin]

A 2016 GOP contender just fired off a tweetstorm against 'liberal' Rand Paul
Colin Campbell
May 27, 2015, 12:31 PM

 

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal ® unleashed a furious social media barrage on Wednesday against Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), one of his potential 2016 presidential rivals.

 

Jindal fired off six numbered tweets declaring Paul unfit for the presidency due to comments he made earlier in the day about the jihadist group Islamic State (also known as ISIS).

 

"It has become impossible to imagine a President Paul defeating Radical Islam and it's time for the rest of us to say it," Jindal declared, quoting from a press release on his government website.

(Snip)

[Valin]

Quotes of the day

Allahpundit

May 27, 2015

 

(Snip)

 

Paul has a problem: He isn’t running for the Democratic nomination. And though Paul may think his Republican Party’s brand sucks, the primary voters don’t necessarily share his view that the party is too old and too white. His candidacy has so far failed to ignite — and, indeed, he seems to be fading as a force within the party…

 

Paul’s declining standing can be felt in Washington. Last week, he attempted to reprise his wildly successful 2013 filibuster, which caught fire on social media and forced party leaders to take notice. But this time Paul found indifference as he fought to limit government surveillance. As The Post’s Philip Bump reported, it got only about one-tenth of the Twitter attention that his first effort did. Television footage from the chamber caught Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) rolling his eyes as Paul spoke last week, and Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), who joined Paul’s previous filibuster, openly opposed him this time.

 

On CBS’s morning show Tuesday, Paul was asked to answer his Republican colleagues’ complaint that his 11-hour speech was really a performance aimed at selling his new book; “Fox & Friends” minutes later asked him to respond to the charge that he is a “misguided ideologue.”

 

(Snip)

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkixHe3DDPY

 

 

Someone should tell Ron Rand that This is The Republican Party...not the Libertarian Party.

[Draggingtree]

 

A 2016 GOP contender just fired off a tweetstorm against 'liberal' Rand Paul

Colin Campbell

May 27, 2015, 12:31 PM

 

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal ® unleashed a furious social media barrage on Wednesday against Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), one of his potential 2016 presidential rivals.

 

Jindal fired off six numbered tweets declaring Paul unfit for the presidency due to comments he made earlier in the day about the jihadist group Islamic State (also known as ISIS).

 

"It has become impossible to imagine a President Paul defeating Radical Islam and it's time for the rest of us to say it," Jindal declared, quoting from a press release on his government website.

(Snip)

 

Finally someone with a meg phone speaks the truth

[Valin]

Megyn Kelly takes down Rand Paul on the Patriot Act

Paul Mirengoff

May 28, 2015

 

John has flagged Rand Paul’s ISIS whopper — the claim that Republicans are to blame for the rise of ISIS. When Republicans controlled the White House, ISIS was, as John says, little more than a dream in the minds of a few fanatics. The dream was realized not because of Republicans, but mostly because President Obama reversed President Bush’s policies and prematurely withdrew American forces from Iraq.

 

But Rand Paul’s struggles with the truth aren’t confined to ISIS. During the debate over renewing the Patriot Act, Paul has wildly exaggerated the extent of the intrusion of privacy that occurs under the Act.

 

(Snip)

 

Concern over privacy in the context of the Patriot Act has become Paul’s signature issue, particularly since he is now reluctant to show his full isolationist colors. The issue is worthy of legitimate debate.

 

But the debate isn’t legitimate when the main debater willfully disregards the facts. Rand Paul’s irresponsibility in the realm of national security should disqualify him for consideration for the presidency.

 

Below is Kelly’s interview of Sen. Paul.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nObNxTcPgM

[Valin]

Dr. Charles Krauthammer On Senator Rand Paul’s Assessment Of The Origins Of ISIS
Friday, May 29, 2015 | posted by Hugh Hewitt

 

Charles Krauthammer, whose “Things That Matter” — now in paperback with a new afterwards– continues to sell and sell and sell, joined me on today’s program to review the various assessments of where ISIS sprang from, especially Senator Rand Paul’s position articulated on Morning Joe this week:

 

Audio

 

 

(Snip)

 

HH: And then finally, Congressman Mike Pompeo on the House Intelligence Committee, West Point graduate, and member of the Benghazi Select Committee, said this:

 

MP: My judgment is different than both of them. I think ISIS was created because it’s a follow on from al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, the teachings of Sayyid Qutb, not because of, frankly, anything that either of them described there.

 

HH: Amen. Oh, my gosh, you may have read a book.

 

MP: Well, I’m not sure exactly which book you’re referring to, but in any event…

 

HH: The Looming Tower, which…

 

MP: I have actually read that. I have actually read The Looming Tower. I read it twice in my life.

 

HH: Yup.

 

MP: Yup.

 

HH: Yup.

 

HH: And so Charles Krauthammer, who’s right in this spectrum of explanations for ISIS?

 

* CK: You know, sometimes, Ron Paul’s ignorance really astonishes me.

HH: You mean Rand Paul?

 

CK: Excuse me, yes. That’s a Freudian slip right there.

 

HH: (laughing)

 

CK :Yeah, Rand Paul’s, actually, both of them, but Ron’s innocent on this one. He says, you know, these guys, Lindsey Graham wanted to bomb Assad, which somehow contributes to the growth of ISIS. Is he aware of the fact that until this week, or it was last week when ISIS took over Palmyra, ISIS had not once taken a city or a town from the Assad government. Every place it has taken over was swallowing up territory from anti-Assad insurgents, some religious, some jihadist, some secular, some sort of pro-Western, you would say. That’s where their growth has been. He doesn’t even understand that ISIS and the Assad government, until last week when ISIS grew so strong that it could be bold and invade, essentially, Assad territory, Assad and ISIS has had this cozy, tacit, non-aggression agreement, where they essentially split the country in two, and Assad relied on ISIS to swallow up all the anti-Assad opposition. So that’s number one. This is just, if he thinks that we’d be helping ISIS by attacking Assad, we didn’t do it. But that’s not why ISIS rose. It took over in the areas of Syria where there was no government presence. Number two, the idea that these weapons that we had given, well, that mostly occurred in Mosul. That was the outer region, that’s after ISIS had taken over Syria. That’s after ISIS had already swept into parts of Iraq. And yes, it got a lot of weapons at the end. And I think our policy is misguided to arm the Iraqi Security Forces, which are unreliable, as our own Secretary of Defense has said. They don’t have the will to fight. But that’s not our mistake. The big mistake is saying that it’s not, we should not be refraining from sending weapons. We should be sending them to the right people, to the Kurds who want to fight and who are pro-American, and to the Sunni Anbar tribes, the few remaining right now, because it’s so late in the game, who are pro-American and desperate for weaponry to fight off ISIS. One of the leaders of the tribe said last week after Ramadi that they have to go out and to purchase their own bullets. What are we doing? Pouring money into a government in Iraq that has an army that doesn’t want to fight, and a government that is heavily influenced by Iran.

 

(Snip)

 

________________________________________________________________

 

* Is there really much of a difference?