Rand Paul: we must militarily destroy the Islamic State of Iraq & Syria

[Blue3]

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So, Rand Paul wants to go to war now.

Nice flip-flop, only took a week too!

People who like Rand Paul are always going to be disappointed by him. He's only going to become more Republican and less libertarian.

[Blue3]

Rand:
"I look at the world, and consider war."
"All options are on the table [regarding Iran]."

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/09/will-the-real-rand-paul-please-stand-up-110650.html#.VAqhGth0zIU


I'm having flashbacks to Romney's "I'm severely conservative."

[Blue3]

Well, this is disappointing, but how is it a flip flop?

It is taking pot shots at a likely opponent and a current President despite having no justification based on ideology. ISIS is in no way conservative or libertarian.

Well, it's not like his "pot shots" aren't justified towards Barack and Hillary.  Had we followed their will and invaded Syria, the current situation with ISIS would be much more worse than it already is, considering that they would have had control of an actual country (Syria) by then.

Obama did not want war, and that's why it didn't happen. Also, there's a chance the IS would never have risen this far if we significantly helped the FSA take power.

[Blue3]

And I'd rather be fighting the IS with Assad already gone, and a FSA government in place.

[Blue3]

We broke Iraq. Syria broke itself. We have no responsibility to rebuild Syria, but we could/should have helped the right side win, by coordinating air strikes with them and sharing intelligence, maybe some special forces. It would have been better than where we are now.

[Blue3]

Starwatcher, what makes you think we would've been able to ensure that all of our arms shipments went to the FSA? We already tried to send them supplies and it was incredibly difficult to determine where they were going. It was very easy for these weapons to end up in the hands of jihadists due to the disorganization and inability to audit where the weapons were going.

Also, there were reports of the FSA slaughtering Christians and at this point many FSA fighters have defected to ISIS. That doesn't reflect well on the idea that we could've turned Syria into some sort of stable, secular paradise by arming ISIS.

I didn't say it would be paradise. I also would really limit giving them our weapons. Information sharing and coordinated air strikes are better. And sometimes you just have to do the right thing.

EDIT: this phone has awful autocorrect

[Blue3]

And I'd rather be fighting the IS with Assad already gone, and a FSA government in place.

Were you in favor of going into Iraq to get rid of Saddam?

No, because Iraq wasn't in the middle of a bloody civil war at the time. Taking out Hussein wasn't the worst thing we've done, by far, but we did handle it very stupidly. I already clarified the distinction between Iraq and Syria in earlier posts here.