Rand Paul Vows To Vote Against A President Who Sends Soldiers Abroad Without A Declaration Of War
At the 125th VFW National Convention on Monday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) spoke about Congressional powers.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Commander Sarmiento, thank you for the invitation and the introduction.
00:13It's an honor to be here with you along with so many heroes of this country and this organization.
00:19We all know that the VFW has worked tirelessly to ensure that those who have fought are represented
00:26when they return.
00:27My family's association with serving in uniform runs deep.
00:31My father was a captain in the Air Force.
00:36My father-in-law was a retired, non-commissioned officer in the Air Force.
00:42As a child, my wife, Kelly, lived at various military bases around the world.
00:47My brother-in-law went to the U.S. Air Force Academy—sorry, we're kind of Air Force
00:51heavy in our family.
00:54My nephew, though, just retired after 20 years flying the P-3 for the Navy.
01:03My team has significant military ties as well.
01:06Two of my staff are combat veterans and are members of your organization.
01:11Several people on my team have siblings and children who are currently serving our country
01:15in uniform today.
01:17My staff and I see taking care of veterans as a vital mission and, frankly, our obligation
01:25to those who fought.
01:33I also consider that mission directly aligned with another—ensuring our country is strategic
01:40in its foreign policy.
01:42Indeed, I cannot imagine a more fitting occasion or group to understand, appreciate, and herald
01:48our country's position on the world stage and its foreign policy approach than the heroes
01:55of our foreign wars—those who have actually fought on foreign soil.
02:00To me, there is no more important debate, no more important vote than a vote on whether
02:08or not to send our young men and women to war.
02:11I do not take this responsibility lightly.
02:15When war is debated, I carefully weigh the arguments for war against the risks to each
02:21and every soldier.
02:23I don't see war as some grand game of chess.
02:27My views are best summarized by Eisenhower, who wrote,
02:32I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality,
02:40its futility, its stupidity.
02:43Since the attacks on 9-11, Congress seems to have forgotten Eisenhower's admonition.
02:50Congress has simply abdicated its role in declaring war and left the decision-making
02:55to the President.
02:57Congress has allowed a vote in 2001—a vote I would have supported a generation ago, though—to
03:05be used to take our soldiers into combat across Africa and the Middle East, despite no authorization
03:12from a current Congress, despite no vote on whether we should be there.
03:16We now have more combat missions in Africa than any place in the world.
03:23Because of my steadfast belief that the Constitution only allows Congress to declare war, I often
03:30stand alone.
03:32I am sometimes a minority of one.
03:35But I promise you this.
03:37War is too grave a choice for Congress to run from or evade.
03:42I, for one, will not avoid or shirk my duty.
03:47I pledge to you, veterans of foreign wars, I will vote against any president of either
03:53party who tries to send our soldiers abroad without a declaration of war.
04:07Our nation was founded on a restrained foreign policy.
04:11Indeed, our first president pushed for trade and friendship with all, alliances in war
04:16with none, or as few as possible.
04:19We drifted from this throughout the latter half of the 20th century, culminating with
04:24Vietnam.
04:26Traditionally American foreign policy was restrained, reserving military force as a
04:30last resort.
04:32It was a restrained realism in foreign policy that brought down the Iron Curtain but avoided
04:38World War III.
04:40But our traditional restrained foreign policy has slowly been replaced by a desire to be
04:46everywhere, all the time, by a belief that military intervention is always the answer.
04:54As a consequence, America has become mired in multiple civil wars, in a variety of locations,
05:01with arguably limited national interest at stake.
05:04The authorization from 20 years ago to fight the perpetrators of 9-11 has nothing to do
05:11with having our military chasing down goat herders in Mali.
05:17Yet four of our finest young soldiers died there in an undeclared war with a murky mission
05:22in Sub-Saharan Africa.
05:25Since World War II, Congress has allowed presidents to take us to war without the approval of
05:31Congress.
05:32Feckless leaders in Congress have allowed presidents to transform a mandate to eliminate
05:38those who attacked us on 9-11 to a limitless, unfocused presence in dozens of countries.
05:46The war in Afghanistan shows a congressionally approved, justified war against the 9-11 attackers
05:54somehow morphed into a 20-year, trillion-dollar debacle with no clear mission.
06:01The ignominious retreat from Afghanistan shows how weakness begets calamity and then overreaction.
06:10The catastrophic decision to have our final exit point be a civilian airport in a crowded
06:17urban area instead of the isolated and defensible Bagram Air Base led to the tragic deaths of
06:2513 of our troops.
06:27In the aftermath, a weakened Biden administration overreacted and sent a lethal drone that killed
06:34an aid worker and a dozen children.
06:38Instead of peace through strength, the result was carnage from weakness.
06:44As we contemplate and as we elect a new president, we should replace weakness with strength.
06:58As the long war in Afghanistan was coming to a close, the world was busy changing.
07:07Civil wars of limited focus and limited consequence are being eclipsed by a great power conflict
07:15with the looming risk of disastrous outcomes.
07:18Our threats have shifted from loose, transnational terrorist organizations to hostile alliances
07:25with significant military power.
07:28North Korean ammunition is being used by Russian soldiers supplied by Chinese technology that
07:34enable Iranian weapons.
07:37The battlefield has also changed.
07:40The lethality of individual weapons has made wars of maneuver into wars of attrition.
07:46When 10 Ukrainian-legged infantry soldiers with Javelin anti-tank weapons can stop an
07:53entire Russian battalion tactical group, you end up fighting in trenches and with an
07:58unsustainable need for artillery shells.
08:01Yes, things have changed.
08:04Shifting alliances and the face of war have dramatically changed, but our foreign policy
08:10has not.
08:12American foreign policy has clung to intervention, which may ultimately be yielding more war
08:18than peace.
08:20The world has become more challenging since 9-11.
08:22It is time we evolve our strategies to better meet those challenges.
08:28Through our interventionist strategy, we have lost the ability to critically think about
08:33our foreign and national security policy.
08:36Many in Congress seem to have forgotten that to achieve peace through strength requires
08:41diplomacy.
08:42Instead, both parties have tried to solve all of our international problems with sanctions,
08:48threats of violence, and the actual use of force.
08:51But American sanctions have not changed the actions of our adversaries.
08:55I have repeatedly asked the Secretary of State to identify what, if any, changes Russia or
09:01China has initiated because of sanctions.
09:04I am still waiting for an answer.
09:07What American sanctions do accomplish, though, is to isolate large portions of the world
09:12from our trade.
09:13This form of trade isolationism threatens to make war more imminent.
09:20While SME must be prepared to defend our country and our interests without hesitation,
09:25we cannot forget that war must always be a last resort.
09:37The bayonet cannot be our first choice of diplomatic engagement.
09:41The potential cost of war today is simply too high.
09:46Today our chief adversaries have the capability to destroy our way of life as we do theirs.
09:53The consequences of a great power conflict between a Western alliance and Russia or China
09:59would be devastating.
10:01We would feel those effects in all aspects of our life.
10:04Our commerce, our freedoms, our day-to-day existence would be impacted more than at any
10:09time in our history.
10:12As a measure of last resort, war must be squarely centered on a vital national interest
10:19that is clear to the American people.
10:22Once that vital national interest is identified, we must craft a viable strategy to reach an
10:27achievable goal that is materially and economically sustainable with a clearly defined end state.
10:35The purpose of war is to make a better peace, not to perpetuate further war.
10:48Most importantly, we must hold sacred the principles of our Founding Fathers, which
10:53espouse that no one leader may take our country to war.
10:57Rather, for the nation to be willing to risk its sons and daughters, its blood, its treasure,
11:03war can only be waged with the consent of the people.
11:07That required consent is derived from acts of Congress, from the Constitution.
11:14Only Congress has the power to declare war.
11:18My pledge to use this, to continue to push to return the traditional American form of
11:26restrained realism, that these principles, war as a last resort, used only to defend
11:32a clearly identified national interest, through a viable strategy to achieve a sustained end
11:39state, and even then, only with the consent of the people.
11:44If and when we must fight, however, America needs a military, clear-sighted, and not distracted
11:52by woke ideology.
12:03As Churchill reportedly said, people sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because
12:10rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
12:21Churchill would be shocked to know that the American military that saved the day during
12:26World War II now pays for confused individuals to surgically change their sexual appearance.
12:34America still needs rough men and women for our defense.
12:47Instead of spending a half a million dollars, taxpayer dollars, to remove the manhood of
12:54soldiers, let us today demand that that money be spent on the salaries of the rough men
13:00and women defending America.
13:11Defending America means not letting our military mission be overridden by left-wing agenda
13:16unrelated to military redness.
13:19With a $34 trillion debt, our foreign policy needs to re-examine all foreign aid.
13:26As a consequence of being everywhere all the time, American aid flows not only to dependent
13:32allies, but to countries that have the audacity to burn our flag.
13:37I promise you this, I will never, ever vote to send one penny of aid to foreign countries
13:45that hate us and burn our flag.
14:06Those who suggest that we need to be everywhere all the time will also do the most to ensure
14:12perpetual conflict.
14:14They throw out historical examples, claiming that we're once again in 1938, as we see the
14:20Russians invade Ukraine.
14:23My fear is that we're actually once again in 1914, and that escalation draws a sleepwalking
14:30closer to a nuclear confrontation.
14:33Prior to World War I, the nations of Europe lacked the diplomatic intellect to avoid a
14:39calamity that killed millions of people.
14:42In the horror of the trenches on the Western Front and saw the rise of a communist empire
14:47in the East, how different would the world have been had the diplomats of 1914 been better
14:55thinkers and the leaders more restrained?
14:58Was the honor of Serbia a vital interest to Tsarist Russia or to Imperial Germany?
15:05As we consider history lessons, let us remember that the governments who drew the world into
15:11the Great War, into World War I, over something that wasn't a threat to their vital interest
15:16— Tsarist Russia, Imperial Germany, Imperial Austria — all were gone by the war's conclusion.
15:24President Eisenhower said, I have one yardstick by which I test every major problem.
15:30And that yardstick, is it good for America?
15:34Ike unashamedly placed American vital national interest at the forefront of his thought.
15:41These philosophies must be our guiding light.
15:44Which brings me back to those of you who have served to defend our country, our constitution,
15:50our way of life.
15:52To best fulfill our leading role on the world stage, we should follow your example.
15:57You wore the uniform to protect your country, your families, and to secure a more peaceful
16:03future for your descendants.
16:06You didn't risk your life for a foreign flag.
16:09You didn't — you fought for the American flag, for your family, for your family and
16:15for the American in the foxhole next to you.
16:17We owe you a debt of gratitude.
16:20But I ask more of you.
16:21I ask you to remind everyone what it means to be American.
16:27Remind us that we can work together, regardless of our backgrounds, our skin color, our religion,
16:32our political beliefs.
16:34We can work together.
16:36Remind us that we owe our allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the
16:40liberties which it guarantees our people, liberties which were given to us by our Creator.
16:48Veterans of foreign wars, let your voices be heard and remind Americans that we should
16:54not go lightly into war.
16:57We face many problems here at home.
16:59We face a crisis at our southern border.
17:03Before we send a single soldier overseas to secure other countries' borders, Congress
17:09needs to fix our borders here at home.
17:32The strength of America is our spirit, not at the end of our rifles.
17:36Our way of life, our belief in liberty, our unshakable trust that our rights come from
17:42a Creator, not a government.
17:45This is what gives us the power to be a great nation.
17:49Let us live by that example.
17:51Let us set that example.
17:53Let the world follow.
17:55It has truly been my honor to be here today.
17:58Thank you, and may God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.