Here's the passage at issue:In the 1980s, the war caucus in Congress armed bin Laden and the mujaheddin in their fight with the Soviet Union. In fact, it was the official position of the State Department to support radical jihad against the Soviets. We all know how well that worked out.Let's leave aside for now the insulting, utterly asinine, sickening, inexcusable use of the phrase "war caucus" to describe those (including Reagan!) who supported the mujaheddin against the Soviets. That word choice alone is almost entirely disqualifying for its purveyor to ever be president.
Instead, let's just look at a little history here -- because the ignorance evident in this paragraph is truly astonishing. One would be hard pressed to find even a single historian, whether right, left, or center, who would argue anything other than that the Soviet failure in Afghanistan was not just a huge factor, but probably an essential one, in the Soviets' ultimate loss of the Cold War. [Rand Paul’s Really Ignorant Paragraph | 7 Feb 2013]
Barone remains an inside the Beltway moron. (Seriously, go read his trite malarkey on immigration.) You can oppose Syria without being an isolationist.
Lots of misinfo in the who we funded part.
bin Laden and his ilk were in the south of Afgan and did little more than hide.
The part of the muj that the US had any contact with was in the north. It was those forces that were at war with the Talib when we went in.
The Talib were a straight up invasion of Afh by Pakistan. The Talib were created in Pak, equipped and led from Pak for purposes designed by Pak.
But, none of it matters. We should have just left the huge AQ training bases alone and bent ourselves over and took whatever the 10s of thousands of jihadiscum trained in the Afg AO, with the full support and protection of the Talib like the good little punks we’ve become.
bin Laden was absolutely and undeniably correct in his fatwa issued after our running away from Mog. We are a Paper Tiger and we Have No Stomach for a Long Fight.
Of course, correcting the trend of refusing to finish what we start, or what gets started against us, a rather well established tradition by this point, Jefferson’s quip about the Tree of Liberty needing occasional watering with the blood of tyrants and patriots would have to be put into play here at home. Nearly half our pop have been turned out so hard as punks for the enemy, they’ll back any enemy, any time for any reason.
Treason hath become trendy.