Rand Paul’s Really Ignorant ParagraphHere'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. The mujaheddin did much to help bleed the Soviets dry, at a comparatively negligible cost to the United States (for smuggled military hardware and some intelligence). "We all know how well that worked out," said Sen. Paul, dismissively, of the work of our "war caucus" to support the mujaheddin. Yes, we do: It played a key role in helping us win the Cold War. Anybody who doesn't understand that is either foolish or invincibly ignorant. Second, it is a myth that the United States "armed bin Laden." False, false, false. It is also a falsehood to say that bin Laden was a major player within the mujeheddin or in the anti-Soviet war effort at all. Finally, it is false even to say that the Afghani effort against the Soviets was primarily, or even largely, about "jihad." It was a defensive effort against armed invaders, not an offensive effort by "radicals" in the name of Allah.[Posted on 02/09/2013 7:33:41 AM PST by LSUfan]
With all due respect your passage is mired in the minutiae and is unable to articulate the ripple effect of dropping the stone in the pond. Simply put, the inference is wrong.
The principle in the main is that an incomplete intervention sets conditions that require further intervention.
As an example, a surgeon can remove a bullet to save the life of a wounded person, but leaving that wounded person bleeding to death on the table renders the prior act of saving the life pointless.
Reagan’s efforts freed hundreds of millions behind the Iron Curtain but left a vacuum that was filled by persons and sects that established breeding grounds for Bin Laden and global jihad.
What Reagan ultimately decided in regards to Afghanistan and what Rand is defending in regards to our constitutional rights are both correct. The two are not in opposition. The Soviet Union was our mortal enemy. The Afghan intervention was expected to cause swarms of jihad to spread globally.
The correct followup action to treating the bleeding that threatens the patient on the table is to either rely on thrombosis or stanch the flow or a combination thereof.
Thrombosis in this case refers to the popular push-back of jihad which occurs and has occurred naturally as long as the US does not disrupt the natural process of social coagulation. This occurred in Pakistan where the society there rejected jihad but embraced its literal children; many of the jihadists had taken refuge there and their sons and daughters grew up and intermarried into the general population.
What Cheney is defending is the mummification of the patient to stop the bleeding without regards to suffocation of constitutional rights. What Rand is advocating are compresses, sutures, needle and thread.
The two arguments are an ideological argument of which Rand sides with American ideals and Cheney sides with the New World Order. The two arguments are diametrically opposed and the winner of the argument will depend on the awareness of the American people which is why freerepublic.com exists.
(Thanks for finding and posting that)