Rand Paul: “I equally condemn the horrors going on in the country of Iraq. I have no desire at all to defend Hussein. I rise…”

“I equally condemn the horrors going on in the country of Iraq. I have no desire at all to defend Hussein. I rise, though, to just urge some caution on what we do. I have a problem with the procedure, which we are pursuing, that we are condoning, encouraging and literally paying for a program which permits the President to go and bomb another nation. There was a time in our history when bombing another country, when that country had not attacked us, was an act of war. But today we do this rather casually. Morally, the only justifiable war is a war of defense, a war when our national security is threatened. A legal war in this country is one that is declared by the Congress acting for the people. We have not declared a war. If we had a declared war even once since World War II, possibly we would have fought for victory. Instead, we get involved too carelessly and we do not fight to victory, and maybe that is why we are standing here today debating the consequence of the Persian Gulf war because we really did not achieve victory and the war continues.”