Rand Paul: “Osama bin Laden applauded the 9/11 attacks. Such an act of deliberate killing of innocent lives deserves retribution. It…”

“Osama bin Laden applauded the 9/11 attacks. Such an act of deliberate killing of innocent lives deserves retribution. It is good that bin Laden is dead and justice is served. Targeted retribution is far superior to wars of aggression and nation- building. In 2001, I supported giving the President authority to punish those responsible for the vicious 9/11 attacks. Using this authority and opportunity to pursue nation-building and remaking the Middle East was cynical and dangerous, as the past 10 years have proven. The sad tragedy is that it took 10 years, trillions of dollars, tens of thousands of American casualties and many thousands of innocent lives to achieve our mission of killing one evil person. A narrow, targeted mission under these circumstances is far superior to initiating wars against countries not involved in the 9/11 attacks. This was the reason I emphasized at the time the principles of marque and reprisal, provided to us by the Constitution for difficult missions such as we faced. I am convinced that this approach would have achieved our goal much sooner and much cheaper. The elimination of Osama bin Laden should now prompt us to bring our troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq. Al Qaeda was never in Iraq, and we were supposedly in Afghanistan to get Osama bin Laden. With bin Laden gone, there is no reason for our presence in this region, unless indeed it was all about oil, nation-building and remaking the Middle East and Central Asia.…”