Ron Paul Liberty Report - Weekly Update --- Troops Coming Home from Afghanistan? Depends on Who You Ask
Aired: 2020-10-21
Duration: 04:32


=== Troops Coming Home? (03:19) ===

[00:00:03]  Hello everybody and thank you for tuning in to the weekly report.
[00:00:07]  Troops coming home from Afghanistan?
[00:00:10]  Depends on who you ask.
[00:00:12]  There's a lot to cheer about when it comes to most of President Trump's foreign policy statements.
[00:00:17]  He regularly tells us he is ending foreign wars and bringing troops home.
[00:00:23]  But do the people who work for him even listen?
[00:00:26]  It seems as soon as the president makes a strong foreign policy statement, one of his appointees grabs a microphone to explain what the president really meant.
[00:00:37]  Earlier this month, President Trump tweeted that we should have the small remaining number of our brave men and women serving in Afghanistan home by Christmas.
[00:00:50]  It was a very encouraging statement, but almost immediately his statement was clarified, actually refuted, by two administration officials.
[00:01:00]  First, the chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, Army General Mark Milley, directly contradicted his boss, who also happens to be his commander-in-chief, stating, it's a conditions-based plan.
[00:01:13]  We're continuing to monitor those conditions.
[00:01:16]  Then, President Trump's National Security Advisor, Robert O'Brien, told us that the President's statement was merely an expression of his desire.
[00:01:26]  All presidents, all GIs, want the troops home by Christmas, he said on Friday.
[00:01:33]  Then Milley and O'Brien launched a war of words against each other over troop withdrawal, with Milley attacking O'Brien's clarification that 2,500 troops would remain in Afghanistan until at least early next year.
[00:01:50]  Milley called it speculation.
[00:01:53]  O'Brien fought back, stating that it has been suggested by some that that's speculation.
[00:02:00]  I can guarantee you that the plan of the President of the United States is hard to follow.
[00:02:06]  While President Trump's statement on bringing the troops home is to be applauded, he has a real problem getting his policies implemented by the very people he has hired to do the implementing.
[00:02:20]  It has long been said that the personnel is the policy, and we have seen this very clearly in this administration.
[00:02:28]  President Trump ran on a sensible foreign policy defining America first as getting the U.S. out of endless and counterproductive wars.
[00:02:38]  Many, me included, believe the position may have provided his margin of victory.
[00:02:43]  The peace candidate nearly always wins.
[00:02:47]  But you cannot pursue an American First foreign policy if you put people like Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, Nikki Haley, Mark Milley, and others in charge of carrying it out.
[00:03:00]  They simply won't do it.
[00:03:01]  We are seeing that again when it comes to withdrawing our troops from the long and foolish war in Afghanistan.
[00:03:09]  For a president once made famous for uttering the line, you're fired, Trump seems unwilling or perhaps unable to dismiss those who actively seek to undermine his policies.

=== Why Trump Can't Withdraw Troops (01:10) ===

[00:03:22]  There is no need for endless negotiations with the Taliban on what the country might look like or should look like when we get out.
[00:03:31]  The only way to get out of Afghanistan is to just get out of Afghanistan, to just come home.
[00:03:39]  19 years of fighting a losing battle to reshape a country thousands of miles away about which the experts know nothing is more than enough.
[00:03:49]  But if there is ever a danger of a war coming to a close, Washington's warmongers are right there trying to stir up another conflict.
[00:04:00]  Defense Secretary Mark Esper said late last week that he would like to see huge military spending increases to counter the threat of Russia and China.
[00:04:11]  Robbing middle America to enrich the millionsaires in the military-industrial complex seems to be the one issue universally supported in Washington, but it is not at all what the American people want.
[00:04:25]  Will Trump have another chance to pursue an actual American first foreign policy?
[00:04:31]  Soon we will know.