WASHINGTON -- Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) does not support arming and training Syrian opposition forces, a key element of President Barack Obama's new strategy to destroy Islamic State militants in the Middle East.

"Senator Paul believes arming the same side as ISIS was and is a strategic error and would oppose such action," Paul's senior aide, Doug Stafford, told The Huffington Post on Wednesday.

The news was first reported by The Daily Beast.

...

By opposing the arming of opposition forces in Syria, Paul echoed Sen. Mark Begich, a vulnerable Democrat up for re-election in Alaska, who expressed similar concern that U.S. arms would end up in the wrong hands. In a statement following the president's speech, Begich said he was "gravely concerned by reports of ISIS seizing and utilizing U.S. weapons intended for those fighting against" Assad.

read more:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_5801510.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ_0vTyv7CE

SEPTEMBER 9, 2014

Senator Rand Paul publicly denounced the militarization of police as a response to the events in Ferguson, Missouri. Paul spoke before a meeting of the Senate Homeland Security Committee at a hearing on Tuesday to ask questions about the type of equipment that local police are attaining from the Department of Defense.

The Assistant Administrator of FEMA for Grant Programs, Brian Kamoie, responded to Senator Paul that the categories of personal protective equipment for police officers contain a prohibition for the use of riot suppression. Kamoie promised to investigate the incidents in Missouri to determine whether there was a misuse of equipment against civilians.

Paul appeared angry about the use of MRAP trucks in towns as small as 3,900 people. The Kentucky senator put the FEMA representative and the Obama administration on blast for handing out thousands of bayonets to local police. “What purpose are bayonets being given out for?”

“I can’t answer what a local police force would use a bayonet for,” Alan Estevez said. “We’re going to look at what we’re providing under the administration’s review of all these programs.”

more:
http://libertyviral.com/rand-paul-bl...given-out-for/

HBO’s Bill Maher has made something of a career bashing Republicans on a weekly basis, but recent interviews indicate he may be willing to vote GOP in 2016 under certain circumstances.

“Rand Paul is an interesting candidate to me,” Maher told The Hill this week. “Rand Paul could possibly get my vote.”

Sen. Paul (R-KY) has been on Maher’s radar for several months, most notably when an entire Real Time panel delivered high praise for the senator’s cautious noninterventionist foreign policy, which conflicts with a largely hawkish Republican Party.

Maher told the D.C. publication that his thoughts on Rand largely mirror how he felt about the senator’s father, retired Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX):

read more:
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/bill-mahe...y-get-my-vote/

WASHINGTON – Innocent people jumping out of windows hundreds of feet to their certain deaths on live television. Skyscrapers falling. The nation’s capital and its biggest city under attack. America had never seen anything like Sept. 11, 2001.

When Pearl Harbor was attacked on Dec. 7, 1941, there was no doubt as to who was the culprit. America declared war on Japan the next day. And, after the Sept. 11 attacks, the world quickly learned 19 hijackers had turned four commercial airliners into missiles and 15 of the gang were citizens of Saudi Arabia.

But 13 years after that fateful autumn day, there are still questions about who planned and financed the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Questions, especially, about the role of the Saudis.

...

“If it (the 28 pages) came out it would be devastating to some Republicans who are thinking about running for president. I think that’s one reason there’s been a drive not release it,” Rep. Steve Stockman, R-Texas, told WND.

Although Stockman declined to identify which potential candidates he was referring to, a well-placed source in the Republican party told WND it undoubtedly included Jeb Bush, the former president’s brother and former governor of Florida.

read more:
http://www.wnd.com/2014/09/911-repor...ial-candidate/

By Benjy Sarlin
08/30/14 09:41 AM

Things might get weird in 2016 when it comes to foreign policy.

After a decade in which Republicans championed an aggressive unilateral foreign policy under President Bush and Democrats rallied behind a more measured international approach under President Obama, the battle lines are getting blurry as presidential season approaches.

On the Republican side, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has long been out of step with the party’s hawkish wing, favoring a policy of “non-interventionism” that includes, with some hedging, ending all foreign aid and aggressively scaling back American military involvement abroad. While he’s smoothed some of the harsher edges of his father, former Texas Rep. Ron Paul’s, policy vision (which is less friendly to Israel and a lot more friendly to dictators), it still would represent a massive shift from the more active approach favored by every modern president.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton has been distancing herself from the White House. Almost every break with the administration so far puts her further to Obama’s right, alarming some liberal doves who fear she hasn’t learned from a 2008 primary loss fueled by anger over her vote to authorize the Iraq War.

read more: http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/paul-and-...foreign-policy

Sources quoted by the Washinton Post say ISIS "knew exactly how it was done" as it employed brutal techniques also approved by Bush administration

by Jon Queally
Thursday, August 28, 2014

The Washington Post reports on Thursday that at least four individuals taken captive by the Islamic State were tortured and that the group—also known as ISIS—appeared to be modeling the CIA's use of torture as it employed waterboarding as one of the painful techniques they used.

Worldwide condemnation followed revelations that in the aftermath of 9/11, the Bush administration approved the CIA to torture suspected terrorists during interoggations conducted at secret 'Black Sites' – or clandestine holding facilities.

Among those subjected to the brutal treatment by ISIS, according to sources quoted in the Post's reporting, was American journalist James Foley who was subsequently executed by the group.

From the Post:

read more: http://www.commondreams.org/news/201...aptured-report

David Cameron warns that Isil have made 'specific' threats against Britain as the terror threat level is raised

By Tom Whitehead, and Steven Swinford
9:41PM BST 29 Aug 2014

Britain faces the “greatest and deepest” terror threat in the country’s history, David Cameron warned as he pledged emergency measures to tackle extremists.

The UK threat level was raised to “severe” — its second highest — meaning that a terrorist attack is “highly likely” in light of the growing danger from British jihadists returning from Iraq and Syria.

The Prime Minister said that the risk posed by Isil (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) will last for “decades” and raised the prospect of an expanding terrorist nation “on the shores of the Mediterranean”.

He disclosed that Isil had made “specific” threats against the UK and did not rule out military action to tackle the growing problem.

read more:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...n-history.html

By Francis Wilkinson
AUG 29, 2014 10:33 AM EDT

You would think Democrats -- Obama Democrats, in particular -- would be a bit more sensitive if not responsible.

After all, Democrats have endured decades of scurrilous charges about their love of country. The most toxic dregs of American politics -- Joseph McCarthy, Spiro Agnew, Newt Gingrich, multiple individuals with the surname "Cheney" -- have made a specialty of it. So why would the Democratic National Committee, operating under a president who has been the target of more deranged, ugly falsehoods than any in recent American history, resort to the scoundrel's familiar refuge in attacking Republican Senator Rand Paul?

Paul wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal yesterday in which the ostensible targets were Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. However, the headline gave away the game: "How U.S. Interventionists Abetted the Rise of ISIS."

...

The official response to Paul (when none was required) by DNC National Press Secretary Michael Czin managed to be both slimy and inane. Relying on repurposed jingoism, it essentially accused Paul of the crime of nattering nabobism.

read more:
http://www.bloombergview.com/article...ming-rand-paul

By Aaron Blake
August 28 at 11:42 AM

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is really good at making news, and he did it again Wednesday night with an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that, in part, attacked Hillary Clinton for being too hawkish on Syria.

...

A few things here:

1) The use of the i-word -- "interventionist" -- is what struck us most. This is a pretty clear indication that Paul intends to run in 2016, especially in a potential matchup with Clinton, on a more actively dovish foreign policy platform. It's also a pretty clear effort to differentiate her approach from his, which is often labeled "non-interventionist."

"Interventionist" is also used in the title of the column, and it doesn't strike us as having particularly positive connotations. Indeed, we're not aware of too many foreign policy hawks who use that word to describe themselves.

This might seem much ado about nothing, given that Paul is known to be less hawkish. He has also been critical of Rick Perry and Chris Christie on that count. But Paul has also long toed the line between the kind of non-interventionism championed by his father, Ron Paul, and a more middle-ground approach to foreign policy. And straying too far down the non-interventionist road risks folks invoking another i-word: "isolationism." It's a constant balancing act for Paul.

read more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...rd-stands-out/