Dan Crenshaw Attacks Rand Paul’s Foreign Policy. It Backfires.

Representative Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) seems to think that President Trump’s decision to withdraw from never-ending wars in the Middle East is a bad idea. On Wednesday night, the Texas representative took to both Twitter and Instagram to criticize Senator Rand Paul, saying that he was giving President Trump “bad advice.”  

View this post on Instagram

Thus far, the President has found the right balance for our wars: avoid nation building while keeping a special operations presence to maintain pressure on a very much alive enemy. Please do not veer from this course Mr. President. Our troop’s sacrifices must not be in vain.

A post shared by Dan Crenshaw (@dancrenshawtx) on Jan 16, 2019 at 6:59pm PST

What was Crenshaw referencing? He took issue with a tweet from Senator Paul in which he praised the president for opposing foreign wars, saying, “I have never been prouder of President Donald Trump. In today’s meeting, he stood up for a strong America and steadfastly opposed foreign wars. Putting America First means declaring victory in Afghanistan and Syria. President Trump is delivering on his promises.”

Senator Paul has long been a critic of America’s foreign interventionism and has been an ally of President Trump in this area, helping ensure he keeps his campaign promise to end American involvement in foreign wars.  Crenshaw tweeted a  link to an article written by Politico, concerning a meeting Senator Paul had with Trump on Wednesday to discuss plans to proceed with a full withdrawal from Syria as well as scaling back American boots on the ground in Afghanistan.

“Rand Paul is giving the President bad advice. There are those of us who have sacrificed for our nation, who know the importance of this terrorist threat and the need to stay vigilant. We go there so that they don’t come here. It’s that simple.” 

Representative Crenshaw’s tweets imply a rather hawkish position. He seems to believe that Americans must take an active role in policing the Middle East in an attempt to “prevent another 9/11.” 

The positive news is that while many people respect Representative Crenshaw and his service to our country as a former Navy SEAL, many vehemently disagree with him on this issue, taking a more libertarian position on foreign policy.

The American people seem to be increasingly sick of our government thinking it must stick it’s nose in the affairs of other nations. There seems to be an awakening toward the dangers of unnecessary and costly foreign wars, and realizing the truth of the founding fathers’ warnings. 

“Our first and fundamental maxim should be never to entangle ourselves in the broils of Europe. Our second, never to suffer Europe to intermeddle with cis-Atlantic affairs.” -Thomas Jefferson to  James Monroe, 1823. 

One can only hope these words will soon be put into action in public policy and dusted off the pages of our history once again.