Republican Senator Rand Paul has cautioned the US against rushing into any military response to the Hamas attacks in Israel, urging them to “see where the facts lie.”
As war hawks like Lindsey Graham urged for Iran’s nuclear and energy facilities to be bombed, Paul warned against such responsive counter attacks.
“Let’s let Israel do what they need to do, which is to have a punishing response to the people in Gaza to say no more, we are not going to let this happen,” Rand Paul said of the attacks.
“I have nothing but sympathy for the Israeli people at this point and time.”
“I think that the primary objective this time has to be to get the people that attacked them. They were in Gaza.”
The Senator continued:
“Before we think about spreading this to the rest of the world maybe we have to think about what is going on on the ground there.”
“I do think there is a immediate reaction sometimes to get everybody, let’s get everybody who is responsible,” Paul said.
“Without question, Iran had their hands in this. But if you remember after 9/11 there are people who wanted to attack Iraq,” he continued.
“They said Iraq did 9/11. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.”
“Let’s see where the facts lie and let’s investigate this,” Paul urged.
He continued:
“Everybody has the anger. I have anger. I have no sympathy for these thugs pulling men, women, and children, shooting people point-blank.”
“Nobody should have sympathy for them. I think that they use sympathy for their cause by doing such horrendous, outlandish things,” he added.
“But at the same time, people say ‘We need to stop Iran from having nuclear weapons. We’re going to bomb them,'” he said.
“You have got to realize that there have been assassinations of nuclear scientists in Iran and the last six and eight years.”
“Every time we assassinate one of them enrichment goes higher.”
“We had maximum pressure of sanctions and the enrichment goes higher. People say that within a week or two of enrichment — people say ‘We are going to bomb them to smithereens.'”
“Well, when you get uranium to like 100% or 95% enrichment you can have as much in that little box there.”
“You can have it in a little box. You can hide it anywhere. You can have 20 different places,” Paul further explained.
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He added:
“Something has to be done. But we have to be careful of the bomb them now, bomb them everywhere all the time.”
“And our founders were conscience of that. We need to vote on these things. No president, no one person can decide when war happens,” Pauls aid.
“War is a means of retribution. It is not always pretty and it doesn’t always get exactly what we intended as well.”
“If you act out of anger irrationally, sometimes you will do the wrong thing and make things worse,” Paul further warned.
“You want war, you want to drop a bomb on Tehran, then you do not do that like you’re chewing bubblegum.”
“This is a really, really serious thing that we need to make sure that we get right before we launch into a worldwide war.”
READ: Obama Remains Silent on Deadly Hamas Attacks against Israel
