Thanks to the Republican Party of Kentucky approving a caucus instead of its usual primary next year, Kentucky’s junior U.S. Sen. Rand Paul is running for both president and a second term in Washington.
Paul concluded a two-day tour of the commonwealth Tuesday with a town hall-style event in Fulton County. Paul told a crowd at Fulton’s Pontotoc Community Center that he is opposed to sending ground troops to the Middle East to fight ISIS.
"We could defeat ISIS in six weeks if we put 500,000 troops in there," Paul said. "Once they were defeated, though, six months later, unless we stay forever, another generation of them pops up. The only lasting victory and the only lasting peace is when civilized Islam rises up and says 'This is not our religion' and stamps out this barbaric form of Islam."
Days after the November 13 attacks in Paris, Paul introduced an amendment to the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act that would block federal benefits to new refugees from “high risk” countries like Syria and Iraq.
“I had this discussion with the president and his administration and one of the women in his administration was giving me a hard time last week, and she said ‘How can you insinuate that refugees can be terrorists?’ Because I live in Bowling Green and two refugees from Iraq tried to buy stinger missiles," Paul said. "It's foolish for us to say just because we call someone a refugee that they might not want to come here and attack us."
Paul is referring to the 2011 arrest of two Iraqi nationals in Bowling Green, eventually convicted of charges of trying to aid al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Paul said personal charity directed toward Middle Eastern refugees is noble, but the federal government should be focused on problems at home.
“We have 300,000 veterans on government assistance for housing," Paul said. "We have a million veterans on food stamps. So, unless I’m confident that we’re taking care of all of our own, I don’t think we should just import people and put them on our welfare rolls.”
Paul said he plans to file for Kentucky’s presidential caucus Monday. Republican rivals Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush have already filed for Kentucky’s caucus, set for March 5.
