March 12, 2014 | Quote
Rand Paul Seems Confused
Unfortunately for Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), he chose to grab the spotlight on foreign policy amid several foreign policy crises that demonstrate the folly of his philosophy. It’s even more unfortunate because he is giving the appearance of someone lacking a basic understanding of national security. And it’s happening a lot.
Take his remark on spying in Russia: “It appears as though we didn’t have very good intelligence as to what [Russian President Vladimir] Putin was doing. I think we need to do a little more spying on the Russians and a lot less spying on Americans. We just shouldn’t collect all Americans’ records, and I think sometimes it distracts us from the things we should do.”
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Reuel Marc Gerecht, who used to work at the CIA, agrees that Rand Paul sounds confused: “Analysis is the problem, not the absence of spying via classical espionage, which is often overrated by outsiders, or digital surveillance, which flows in wide rivers into Fort Meade and rarely produces an analytical bonanza that could not have been produced by an educated mind reading the local press (or in Senator Paul’s case, the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal).”