Unanimous Consent Request--No. S. 2216

Floor Speech

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Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, in the first
two decades after the Revolutionary War, America was under siege and
our Capitol was ransacked, but I don't recall in reading history that
any of our Founding Fathers said that they would flee the country or
leave and give up on the quest for liberty.

The quest for liberty requires fighting by the people who have been given their liberty, the people whom we have helped to get their liberty. You can say the people in Afghanistan helped us or you can also say we helped liberate them as well.

They have been free for 20 years. It seems like it might precipitate the overcoming of the Taliban if you take 18,000 of the most westernized, those who speak English, and you say: Flee, flee, flee. The end is coming. Well, guess what. The end comes quicker if they all leave. So I would encourage them, rather, to stay and fight. I think it would be good to have many English speakers in Afghanistan. The future of Afghanistan could be a bright future, but they are going to have to fight for it. And, ultimately, it is their fight. And if we offer easy escape and easy plans to leave the country, we are assuring the defeat of the people who are our friends in Afghanistan.

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