"The al-Qaeda wants to come here to kill us. The Taliban just says we don't want foreigners. We need to understand that," Paul said.
Washington: Identifying Taliban as America's enemy, leading Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has strongly opposed Obama Administration's decision to hold peace talks with the militant outfit which ruled Afghanistan before 9/11.
"You don't negotiate with your enemy from a position of weakness as this president has done. The right course for America is to recognize we're under attack," Romney said.
"We're under attack by people, whether they're al-Qaeda or other radical violent jihadists around the world, and we're going to have to take action around the world to protect ourselves," Romney said at a Republican presidential debate in South Carolina, where the next round of primary is scheduled to be held on January 21.
"Taliban is killing Americans. This President has done an extraordinary thing. He announced the date of our withdrawal. He announced the date of the withdrawal of our surge forces based upon a political calendar, not the calendar that the commanders on the ground said it was based for our mission. That was wrong," he said.
"Then he announced the day that we're going to pull out of the country all together. Now he wants to negotiate from a position of extraordinary weakness? You don't negotiate your enemy from a position of weakness as this president has done," Romney said in response to a question.
"The right course for America is not to negotiate with the Taliban while the Taliban are killing our soldiers. The right course is to recognize they're the enemy of the United States. It's the Vice President (Joe Biden) who said they're not the enemy of the United States. The Vice President's wrong. They are the enemy," he said.
"We should not negotiate with the Taliban. We should defeat the Taliban," Romney said.
However, Congressman Ron Paul, another Republican presidential candidate, tended to differ from Romney.
"Taliban used to be our allies when we were fighting the Russians. So Taliban are people who want... their main goal is to keep foreigners off their land. It's the al-Qaeda... you can't mix the two," he said.
"The al-Qaeda wants to come here to kill us. The Taliban just says we don't want foreigners. We need to understand that," Paul said.
Romney, even though highly critical of Obama's foreign policy, came out in support of President's bold decision to attack and kill Osama bin Laden, even at the risk of violating the sovereignty of another country.
"Of course you take out our enemies, wherever they are. These people have declared war on us. They've killed Americans. We go anywhere they are and we kill them," he said.
Former Speaker of the US House of Representatives Newt Gingrich spoke in the same voice and supported the idea of going ahead and killing the enemy in any part of the globe.
Comments
0 comment