US Republican Senator Rand Paul has called on President Donald Trump to scrap his plans for extending years-long American military presence in Afghanistan and spend the Afghan War funding at home instead.
“I think the Afghan war is long past its mission,” Paul told CBS on Sunday, referring to the 2001 invasion and the following occupation of Afghanistan by American forces.
“I think now it’s a nation building exercise. We’re spending 50 billion dollars a year. And if the president really is serious about infrastructure, a lot of that money could be spent at home,” he argued.
The Kentucky senator, who bowed out of the 2016 Republican presidential primary after failing to compete with Trump, said the US had no business rebuilding the war-ravaged country or build bridges and buildings in Pakistan.
On August 21, Trump announced that he would increase US troops in the country, prolonging a 17-year war which he had once described as a…