Rand Paul

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, even though my colleagues sometimes appear to have disdain for the trial by jury, it now appears they are supporting the right to trial by jury, and so I congratulate them on their conversion. However, I think they are still a little confused on Hamdi. Hamdi had to do with a citizen fighting overseas and nothing to do with a citizen here. I have great confidence that the Supreme Court, given a ruling on the right to trial by jury, will affirm the right to trial by jury whether they were appointed by Ronald Reagan or President Obama. So we will have that fight on another day. I will say, though, that our oath of office says we will defend the Constitution against enemies foreign and domestic. I met with cadets this week and they asked me, What is the freedom we fight for? The freedom we fight for is the Bill of Rights, is the Constitution. If we have careless disregard for the Constitution, what are we fighting for? I will tell you, since I know the record of this debate will be widely read, I want to make formal objection to the crazy bastard standard. I don't think if we are going to have a crazy bastard standard that we shouldn't have a right to trial by jury. Because if we are going to lock up all the crazy bastards, for goodness sake, would you not want, if you are a crazy bastard, to have a right to trial by jury? I think this is a very serious debate and should not be made frivolous. This is an ancient right that we have defended for 800 years. To say that habeas is due process is absurd. It is the beginning of due process. If you don't have a right to trial by jury, you do not have due process. You do not have a constitution. What are you fighting against and for if you throw the Constitution out, if you throw the sixth amendment out? It is in the body of our Constitution. It is in the Bill of Rights. It is in every Constitution in the United States. Trial by jury has been a longstanding and ancient and noble right. Let's not scrap it now. I will accept victory today. I hope we will win victory and reaffirm the right to trial by jury. But let's don't play any games with any aspect and believe that any Supreme Court in the United States, whether appointed by Republican or Democrat, is going to say that an American citizen does not have a right to trial by jury.

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the Feinstein-Lee amendment to prevent the indefinite detention of American citizens without a trial by jury. In the year 1215, the English barons gathered on the plain at Runnymede. They gathered to protest against King John. They gathered for their rights as free men. And they gathered for the right to trial by jury. We have had it enshrined in both English law and American law for 800 years. It seems a shame to scrap it now. People say: But these terrorists are horrible people. Yes, they are horrible people. But every day and every night in our country horrible people are accused of crimes, and they are taken to court. They have an attorney on their side. They are given a trial. People we despise, people who murder and rape, are given trials by juries. We can try and we can prosecute terrorists. People say: But they are terrorists. Well, the thing is, you are an American citizen and you are accused of terrorism. Who is going to determine who is a terrorist and who is not a terrorist? They do not walk around with a badge. They do not walk around with a card that says: I am from al-Qaida. They will be accused of a crime, and there will be facts. Someone must judge the facts. That is what a jury does. To give up on this because we are afraid of terrorists is to give in to the terrorists. If we give up our rights, if we relinquish our rights, haven't the terrorists then won? Jefferson said the right to trial by jury was the ``anchor,'' it was the anchor by which we protect ``the principles of the Constitution.'' Senator La Follette, a Senator from Wisconsin, said if we give up these rights, if we are unable to protect these rights, that ultimately the Bill of Rights loses its value. He said: Let no man think that we can deny civil liberty to others and retain it for ourselves. When zealot agents of the governments arrest suspected radicals without warrant, hold them without prompt trial, deny them access to counsel and admission of bail . . . we have shorn the Bill of Rights of its sanctity. . . . I would ask today of my colleagues that we have a chance to replace fear with confidence--confidence that no terrorist will ever conquer us if we remain steadfast to our principles--the principles of our Founders. We have nothing to fear except our own unwillingness to protect our rights. If we relinquish our right to trial by jury, we will have given up so much. Do not let those who would instill fear let you give up the most basic of rights--a right that prevents the oppression of government and the evolution or devolution into despotism. So I hope my colleagues will today vote to uphold an 800-year-old tradition, a tradition that is enshrined in the body of our Constitution, a tradition that is enshrined in our Bill of Rights, and a tradition that is in every constitution of all 50 States. Are we to give that up because we are fearful? We can and have convicted terrorists. We are not talking about terrorists from overseas. We are not talking about a battlefield somewhere else. We are talking about American citizens accused in our country. Why should you be wary? The government has descriptions of who might be a terrorist. If you have 7 days' of food in your basement, you might be a terrorist. If you have weatherized ammunition, you might be a terrorist. This is what your government describes as things you should report. Know your neighbor to report your neighbor. If you have weatherized ammunition, multiple guns, food in your basement, if you like to pay by cash--if these are the characteristics for which you might be accused of terrorism, would you not, at the very least, still want to retain your right as an American citizen to a right to a trial by a jury of your peers? I ask that we step up today and support an ancient tradition. And I worry about a country that would let a tradition like the right to trial by jury go so easily. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, I rise to support Senator Feinstein's amendment. I compliment her on her work. I also echo the importance of the right to trial by jury. In fact, I am appalled that anyone would think we could arrest anyone in our country without charging them and giving them a right to a trial. It seems so fundamentally un-American. I agree with her also that I think the Supreme Court would apply this to anyone. Our amendment will say citizens and permanent residents. But I think the Supreme Court, if challenged, will uphold the right to trial by jury of anyone within the United States. Today, we will either affirm the right to trial by jury or restrict it. Today, we will vote to affirm the sixth amendment to the Constitution or we will spurn it. Today, we will vote to affirm 800 years of history, beginning with the Magna Carta, or we will relinquish or, at the very least, diminish a right that Jefferson referred to as ``the only anchor yet imagined by man, which a government can be held to the principles of its Constitution.'' The right to trial by jury was a check on oppressive government. Opponents of the right to trial by jury will come and they will argue that the American homeland is now a battlefield and that we must circumscribe our right to trial by jury to be safe from terrorists. But if we give up our rights, have not the terrorist won? If we let fear relinquish our rights--if we relinquish our rights because of fear, what is it exactly then we are fighting for? We are asked to relinquish our rights because the battlefield is limitless. It is, though, not a temporary suspension they are asking for, and they request this because they also say the battle is also without limit. This is not a war that is going to end, nor is it a right they will suspend temporarily. They are asking people to relinquish their right to trial by jury for the rest of this limitless war. Those Senators who would propose limiting the right to trial by jury, they deflect and demur that everyone will still have a habeas hearing. A habeas hearing is important. They must present the body and a judge might say: Why are you holding this person? But it is not the end of due process; it is the beginning of due process. A habeas hearing is not due process. It is the beginning. We must still have a trial by jury or we do not have the due process our Founding Fathers fought for. Those Senators who would abridge this and say a habeas hearing is enough should remember Blackstone's admonition, ``Every new tribunal, erected for the decision of facts without the intervention of a jury . . . is a step towards establishing aristocracy, the most oppressive of absolute governments.'' We are told we cannot do this. We have to put these people outside the constitutional court, that somehow we need something beyond the Constitution, that the Constitution is not enough to convict terrorists. Yet hundreds of terrorists have been convicted. In fact, two terrorists in my little small town, Bowling Green, KY, were apprehended and were tried and were convicted to life for terrorism. We can do it. We are told that only terrorists associated with al-Qaida will this be applied to. We will only take away the right to trial by jury if they are part of al-Qaida. But part of the security apparatus also tells us to know your neighbor. Know your neighbor so you can report your neighbor. In fact, we are told by the government some of the characteristics that might make you a terrorist. We are told by the Department of Justice that if you have stains on your clothing, that if you are missing fingers, if you have changed the color of your hair recently, that if you prefer to pay in cash, that if you own weatherized ammunition, if you own multiple guns, you might be a terrorist; that your neighbor should report you. Do we want to relinquish our right to trial by jury if the characteristics of terrorism are wanting to pay by cash? In Missouri, they had fusion centers. They are supposed to accumulate information about terrorists and sort of assimilate Federal and local and have better communications. Sounds good. I am all for better communications. Before 9/11 we did mess up. We did not communicate well. But from this fusion center comes a document that says: Beware of people who have bumper stickers supporting third-party candidates, beware of people who believe in stricter immigration laws, beware of people who support the right to life; they might be terrorists. This is an official document. Do we want to give up the right to trial by jury when we are being told someone who keeps food in their basement might be a terrorist? Am I the only one who fears the relinquishing of a right we have had for 800 years? Am I the only one who fears that a terrorist might be someone whom we might describe as someone who is a constitutionalist? This is an ancient right to trial by jury we have had since virtually the beginning of our historic times. The Greeks and the Romans had a form of right to trial by jury. In 725 A.D., Morgan of Glamorgan, the Prince of Wales, said, ``For as Christ and his Twelve Apostles were finally to judge the world, so human tribunals should be composed of twelve wise men.'' We have been doing this for hundreds upon hundreds of years. We saw it as a way to check the oppression of the King but also to check the potential oppression of government. England and America have for centuries prized this right to trial by jury. It seems a shame to scrap it now. Our Founders believed so firmly in the right to trial by jury that they enshrined it in the body of the Constitution, again in this sixth amendment and again every State of the Union has within the body of its constitution the right to trial by jury. It seems a shame to scrap it now. Churchill proudly remembers our joint devotion to trial by jury. He writes, ``We must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, habeas corpus, trial by jury and the English common law find their most famous expression in the Declaration of Independence.'' Senator Lafollette, a famous Senator from Wisconsin, put it well. He said: Let no man think that we can deny civil liberty to others and retain it for ourselves. When zealot agents of the government arrest suspected radicals without warrant, hold them without prompt trial, deny them access to counsel and admission of bail . . . we have shorn the Bill of Rights of its sanctity . . . Today we have a chance to reaffirm our belief in the right to trial by jury. We have a chance to replace fear with confidence, confidence that no terrorist and no country will ever conquer us if we remain steadfast, steadfast to the principles of our founding documents. We have nothing to fear except our own unwillingness to defend what is naturally ours, our God-given rights. We have nothing to fear that should cause us to relinquish our rights as free men and women. I urge my colleagues to reject fear, to reject the siren call for an ever more powerful government. Justice White put it well when he said: A right to jury trial is granted criminal defendants in order to prevent the oppression by the government. It is not just about a fair trial, it is about checking your government. This vote today is about more than just combating terrorism or a fair trial, it is about relinquishing the right to the checks and balances, to the checks that cause and help us to check the relentless growth of government. It is about whether a free people are willing to remain steadfast in our defense of an 800-year-old right that finds justice for the accused and provides restraint and limits on despotism. I hope my colleagues will today vote against limitations on the trial by jury, recognize its sanctity, and recognize the importance of something that brings Members from the right side of the aisle together with Members of the left side of the aisle who believe strongly in the defense of the Bill of Rights. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending business be set side and that S. 3576 be made pending; that the Paul substitute amendment No. 2849 to S. 3576 be adopted; and that at the appropriate time the Senate consider S. 3576 as amended under the terms of the earlier order.

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, nothing in this bill refers to Israel, and nothing would apply to Israel. To imagine that any money could be removed from Israel, we would have to imagine that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accuses Israel of not protecting the Embassy. It is a canard, and it is a typical one that has been used many times. Nothing in the bill says we would have no aid to these countries. It simply says to these countries that if they protect our Embassy--Libya, if you continue to cooperate and send back terrorists and catch the assassins, you will continue to get our aid. It conditions aid on behavior. Right now, aid is not being conditioned on behavior. We have Pakistan, which has actually tortured a friend of America's. Dr. Shakil Afridi has been tortured for a year by the Pakistani Government. The Foreign Relations Committee has done nothing to address that, and so we have Dr. Shakil Afridi now in prison for years--for the rest of his life, essentially. I don't see any action forthcoming from the Foreign Affairs Committee. What I would say to my colleagues is this is a bill that places restrictions on foreign aid, it does not end foreign aid. It doesn't breach the Israel-Egypt treaty or the Camp David Accords. It is a canard. It is brought up routinely to try to prevent any changes or reform in foreign aid. We always hear it is going to end aid to Israel. It is a canard. What I would say to my colleagues is this bill does not end foreign aid. It places restrictions on foreign aid. Ask the American people: Do you think these restrictions are appropriate? Do you think a host country should protect our Embassy? Do you think a host country such as Libya should be asked to continue to cooperate? Do you think a host country such as Pakistan should turn over a friend of America and not imprison and torture a friend of America? I think these are very reasonable restrictions. I think these are restrictions we should have. I think these are restrictions anyone in America would say are very reasonable, and I urge adoption of the resolution.

Mr. PAUL. I will reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. PAUL. It boggles the mind to think that Hillary Clinton was on Capitol Hill this week to ask for increasing aid to Egypt. It boggles the mind that last month President Obama found an extra $1 billion to give to Pakistan. Meanwhile, Dr. Shakil Afridi has been in prison for a year. He said directly in interviews that he has been tortured by the Pakistani Government. Now he has been imprisoned for life. The Foreign Relations Committee has had a year to act on this and has not been forthcoming in doing anything to address Dr. Afridi or get him freed or to attach any restrictions or limitations to foreign aid. The restrictions currently in place are for the administration, and they have been waived. I say we don't give up the power of the purse. I say we keep the power of the purse and the restrictions with the legislature. This bill places restrictions on foreign aid to three countries. This bill does not end foreign aid, it adds restrictions. Some have argued that interrupting foreign aid now could inflame the Arab world. Does anyone think they are not already inflamed? They are inflamed because our foreign aid has incensed them. Our foreign aid bought Mubarak tear gas and police truncheons. We need to understand why the Arabs are angry. Some have argued that aid to Israel could be ended by this bill. That is ridiculous. The bill requires the Secretary of State to allege that a country did not attempt to protect an embassy that was attacked. To imply that a Secretary of State, Republican or Democrat, is going to allege that Israel is not protecting our embassy is absurd. It boggles the mind to think that any Senator wants to send foreign aid without conditions to countries that are burning our flag. I, for one, will not vote for one more penny to be sent to the people who riot and burn the American flag. Enough is enough. We are running a trillion-dollar deficit, and Americans are tired of their tax dollars being sent to countries that are burning the American flag. I urge a ``yes'' vote on placing restrictions on foreign aid.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, a vote for this resolution is a vote for the concept of preemptive war. I know of no other way to interpret this resolution. The resolution states that containment will never be our policy toward Iran. While I think it is unwise to say we will contain Iran, I think it is equally unwise to say we will never contain Iran. We woke up one day and Pakistan was a nuclear power. We woke up one day and North Korea was a nuclear power--India, Russia, China. But if we would have announced preemptively that we were not going to contain anyone, then we would be at odds with these countries, and what would the solution be? Preemptive war. Announcing to the world, as this resolution does, that containment will never be our policy is unwise. A country that vows to never contain an enemy is a country that vows always to preemptively strike. I urge a ``no'' vote on this resolution.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, we have before us a resolution on containment of Iran. I have voted for sanctions on Iran and do not think it is a good idea that Iran have nuclear weapons. However, I am very concerned about this particular resolution. I think a vote for this resolution is a vote for the concept of preemptive war. I know of no other way to interpret this resolution. The resolution says that containment--the strategy of trying to prevent expansion or invasion of countries--will never be our policy with regard to Iran. While I think it unwise to announce that we will contain Iran--I do think it unwise to tell Iran: Oh, it is fine to get a nuclear weapon; we will contain you--I also think it is equally unwise to say: We will never contain you. The reason I say this is that we woke up one day and Pakistan had nuclear weapons. We woke up one day and Russia had nuclear weapons-- China and India and North Korea. Had we made the statement--the rash statement--that we will never contain any country that has nuclear weapons, what does that mean? I think that means that you have decided--right now, before anything happens, you have decided that you will preemptively go to war. We have been at war for a decade now. We have been at war in Afghanistan. I supported going to Afghanistan, but I am ready to come home from Afghanistan. We were at war in Iraq for nearly 10 years. I am glad we are coming home from Iraq. But I do not want to automatically commit our country to a war in Iran. So while I do think it is a mistake to say we will not contain them, I think it is also a mistake to say we will contain them. It is a mistake to have a policy that is explicit one way or the other. President Reagan was once criticized and accused of having no foreign policy. He replied that it was not that he had no foreign policy; it was that he did not care to share it with everyone. Because if you give everyone--your potential enemies or friends--if you say to every country: If you do X, I will do X, or if you maybe do this, I will do that, you are exposing exactly what your plans are, and that may not be the best strategy. In other words, foreign policy is an ever-shifting battleground, and there should be a certain strategic ambiguity to foreign policy. So when we announce to Iran or to the world that we will never, ever contain Iran, it is an announcement that the bombs will be dropping if we ever hear that they are a nuclear power. I do not think we should say automatically we are willing to accept them as a nuclear power, but I do not think we should automatically say there will be a preemptive war with Iran. Now, everybody has been bragging. They say: Oh, everybody in the Senate is for this. Everybody is not. I am not for this. I may be alone on this, but, interestingly, if you travel to Israel, there is a very spirited debate on this. Meir Dagan, who was the head of the Mossad, cares deeply about Israel, would not be, by anyone's imagination accused of being a shrinking violet--he has done many things to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon. He is worried about what happens the minute the bombs start dropping on Iran. Where do you think the next set of bombs will go? They will be on Tel Aviv. They will not be on the United States. But if you live in Tel Aviv, you might have some concern over what happens and what Iran does. The other thing about beginning a war is that historically in our country we have had defensive wars. Nobody messes with us, and I agree with that. You mess with the United States there will be significant repercussions. We will not let you invade other countries and we will not let you invade the United States. But the idea that we will have offensive war and not defensive war is a concept that is new in our history. Preemptive war, going to war and saying we will go to war to prevent you from doing certain activities is a new concept in our lexicon of foreign policy. I think it is a dangerous one. Announcing to the world, as this resolution does, that containment will never be our policy is unwise. It is a recipe for perpetual war. A country that vows to never contain an enemy is a country that vows to always preemptively attack. To rule out containment as a strategy or as a strategic and sometimes militarily active form of defense is to admit we have become Orwellian. Yes, we have always been at war with East Asia or, yes, we have always been at war with Eurasia. It is an idea that we will always be perpetually at war. I am proud of being for a strong national defense. I am proud of being for protecting our country. But I cannot accept a resolution that says we will completely get rid of the containment strategy that was a strategy that kept us safe for 60 years during the most aggressive and dangerous war we have ever encountered, the Cold War. The Soviet Union had 30,000 intercontinental ballistic missiles that could reach the United States and attack us and devastate our country. If we would have had this concept that we rule out the idea of containment, we would have had an awful and devastating and maybe cataclysmic war with Russia. Now North Korea is more similar to Iran, a two-bit dictatorship that has trouble feeding their own people, has trouble having enough supplies of food and gasoline for their own people. There are similarities. But when North Korea announced it had a nuclear weapon, did we immediately start dropping bombs? Did we say we will not contain them? We contained North Korea. Some would argue the leadership of North Korea is equally as irrational as the leadership of Iran, if not more so. So we were able to contain a two-bit socialist, very small and unproductive country such as North Korea. I see no reason why, if we had to, we could not contain Iran. I am not promoting that as a philosophy. We should not be telling Iran we will contain them. But for goodness' sake, we should not be saying: We will never contain you. The people who vote for this resolution I think are well meaning, but I do not think they are thinking this through. We have had this before. When the resolution came up for the Iraq war, many voted for it and then some came back later and said: I voted for it before I voted against it. They wanted it both ways. Many come up to me now and say: I voted for the Iraq war, but it was a mistake. I voted for this concept of offensive war, of preemptive war to stop Iraq from having weapons of mass destruction, but I made a mistake. I think the Iraq war was a mistake. I was not here, but I would have voted no. I fear we are pushing on. Every month there has to be a new and more bellicose resolution to ensure we will go to war and that at all costs we will go to war in Iran. I think it is a mistake. I think there should be some strategic ambiguity, meaning that we do not announce to our enemies exactly what we are going to do. We let them know firmly what our position is, but we do not announce to them our entire military strategy. To do so, to rule out a strategy that we had for 60 years that worked, that kept us in a very difficult and uneasy peace with the Soviet Union, does anybody here argue we would have been much better if containment would not have been a strategy, if we would have said absolutely to Russia, if you do this, we are going to--the bombs will drop tomorrow. That scares me. But what scares me more is that so many Members of this body are jumping up and down to embrace each other in the bipartisan desire that we will not have containment as a strategy, that we absolutely will go to war if we wake up and Iran has nuclear weapons. You know what, the other day Meir Dagan, the former head of the Mossad, said that you cannot bomb the nuclear knowledge out of the psyche. Nuclear knowledge, the knowledge to make nuclear weapons, is out there now. It is in Iran. We will not be able to stop that knowledge. We will not be able to eradicate the knowledge of nuclear weapons. That is something to think about. Because there may come a day--and this is the prelude to the next argument. The next argument we have on this floor will be one day when Iran announces, and am not for this, I think we should do everything--I voted for sanctions. I think we should do everything to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon. But my goodness this is a huge mistake. It may be unpopular for me at home to say this, but I will say it. I will say it loudly. To rule out any kind of defensive strategy that does not include an offensive war is a huge mistake for the country. I will vigorously oppose this resolution. I hope those who have glommed onto this resolution so quickly, because there is an incredible force behind this resolution, there is an incredible lobbying apparatus that says you have to go onto this or else. I hope they will reread this and reconsider. Think about the double and triple amputees who have come home to your town. Think about the soldiers who have committed suicide. Think about the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who are overseas now. Ask yourself, are we ready to send another 100,000 or 200,000 or 300,000 soldiers to Iran? I am not asking that we do nothing. We just beefed up the sanctions a couple months ago. But there are other things to do besides saying we will always have to go to war. For example, who does Iran trade with? You know the reason why the sanctions probably will not ultimately work? Because Iran trades with China and Russia and India and Japan and they are exempt from the sanctions. We say there are sanctions, but then we give them exemptions and they sell all their oil somewhere else. We do not have the power to shut down Iran through sanctions. If we were to convince somehow Russia and China to be on our side, we could have leverage, and I think Iran would listen. The sanctions have brought them back to the table. They are negotiating. I do not for 1 minute believe everything they say or think they are trustworthy. But it is better than war to have negotiations, even with a fallible and perhaps deceitful partner sometimes--but it is still better than war. I think there is such an eagerness or such a lack of reluctance in this body to think through the issues of war. That is how we get into this. We get into it because everybody wants to be stronger than the next guy. Everybody wants to be more bellicose than the next guy. Everybody wants to say: Nobody pushes us around and we are not going to take it. But there are other ways. There are other ways. We have to worry about and think about what ultimately are the repercussions. Our soldiers are not inanimate clay that we put on this master board of chess, this geopolitical chess game, to move around. These are young men and women who live in your neighborhood, who live in the neighboring town. When I think about war, I think about this resolution; I do not think about empty black and white words on a page. I think about those young men and woman and my commitment, my real and strong commitment that I am not going to war without absolute provocation, without a threat to the national security, and for goodness' sake, without a debate over it. The other side may say: This does not say anything about war. No, but it says some things that are very unwise; that we would rule out an entire form of defense strategy that we used for 60 years successfully to stay out of war. I think it is a mistake to say it is OK for Iran to be a nuclear country and we will contain them. But I think it is also a mistake to say we will never contain them. I have another amendment that is coming up this evening. This is an amendment to place limitations on foreign aid. For the last hour or two, we have had a bit of the other side giving their response. That is fine. We discover the truth by hearing the debate on both sides of this. But Senator Moynihan, who used to serve up here who is deceased, once said: Everybody has the right to their own opinion, but you do not have the right to make up your own set of facts. There was a Senator here earlier who said: Oh, that guy from Kentucky, he does not believe in a strong national defense. He would slash national defense. So anybody who is against foreign aid is not for national defense. This particular Senator said: He would gut defense and he would cut it by 16 percent. That is just sort of making up your facts. That is not fair. He is entitled to his opinion, but he is not entitled to make up the facts. I do have a budget that I put forward that balances the budget in 5 years. I also have a priority within that budget that I think the most important thing our government does and that the Constitution mandates is a strong national defense. I think it is the most important thing we do in this country. So in my budget I am able to cut a significant amount of spending, but I actually limit the military sequester. The military sequester was an automatic cut. I do it by cutting out other spending, real cuts in spending in the same year to reduce the size of government, but I do not have a 16-percent cut in military in 1 year. In fact, under the military sequester, I actually restore $50 billion that allows the first year not to have any cuts in military. Do I think there should be some cuts in military? Yes. But I make it a little bit easier on the cuts over time. To say I am proposing a 16-percent cut is untrue. Others have said: Yes, the military sequester is so horrible. He is going to cut foreign aid. The country will be defenseless. The hordes will be over here. We will have to fight them over there. There is a certain irony to this because half these people, these Senators who are caterwauling about this military sequester, guess what they will not tell you. They voted for the military sequester. I voted against the military sequester last year because I did not think there was going to be enough cuts to rescue us from this debt bomb that is ticking. But the people who voted for the military sequester are now up here accusing me of wanting to gut defense and all the military cuts and they voted for the military sequester. Others have come to the floor and said: If we do not pay people to be our friend, if we do not give people foreign aid, then we are wanting to withdraw from the world, that we are going to withdraw into a little, tiny shell, into a closet and lock ourselves in a fortress and we are not going to engage the world. Nothing could be further from the truth. We do not give any foreign aid to England. Have we withdrawn from England? We do not give any foreign aid to anybody in Europe. Have we withdrawn from Europe? We are incredibly connected with Europe. We are incredibly connected with China, despite our differences--incredibly connected with China. We do not have to give foreign aid to be connected to the world. We should trade with the world. That is the connection. The more we are interconnected through trade, the less likely we are to go to war. The other side also says that if we do not have foreign aid we will have war. My goodness, has anybody been paying attention? We have had two pretty big wars for a decade. We are involved in the longest war in the history of our country. I do not see any evidence that foreign aid is preventing war. Some might say: But foreign aid is humanitarian and we want to help poor people. I see zero evidence that foreign aid is helping poor people. It is helping rich people in poor countries. I went through an hour's worth of this earlier talking about how dictators are the ones stealing the money in Africa. Africans live on an average of $2 a day. They did 30 years ago and they still do because foreign aid does not get to the people; it is stolen by the dictators. The other point to make about foreign aid is: My goodness, if we do not have foreign aid, we will be fighting them on our shores. Because we have foreign aid, we have a great deal of antipathy. What they need to think through--and nobody is thinking through--is why are the Arabs mad? Why are they yelling and screaming and burning the American flag? That makes me mad, and that is one reason I don't want to send them any money, because they are burning our flag. But why are they mad? They are mad because Mubarak, who was a dictator in Egypt--do you know what he did when the crowds were formed? He hosed them down with teargas made in Pennsylvania and bought with foreign aid. When the police came with truncheons and beat the crap out of people who were protesting in Egypt, they did it with money from the United States. They are not mad at us because we are rich, they are not mad at us because we drive cars and have nice clothes and have music they find distasteful. They are really not even ultimately mad at us because of that movie. They do not like it, and I understand there are sensibilities on this, but that is not ultimately why they are mad. But they get really mad when they are hit over the head with a police truncheon paid for with foreign aid. So it is exactly the opposite of what the other side says. The other side says without foreign aid we will have more war. I say because of the foreign aid we have more war. There is no objective evidence. Is there any objective evidence we have had less war with foreign aid? None. Zero. There is a lot of evidence we are out of money, though. We are $1 trillion in the hole every year, and they all come down and pay lip service to it, but then say: Oh, well, $30 billion won't make a difference. I say we have to start somewhere, and foreign aid is a great place to start. These Senators are disconnected from the public. I defy any Senator who votes to continue foreign aid with no limitations to go home and ask their people. I will bet 90 percent of the people at home--it routinely polls in the 70s--are in favor of not sending money overseas, particularly if asked whether they want to send money overseas to people who despise us or if they would want to send money overseas to people who are burning our flag; would they want to send money overseas to a country that has tortured a man who helped us get bin Laden; to a country that allowed bin Laden to live within its midst for 6 or 7 years unmolested; to a country that is mad at us now because we got bin Laden; to a country where a third of the population would vote for bin Laden for president. I say far from destabilizing the world, what would happen if we were to remove foreign aid is we would remove the impetus to the Arab spring becoming the Arab winter. What I see is people recognizing that people are angry, but I see no intelligent discussion about why they are angry. When people come to me and they say: Oh, it is because we are rich and we are a wealthy country, that doesn't make any sense to me. Many of these people actually in the Arab spring do want freedom--a freedom like our freedom. It may be a little different, because it is a different culture and they believe in a different system of democracy than we do, but they still want some freedom. Some might ask: If they want freedom and we have freedom, why wouldn't they admire our system; why wouldn't they be sympathetic; why are they burning our flag; why are 20,000, 30,000, 40,000, 50,000 people rallying and burning our flag? It is because too often our foreign aid has gone to support dictators who have oppressed their people. Mubarak got $60 billion in Egypt. Estimates of his family's worth are up to $50 billion. They repressed their people. No one could come into the street without being beaten over the head with a police baton or sprayed with teargas made in Pennsylvania. They were mad at Mubarak, understandably, so that anger is transferred to us. The same with Ben Ali in Tunisia, and the same with Hussein. Remember that Hussein was our ally before he was our enemy. In the Iran-Iraq war we had American planes on both sides. We had military advisers supporting Hussein against Iran, but we had F-4 Phantoms flying on Iran's side that were left there when we left. So this goes back a long way. I remember being in high school and being perplexed as to why the Iranians hated us. Why were they burning our flag? Why were they burning our Embassy and jumping up and down like a bunch of idiots burning our flag? Why did they hate us so much? Because we kept in power a man--the shah--whom they didn't like, whom they despised, and who was autocratic and had a very significant police force that didn't allow dissent. It is the opposite of what the other side argues for. The other side is arguing that without foreign aid we will have war. I am arguing that because of foreign aid we have war. Because of foreign aid and because of the misapplication of foreign aid, because of the theft of foreign aid, and because foreign aid is given to people who repress their people, the Arab spring, which has a healthy element to it, has become the Arab winter. If we don't understand that, we are never going to get beyond that. We have to also go back to the specifics of what I am asking for in this amendment. In this amendment, what I am asking for is that there simply be restrictions. I am asking that in order to get our foreign aid, a country has to act like an ally; they have to significantly and believably pledge to protect our Embassy. In Libya's regard, they have to promise to turn over the people who assassinated our Ambassador. I think that is the minimum of what we should do. Frankly, I think we probably shouldn't be sending aid at all, but I think this is a first step in the right direction; to say, for goodness sakes, if we are going to send aid to people, at least send it to people who are acting like our allies. When we see the American flag being burned in public by tens of thousands of the horde around our Embassies around the world, we should ask ourselves if we want to send good money after bad to that country. Do we believe it is working? And when we think about whether our money should go to African despots and dictators, we should ask if that money is getting to the poor people in Africa or is our foreign aid going to rich people in poor countries. That is the history of it. It is the history of repression, it is the history of human rights abuse, it is the history of theft and more corruption than anyone can ever imagine. I will probably lose this vote, but I have fought long and hard. I have fought for 6 weeks to get this vote, and so we are going to have this vote at midnight. People aren't too happy with me now, but we are going to have a vote tonight at midnight, and I think it is an important vote. I think it is an important first step whether we win or lose. Because every Senator who votes on this tonight will have to go home and they will have to engage their constituents and explain to their constituents why they are still willing to send money to countries that are burning the American flag; why they are still willing to send money to countries where there is ample evidence of corruption and thievery; why they are still willing to send foreign aid to countries that are openly disdainful of us. Does everyone realize the President of Afghanistan, or senior advisers, have said that if there is a war with Pakistan--between the United States and Pakistan--they will side with Pakistan? Pakistan's senior advisers have said if there is a war with Iran, they will side with Iran. These are the people we are sending billions of dollars to and saying: Please be our friends. They laugh and snigger at us and turn away and say: Fools. That is what they say about us. I say what we need in this country is an American spring--an American spring where we wake up and say: Look, to make our country great again, to retain American greatness, we have to figure out how to grow at home. And I think that means leaving more money at home. I hope the Senate will consider this when they vote this evening. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, I am going to tell you the story today of a love affair. It is a story that is a steamy one. It is a story of illicit behavior, of treachery, and of gluttony. It is a story that involves intrigue and deception. It is a story of unintended consequences, and it is a story of anger and violence. It is the story of American foreign aid. Joseph Sambayi Mukendie never sleeps at home anymore. Mukendie's sleep is interrupted by dreams. He feels unsafe even a continent away from his attackers. Mukendie was arrested at home one night. He was taken to an underground cell at Camp Kongolo--a military base in Kinshasha, Zaire. The secret police of Mobutu stripped him naked, stretched him out on the floor, and then he was beaten with a large stick with nails protruding from the end. Mobutu received billions of dollars in foreign aid from our country. Over his 30-year bloody dictatorship, he received billions of our taxpayer dollars. As his people starved, his wife went to Europe, spent millions of dollars on spending sprees. Zaire has very little running water and sporadic electricity. It rotted under Mobutu's rule, and yet he received billions of American dollars. Mobutu stole the lion's share of this. He became one of the richest men in the world. Enough was stolen that his wealth was estimated to be in the billions. They called his wife Gucci Mobutu. Her shoe collection rivaled Imelda Marcos'. She was capable of spending $1 million in one day in Europe. Jean Nguza Karl-i-Bond was an ally of Mobutu who fell out of his favor. Mobutu accused him of trying to seduce the First Lady. Many believed his only crime was that he was mentioned in the foreign press as a possible successor to Mobutu. Nguza was subjected to physical and electric torture to the genitals--too horrific to even repeat. The administration of Jimmy Carter, who ostensibly were champions of human rights, nevertheless continued the steady flow of foreign aid, for foreign aid is a bipartisan project. There is a consensus in the United States and in the Senate. We must send it no matter what the behavior of the recipients. Not only did our leaders turn a blind eye to Mobutu's graft and human rights abuses, they bestowed upon him inexplicable and personal friendship. Mobutu was known as a personal friend of the first President Bush and vacationed at his personal residence. When Mobutu traveled to Europe, he would stop by the Central Bank of Zaire. Early in his reign, he would come by with a Louie Vuitton bag and would get about $50,000 in cash. Toward the end of his career, he was getting $500,000 in cash for these trips to Europe. One of his many foreign residences was in Switzerland. He apparently had the time and money to vacation there, and even had his own brandy being made at our taxpayers' expense. It is sad to contemplate what despots and dictators have done and are doing to their people. It is sadder still to realize they are being subsidized in this horrific behavior by taxpayer money. And it continues. We are having a debate now over foreign aid because they still want to send more. Many people think the answer is to send more; maybe they will behave better if they get more of our money. Apologists for foreign aid don't deny foreign aid has often been stolen by corrupt leaders, and there is evidence the humanitarian outcomes are scant and don't occur. Nevertheless, the advocates of foreign aid justify the continuing aid with the argument we must often choose the lesser of two evils. As many have pointed out, the lesser of two evils is still evil. Throughout the Cold War, the perceived threat of Soviet expansionism, though, clouded the minds of many leaders. American leaders would pick one dictator over another if he or she were a pro-American dictator. We didn't care what they were doing to their people. We turned a blind eye. We gave money to dictators from Saddam Hussein, who was once our ally, receiving billions of our tax dollars, to the mujahedin, who were radical jihadists. But at the time, we didn't mind if they were a radical jihadist if they were our radical jihadist because they were opposing the Soviet Union. But the mujahedin actually, eventually, became the Taliban, who are now our enemies. We despise jihad now, and we fight against radical Islamic jihad. But at one time we subsidized jihad. In fact, there were several weapons left over from the time period when we were giving weapons to the mujahedin. We subsidized Qadhafi before we fought Qadhafi. We gave Qadhafi foreign aid. He was our friend. In the year preceding his overthrow, there were Senators from this body speaking with Qadhafi's family about sending more money to Qadhafi. Where does the insanity end? U.S. foreign aid has continued to flow despite a long string of abuses well-known to most of those who are dispensing the aid. They simply turn a blind eye. Except for Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia, where many are saying let's send the money to secularists; now there is a question as to whether some of that money may be going to radical Islamists. With the end of the Cold War, some were finally cut off. Mobutu, whom I mentioned, who committed these atrocious acts of torture, finally was cut off, but only after 30 years of receiving our taxpayer money, torturing his own people, and stealing everyone blind. Foreign aid from developed countries in 2006 totaled $100 billion a year. Over the past 50 years, we have given $2 trillion to developing countries in foreign aid. Over the past 42 years, Easterly states that although $568 billion has flowed into Africa, per-capita growth in income in Africa has been flat. In fact, in some countries, such as Zimbabwe, where Mugabe was in charge for several decades, the growth rate has actually been negative. So for those who say: I just simply want to help people; I want to help poor people around the world by sending them money, it is stolen by their leaders. It doesn't get to the poor people, and, besides, some may have heard we are $1 trillion short in our budget. How can we send more money overseas? Some academics have argued that with the Arab spring, the emerging democracies will require even more foreign aid. Hillary Clinton is on Capitol Hill today asking for more money to go to Egypt. As they burn our flag, as the hordes gather by the tens of thousands, she is asking to send Egypt more money. There were no Egyptian policemen or soldiers who showed up when our Ambassador was attacked, and Hillary Clinton is asking for more money to go to Egypt. According to Coyne and Ryan, the world's worst dictators have received $105 billion under the guise of official developmental assistance. Instead of helping the poor, the assistance is aiding the ability of the dictators to remain in power. In fact, it keeps them in power long enough that it inflames the populace so that we end up having to go back in because of war because the populace is so inflamed against the dictator that we have propped up against popular rule. Some academics argue emerging democracies will require more aid. Professors Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith argue: Democracy would make the price much higher. Democracy in Egypt comes at a big price for U.S. voters. Good or bad--that is up to the observer, but it will be costly, no doubt. The professors' argument is that democracy is messy and costs more to subsidize because the ballot box gives voice to the minorities that dictators would not hear, that they would silence or imprison. I think the real question and the image we have to have in our mind is when we see 10,000 people outside the Embassy in Pakistan burning the U.S. flag, imagine that we would send them more money. Imagine we would not ask for restrictions on this money. I have been asking for 6 weeks to place restrictions on foreign aid. I am not even asking that it end, although I would, but I am asking to simply place restrictions on it. Everyone should watch this vote. If I get this vote, just watch. The vast majority of the Senate is going to vote for unlimited, unrestricted foreign aid. I will probably lose this vote, but when we ask our friends, when we go home and ask our friends: Should we be sending money to countries that disrespect us, to countries that burn our flag, I think most will find that 80 to 90 percent of the American people wouldn't send another penny. That may be why Congress has about a 10-percent approval rating. They don't get it. Ninety percent of the folks up here are going to vote to continue sending taxpayer money with no restrictions to countries that burn our flag and disrespect us. Is it any wonder that only 10 percent of America approves of Congress? In fact, many people who claim to be conservatives are for foreign aid. Big government conservative advocates, such as John Guardiano, try to couch their support in feigned opposition. He says: Now, I don't like foreign aid any more than the next conservative. Most foreign aid is probably economically wasteful and counterproductive. But the point of foreign aid is not economics. It is geopolitics. That is what most of them will admit around here. Continuing his quote: It is intended to shape a recipient country's behavior and, quite literally, buy American influence. To his mind he says it does that. But if foreign aid is meant to shape a country's behavior, advocates have a lot of explaining to do. From Mobutu to Mugabe, from Mubarak to Hussein to Qadhafi, from the current Egypt to the current Pakistan that is holding a gentleman who helped us get bin Laden, to the current Pakistan that seemed somehow to let bin Laden live for 7 years in their midst with no knowledge he was there--they have some explaining to do. For those who advocate foreign aid, saying it is shaping the behavior of these countries, they have some explaining to do because it doesn't appear as if these countries respect America. It doesn't appear as if they even like us. And it also doesn't appear that if they want to be our ally they are acting like it. That is all I am asking. If a country wants to be an ally of our country, they should act like it. If they want to receive and cash an American check, they need to act like our ally at the very least. There is some question about whether the aid works when it is sent for poverty or humanitarian purposes. Doug Bandow asked this question and argues that foreign aid actually encourages poverty and starvation because African nations use displays of poverty and starvation to seek more aid. Why get rid of your problem? Why cure your problem if that is what you are showing the world you have so you can get more aid? We don't seem to care about results because we continue to give it to some of these dictators for decades, who produce no results and we know are stealing the money. Brautigram and Knack illustrate the existence of a moral hazard problem surrounding foreign aid. They contend that aid allocation may actually encourage impoverishing policy because as the damaging policies create misery, the more likely the donors are to grant more aid. Herb Werlin maintains that American foreign aid is undermined by tariffs and subsidies, including a $3 billion-a-year subsidy lavished on 25,000 cotton farmers. Because of high subsidies, America is able to export corn at two-thirds the cost of production, making it impossible for African farmers to compete. So our trade policy makes it harder for African countries to become self-sufficient. Peanuts are protected by a tariff up to 164 percent, thereby making Africa's peanut-producing nations, such as Uganda, even more dependent on aid. But it is not just rich people in poor countries getting foreign aid; we also continue to shift our dollars to rich countries. Michael Tennant reports: According to a report from the Congressional Research Service, in fiscal year 2010 the United States' top creditor nations received millions of dollars in aid. So the countries we are borrowing money from, we are sending them foreign aid. China, to whom we owe over $1 trillion, still gets $27 million in aid. Russia, to whom we owe $127 billion, still gets $71 million in aid. To add insult to injury, China gets economic development assistance from the U.S. taxpayer. It just amazes me. But you mark my words, you listen to the debate, and you watch the vote today--the vast majority does not want any change to foreign aid other than that they would increase it. If we are not getting the behavior we want, they would increase it. Hillary Clinton is on Capitol Hill today asking to increase aid to Egypt--not to put restrictions on the aid, to increase it. We currently do have some restrictions on aid to Egypt. Hillary Clinton has waived those and said they are doing fine. When the marauders, when the horde came to the Embassy in Egypt last week, there was a phone call made to our Embassy saying: The mob is coming. But no soldiers came. No one came to protect our Embassy. In the civilized world, the host nation protecting the guest nation's Embassy is of primary concern. It is something every civilized nation is expected to do. In the case of Egypt, no one came. We were lucky that we escaped death in Egypt. We weren't so lucky in Libya. The report on China that found out we were borrowing money and then giving foreign aid to countries we borrow from was commissioned by Senator Tom Coburn, who has been watching out for your money. He demanded this report, and he said: Borrowing money from countries who receive our aid is dangerous for both the donor and the recipient. If countries can afford to buy our debt, perhaps they can afford to fund their own assistance programs without relying on the American taxpayer. Michael Tennant goes on to say this: We give China 3.9 million to enforce the rule of law and human rights, neither of which are thought to be China's selling points. The one that really burns, though, is that $700,000 in economic development assistance. It just boggles the mind that the U.S. taxpayer is asked to send money to China--which is outcompeting us in virtually every sector--to send money to subsidize their economic development assistance. One would think that with all this evidence that foreign aid doesn't reach the intended beneficiaries and often winds up in the hands of dictators, this information would make it easy to defeat foreign aid. When you look at the polls of the American people, you find that nearly 80 percent of the American people think foreign aid in general is a bad idea. We have roads in our country that are crumbling and need repair. We have bridges that are crumbling. In my State alone, we had a bridge out 6 months last year. We have two bridges in Kentucky that are older than I am and need to be replaced. We don't have the money, but we somehow have billions of dollars to send to people who disrespect us and burn our flag. I don't understand how we can send our money to these countries that disdain us, disrespect us. In Pakistan, they hold the doctor who helped us get bin Laden. We fought a 10-year war in Afghanistan to get bin Laden and his followers. We finally got him--no help from Pakistan. He lived in Pakistan for many years. Pakistan is now mad that we got him. In fact, they riot over there and burn the American flag because we killed bin Laden. What do we do? Here is some more money. If we give you some more money, will you behave. If we give you more money, will you let our supplies go across your northern frontier. But we don't ask them the real question: Are you our friend? If you are our friend, act like it. If you are our ally, act like it. Anytime this question is broached over foreign aid, the vast majority of career politicians complain bitterly and quash any debate. I have been trying to have this vote for 6 weeks. I am still hopeful we will get it, but they don't want to vote on this because they know they are voting against the popular will, they are voting against the wishes of their constituents. There is not one Senator from any one of the 50 States up here who, when they vote against these limitations on foreign aid, won't be voting against the will of their State--they won't be voting against the will of their people. You can go to Massachusetts or Maine or to conservative Texas and ask the taxpayers, ask the voters: Are you in favor of sending money to these countries where tens of thousands of people are gathering and burning our flag? Are you in favor of sending hard-earned taxpayer money to countries that disrespect us? Are you in favor of sending money to these countries when we have so many problems at home that we can't handle? And in every State in the Union, you will find that a majority of voters--sometimes a vast majority of the voters--think it is a mistake. So what is happening here is that the will of the people is not being transmitted by this body because this body, when it votes on this issue, will vote in direct defiance of the will of the people. It is often said that it is difficult to determine whether a recipient is a friend or a foe. Libya is an example. One day Libya came in from the cold. A longtime pariah among nations, rivaling Iran as a model for extreme thuggishness, Libya came in from the cold. Libya and her Colonel Qadhafi phoned the West and said they would change their ways, they would stop developing weapons of mass destruction and become good neighbors to all. This is before the recent Libyan revolution. This is the Qadhafi, whom we helped to overturn, who was by all accounts a horrible dictator, but about 2 or 3 years ago he came in from the cold and wanted to be a friend to America because he wanted our assistance. With an alacrity sped by naivete, the West welcomed Qadhafi back into the bosom of respected nations. Delegations of U.S. Senators--ones who are still in this body--went to meet with Qadhafi, to meet with Qadhafi's family, to offer Qadhafi money. Prime Minister Tony Blair gushed with praise for his new friend Colonel Qadhafi. President Bush concluded that Libya was no longer a sponsor of terror. Three Senators met with Qadhafi's son and, according to leaked cables, offered him aid. Fast-forward barely a year later into the Arab spring, and these same Senators who were offering Qadhafi aid were back in Libya offering the rebels aid. We should scratch our heads and say: My goodness. Maybe we should question the judgment of these people who tell you foreign aid should be given to everyone all the time, and if they misbehave, give them more, because you have Senators from this body going and offering aid to Qadhafi and a year later offering it to the rebels to overthrow Qadhafi and saying Qadhafi is a terrible dictator. He was. He always was. But he played a game, and we accepted the game because we are always willing to play the game with your money. Egypt. Egypt is a pile of contradictions. In the words of former CIA Agent Robert Baer, ``If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them tortured, you send them to Syria. But if you want them to disappear--never to see them again--you send them to Egypt.'' This was the Egypt under Mubarak, who--when we felt someone needed to be tortured or disappeared and we didn't want there to be any repercussions coming back on us, that is where they sent them--to Egypt. Over the past 30 years, we bought this sort of regime there to do our bidding when we wished. It became very unpopular with the people. So you wonder about the Arab spring and you wonder, why are these people so unhappy? Well, they hated Mubarak because he was a dictator, he was an autocrat, and they didn't have freedom of speech, they didn't have freedom of association, and they were beaten with billy clubs if they tried to gather. Their political parties were outlawed. They hated Mubarak because he was antidemocrat. He didn't allow voting. But he was our guy. We paid for him. So you have to think this through. Why is there such widespread anti- Americanism? Because we have propped up and given money to so many despots, to so many dictators. Over the past 30 years, the United States sent over $30 billion to Egypt to help finance a police state ruled by an emergency decree that lasted several decades. Khaled Said became the face of that foreign aid, as pictures of his bloody beating at the hands of the Egyptian police spurred the youth of Egypt to take to the streets in the Arab spring of 2011. On June 6, 2010, Said had been sitting on the second floor of a cyber cafe. Two detectives from the Sidi Gaber police station entered the premises and arrested him. Multiple witnesses testified that Said was beaten to death by the police, who reportedly hit him and smashed him against objects as he was led outside to their police car. The owner of the Internet cafe in which Said was arrested stated that he witnessed Said being beaten to death in the doorway of the building across the street after the detectives took him out of the cafe at the owner's request. Another young man, Wael Ghonim, a young Egyptian living in Dubai, found the photos of Said after he was beaten to death by police, and he started a Facebook page. It is called ``We are all Khaled Said.'' It was moderated by Wael Ghonim. It brought attention to his death, and it became a phenomenon and spread across the Middle East as people saw the death of this man, beaten to death by the police. So we have to think, why are we seeing people burning the American flag? Why are we seeing such great unrest in 30 different countries? Because our foreign aid and our military aid have propped up dictators who become, over decades, despotic, autocratic, who torture their people and prevent freedom from occurring, and then there is a backlash. What we are seeing is the backlash of 30 years of foreign aid and propping up military dictatorships simply because they were predisposed to like us as opposed to someone else. ``We are all Khaled Said'' was the rallying cry that brought hundreds of thousands of people to the streets in Egypt. Ghonim's Facebook, where he posted ``We are all Khaled Said,'' spawned a revolution. As hundreds of thousands of protesters filled Tahrir Square, the police beat them back. David Reiff of the New Republic reports: U.S. military aid to Egypt, which averages $1.3 billion annually, allowed the Egyptian police and paramilitaries to bombard protestors with volley after volley of tear gas made by a company in Pennsylvania. Why are they angry? They know this. They know their protests are beaten down by autocrats supported by the United States who are spraying tear gas on them that is made in the United States. We have to understand the dynamic if we are ever to try to improve the situation. The protest in Egypt escalated day after day. An unemployed man by the name of Salah Mahmoud, who had moved to Cairo in search of work to save enough money to own a home and marry but instead had been living on small day's wages, set himself on fire in the middle of the street before being put out by bystanders. The U.S. military aid and tactical training given to Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia to fight terrorism was used to fight against free association and freedom of speech of their people. When we hear about the Arab spring, we need to understand where the Arab spring comes from. The Arab spring was a rising up for democracy. There is nothing wrong with that. But why would a rising up for democracy take on anti-American tones? I am as offended as anybody else by people burning our flag. But we have to understand why did the Arab spring that seemed to be a search for freedom and democracy--why did it get transformed into an Arab winter? Why did it get transformed into an anti-American protest? Because the tear gas that rained down on them for decades was made here, because the police batons were paid for with our money, because Mubarak, who stole millions of dollars and whose family lived with such wealth and abundance, with homes in London and Paris and secret Swiss accounts, got that at our expense. So when they hated Mubarak, they hated us also. They hated us because we were Mubarak. They hated us because we were Ben Ali in Tunisia. They hated us because we were at one time Saddam Hussein's friend. If we do not understand this, we are never going to figure out a way to make things better. There are many and ample fiscal reasons to oppose foreign aid, but Thomas Eddlem puts it succinctly when he writes: ``Foreign aid has historically been used to suppress freedom and has reduced the moral influence of the example of the U.S. Constitution.'' It is hard for us to imagine, because we have such a great Constitution and such great freedom here, why they don't appreciate that. Why don't they appreciate and look to the shining example we set? We do set a great example in our country for freedom and tolerance and association. Why can't the folks in the Middle East see that? Because they see the truncheon, they see the police baton, they see the jail cells, they see trial without jury from the autocrats we have supported. We have to understand why this anti-Americanism comes. It has come because, largely, our foreign aid for decade upon decade has been given to despots throughout the Middle East. Those despots have run roughshod on their people and their people are unhappy. It is not that they despise our Constitution. I think many of them would like to have the freedoms enshrined in our Constitution, but it is confusing to us because we think: Oh, they hate what America is all about. They hate America for our wealth and freedom. They don't hate wealth and freedom. They probably don't hate us in the abstract, but they hate us because when they see Mubarak, when they see the other end of a truncheon coming from the police of Mubarak or the police of Saddam Hussein or the chemical weaponry and the chemical gas Hussein sprayed on his people, they see where it came from and they see the money that came in to prop up these dictators. From 1980 to 1988, there was a war. We have largely forgotten about it. It was between Iran and Iraq. In that war there were planes on both sides, American planes, because we had sold planes to both sides. At the time, Iran was still flying many F-4s, a couple hundred F-4 Phantoms, and on the other side we had advisers on the ground advising Hussein. Hussein was our ally. We sent money to Hussein on a routine basis. There are some reports that said Hussein directly got money from our CIA. So we can understand the confusion over there and we can understand that even though Iraq was been liberated and there is a democracy there, that some of them still seem to hate us for some reason. We wonder why they would hate us if we freed them. Because some still remember Hussein and they fear there will be another Hussein. One of the saddest stories that came up in the last week was a young soldier who was killed in Afghanistan. He was killed by the policeman, the Afghan policeman he was training. We have had over 50 deaths in Afghanistan this year from friendly fire, from our supposed allies. This one was particularly sad. This boy was to come home within a week or two. His brother was having a football game. He was supposed to make his brother's football game. This is a patriotic family, a military family. This boy proudly served, and he deserves nothing but our admiration. But he called his dad a week before and he said to his dad: I think the guy I am training is going to kill me. The Afghan policeman had been coming up to him for weeks saying, ``We don't want you here.'' These are the people we are sending our money to. We are sending our young men and women to die over there, but we are supporting people who it is not clear want to be our friends or want to be our allies. It is not clear we can win their friendship. The President of Afghanistan, Karzai, we basically helped get in power. He stays in power probably because of our presence there. Yet he is disdainful of us. They have said if there is a war with Pakistan--Karzai said he would side with Pakistan. When there was a shooting recently where an Afghan policeman shot several of our officers in a government building where they should not have been armed--or were not armed--Karzai's response was to talk about the burning of the Koran, as if there was justification for these deaths. When the riots erupted in Egypt recently, what were the first words out of President Mursi's mouth, from Egypt? The first words out of his mouth were: How dare America produce this film? America didn't produce the film, but those were the first words out of his mouth, not that ``we should protect the Embassy'' and that ``there is no justification for attacking an embassy'' regardless of any kind of discussion over this movie. We have to figure out how do we get and retain valid allies? We do have allies around the world we do not give any money to. But too often through the years we have decided to choose one dictator over another, to choose the lesser of two evils. Ultimately, often we have had to go back in to fight against our own weapons. Hussein was our ally. We ended up going back to fight against him. The mujahedin, who became the Taliban, they were our ally, too, against Russia. We were, in fact, in favor of radical jihad when it was directed against the Soviet Union. Some of the weapons are left over. In fact, when we look at Taliban weapons captured now, many of them are American weapons because it is unclear whether we have a good handle on what we give to the Afghan police. We are not positive they don't wind up in the hands of the Taliban. It is a murky situation, but I don't think it is a situation that should continue. I think it is time to come home from Afghanistan. People on the other side say: You want to disengage. No; I want to have relationships with countries around the world. I want to have diplomatic relationships. I want to have trade. But I don't think having diplomatic relationships or engaging with other countries means we have to bribe them. There are some people who hate us enough that bribing them will not work and often is counterproductive. Thomas Eddlem reports that even: Rieff--[from the New Republic, who is] no opponent of foreign aid in theory--concluded of [foreign] aid to Egypt [that] ``this is not only a moral scandal, it is a geo[political] strategic blunder of huge portions.'' Like so many authoritarian regimes, the prime beneficiary of the U.S. foreign aid of Egypt was the leader for life, Mubarak, and the end result of 30 years of supporting an unpopular dictator is we are now seeing uprising in the streets. Why are they anti-American? Because they see us as friends of Mubarak. Mubarak was not a friend of freedom. Aladdin Elaasar, author of ``The Last Pharaoh: Mubarak and the Uncertain Future of Egypt in the Obama Age,'' said the Mubaraks owned several residences in Egypt, some inherited from previous Presidents and the monarchy and others he has built. ``He had a very lavish lifestyle with many homes around the country.'' He estimates the family's wealth between $50 billion and $70 billion. The gross national income is $2,000 per family in Egypt. Do you think that might make people a little bit mad? The guy is worth $50 to $70 billion and the average income is $2,000. The average income in Africa has not improved in decades and they have dictators worth billions of dollars. Do you think that makes those people harbor anti-American sentiments because the leaders, these dictators, have gotten American money? About 20 percent of the population in Egypt lives below the poverty line, according to a 2010 report. It is not just Hosni Mubarak himself, it is his whole family who has been enriched. In 2001, they estimated his wealth at $10 billion just in American banks, Swiss, British banks, Bank of Scotland, England, Credit Suisse of Switzerland. You wonder what it is worth today or if we found it all. You also wonder how much of that money in those secret bank accounts is actually just your money. Egypt's First Lady Suzanne Mubarak's wealth just by herself is estimated at $5 billion. How much of that is your money? When we hear these numbers of billions of dollars the dictators have secreted away in Swiss bank accounts, listen to that and remember when we hear the plethora of Senators who will come to the floor and say that not one penny of foreign aid should ever be cut--ever. Not one penny of aid, they argue, should have conditions placed on it. The amendment I will offer today places conditions on foreign aid, but it places conditions that have to pass the Senate, not that can be rubberstamped by Hillary Clinton. Hillary thinks human rights are going fine in Egypt. She rubberstamped and said: Give them 1 billion a couple months ago, no human rights abuses in Egypt. She also approved an extra billion for Pakistan 1 month ago. We cannot rely on the purse strings to be transferred--particularly to this administration but even any administration, Republican or Democratic. The purse strings are to remain--were intended to remain and the Constitution says are to remain--in the legislature. This is a real problem. My legislation makes it come back, and we have to vote on it here, that they are in compliance, that there are no human rights violations, that Egypt is not stealing the money and that they are willing and able--that they can and will protect our Embassy. I think, at a very minimum, if they are going to cash our check, if they are going to have our foreign aid--which I am not a big fan of-- but if they are going to get it, at the very least it should have strings attached to say: You have to protect the American Embassy. One of Mubarak's friends was Gamal Mubarak. He is the Assistant Secretary General of the ruling Democratic National Party in Egypt. His own wealth is estimated at $17 billion, supposedly spread through several banking institutions in Switzerland, Germany, the United States, and Britain. You wonder how much of the $17 billion is actually your money. Alaa Mubarak, the daughter, her property has reached into nearly $8 billion. She has properties on Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles, real estate in Washington State, New York, owns two royal yachts with a value of 1 million pounds. These are the yachts one can land a helicopter on. These are the yachts that have a swimming pool on them. How much of that $8 billion, how much of the money that went to pay for these yachts for the Mubarak family is yours? The thing is, you should be mad. I think Americans are mad. But it is this confusing situation. We should be mad about the foreign aid and so are the populations who are burning the American flag, they are mad-- because they did not receive the foreign aid. The foreign aid went to Mubarak. So you should be mad that your Senators send this money to dictators and that the dictators live these lavish lifestyles in mansions throughout the world, throughout Switzerland, London, Paris. Some of the largest private homes in the world are owned by dictators, paid for with your money. You should be angry. You should be frothing. You should be upset. You should tell your Senators, you should tell your Congressman: No more money to these dictators. But at the same time you become angry, think it through and understand why the Arab world is angry. They don't hate our freedom. They don't hate our Constitution. They are angry at their own dictators, but they are angry we propped up their dictators for decade after decade. But it all has to do with foreign aid. I have been arguing primarily about Pakistan, but the thing is, this is bigger than Pakistan. Pakistan is just the most egregious and one of the larger recipients of our aid--$3 billion worth a year, maybe more. Right now they are holding Dr. Shakid Afridi, who is the doctor who helped us get bin Laden. They tortured him for a year, and he will be in prison for the rest of his life. That is not the way an ally acts. I say no more money to Pakistan until they release this doctor. I don't think that is too much to ask. We would find very few in this body who agree. Ask the American people and 80 to 90 percent agree no more money to Pakistan until the doctor is free. I will be lucky to get 20 percent of them to agree to not just cut off aid, but have restrictions on aid. That is how bad it is. The Arab spring brought corruption and theft of U.S. aid to Libya and Egypt, but Africa is rife with stories of theft and dictator spoils. Teodrin Obiang Nguema is the son of Equatorial Guinea's dictator. He recently ran afoul of French customs who discovered that his chartered jet had 26 supercars on it, including seven Ferraris, five Bentleys, four Rolls Royces, and two Buggatis. Is anybody besides me mad that we are sending foreign aid to African dictators whose sons are importing Rolls Royces, Bentleys, Ferraris, and Buggatis to Africa, countries that have no electricity? I don't care if you are the biggest humanitarian in the world and you want to help people, it is not going to the people. The foreign aid is stolen by the leadership of these countries. This is not one example; this is example after example, decade after decade. The learning curve around here is so slow we will get 10, maybe 20 Senators to place any restrictions on foreign aid. Seventy percent of the people living in Africa live under the poverty threshold of $2 a day, and the son of a leader is importing Buggatis, Bentleys, Rolls Royces, and Ferraris on his own private charter jet. It has to be a pretty big jet to have 26 supercars on it. The rest of Africa lives on $2 a day. It is our money given by our government to dictators in Africa. We have to get the connection. We need to be mad. There needs to be an ``American spring'' where we tell our leaders we are sick and tired of our money going to fund dictators--an American spring where we understand what happened in the Arab spring. The Arab spring is a direct consequence of us sending foreign aid and lavishing it on people who don't respect the freedom of their constituents and don't allow constitutional freedoms. The Arab spring's anger, as much as it is directed against America, is not against our Constitution. It is not because they don't believe in freedom. It is because they are upset that we have been funding and subsidizing their dictators. The United States has given Guinea almost $300 million over the past 10 years despite Guinea having one of the worst human rights records on the planet. Torture is said to be commonplace. The New York Times reported last spring: ``Any policeman can arrest any citizen at any time.'' Torture is a ``current thing,'' ``current,'' said Mr. Mico, a lawyer who is with an opposition party. He was recalling his own beating in the presence of high officials. Gonzalo Ndong Sima, a pharmacist in the center of town, recounted his recent encounter with the police over a simple traffic mishap saying, ``They beat me like an animal.'' So what do we do? We give Guinea our money and people are beaten with police truncheons at traffic accidents. Who are they mad at? We need to begin to understand where the anger is coming from. When we prop up dictators in third-world countries who beat their subjects into submission, that is why they are angry. They don't care that we are wealthy or free. They are angry because we prop up dictators who beat them with truncheons. Despite widespread reports of abuse, corruption, and ineffectiveness, foreign aid continues unabated. Despite polls that show over 70 percent of the American voters are opposed to foreign aid, it continues unabated. Even when advocates of foreign aid are beaten down with stories such as I have been telling today of human rights abuses, starvation, and death threats, hangings, shootings, executions, these advocates trot forward their last defense: ``Foreign aid is less than 1 percent of the whole budget.'' It is only $30 billion. Do you know how many times they use that argument? Every time I want to cut $30 billion, it is only $30 billion. They use it for $300 million too. It is only $300 million. If we don't get started somewhere, how are we ever going to balance our budget? We can't live on the $1 trillion deficits. They argue eliminating foreign aid would not balance the budget. No, it won't, but it is a start. We have to start somewhere, and why not start with something that is counterproductive? Why not start with eliminating something from the budget that is counterproductive and seems to create some of the anger--at least it is some explanation for the anger in the Arab world. The final arguments for foreign aid are so flimsy one would not think they would be worth much to even try to refute. Proponents of the status quo use this argument over and over for any budgetary item. If we can't cut millions now or even billions, how will we ever get to trillions? When conservatives argued for cutting small subsidies to little airports that sometimes subsidize one airline ticket for $3,000, they argue it will only save $300 million. It is not a valid argument, it is a weak argument, and we should not accept it. Cutting $30 billion worth of foreign aid would not balance the budget, but I am not even asking to cut the foreign aid. What I am asking for is that we place contingencies on it, rules of behavior. If they want to be our ally, act like it. If they want to be America's ally, act like it. If they want to cash our check, act like an ally and behave. At the very least shouldn't there be rules and restrictions on who gets it? While there are reasons they are burning the American flag, I am an American and it upsets me. I am bothered by the fact that the American flag is being burned, but I am also bothered by the fact that we are sending money to countries where this is occurring. We are faced daily with tens of thousands of protesters in these Middle Eastern countries. We are faced with the tragic assassination of Ambassador Stevens. With all the aid and all the evidence that foreign aid is not working, that it enables dictators and rarely buys the behavior we want, Republicans and Democrats still clamor for more. They will fight tooth and nail against any restrictions on the aid. So one wonders, where are we going? In fact, we will find in this argument--and if we will read the paper, we will find that Secretary of State Clinton is arguing for more aid to Egypt. Their argument is if a country doesn't like us, if they behave illy toward America, if we give them more money, maybe they will act better. I think the opposite. One, we are out of money. We are $1 trillion short. I think if we give them less money, they would think more about their behavior. Perhaps if we gave less money or, in my mind, no money to Pakistan until Dr. Afridi is released, maybe he would be released. It boggles the mind to think these Senators are in favor of no restrictions and increasing aid despite decades of evidence that aid is not working. Proponents of this aid continue to argue that these mobs will be more inflamed if we don't give them money. I think it is quite the opposite. I think the other thing about it they don't quite get is that I don't think the people writing are writing and saying give us more aid. What they are writing for is they don't like what our aid did in the first place. They are writing against autocratic authoritarian governments that were propped up by our aid. People arguing that taking away the aid will inflame the Arab world, turn on the television set. They are plenty inflamed. Taking it away doesn't make it better, but at least we have some consultation that we are trying to do something about the deficit and maybe we have problems at home that are more pressing than this and maybe we won't reward bad behavior. To say that taking away the aid may inflame the Arab world, just turn on the television set because they are plenty inflamed already. If we don't understand why they are inflamed, if we don't understand the Arab spring, if we don't understand why they are mad, that they are mad that we propped up dictators who kept them down and kept them from freedom, we will never understand or come to a resolution to make things better. I, for one, will not vote for one more penny of foreign aid to anyone unless it has restrictions on it. I will only vote for it if the restrictions say they have to behave and it has to be approved by the Senate. We have tried it before. The other side may come to the floor and say foreign aid already has restrictions. Well, yes, they are not working because we gave them to the executive branch. Like so much in this body, we have been giving up power to the Presidency for 100 years. This is not a Republican-Democrat thing. This is just a legislative abdication of power, and we let the President do whatever he wants. I am not arguing Republican or Democrat. I am arguing any President. The power should remain here with the purse strings. We should control them tightly, and we should say foreign aid only goes out under strict conditions. We should not let the final decision be made by an administration that doesn't seem to have the fortitude to make these tough decisions. Enough is enough. We are running trillion-dollar deficits, and it is time to make a stand. I have been making a stand for the last week by filibustering this bill. It doesn't make me the most popular person here in Washington. People's travel schedules have been disrupted because of my filibuster. People's campaigning has been disrupted because of my filibuster. But this is not a new problem, and it is not a small problem. We are talking about an aid program that has gone on decade after decade. We are talking about an enormous uprising in 30 countries, the Arab spring, and now maybe the Arab winter. We are talking about how we make things better. Until we fully understand what the Arab spring is about and also why the huge amount of anti-Americanism is running throughout the Middle East, we can't make it better. I say throwing good money after bad is not the answer. This evening I think we will get to vote on my amendment. My amendment is to simply say to Libya, Egypt, and Pakistan that there are restrictions. All three will have to say that they will protect our embassy. There is a question of whether Egypt was forthcoming in protecting our embassy, and there is no question Libya was not. In the case of Libya, I think there are elements there that like America, and there are also still elements that don't like America, but there is not really a government. I wonder if an embassy should be reopened in Libya. If we reopen the embassy in Libya and we put 50 marines in there, we may have a catastrophe like we had in Lebanon when 200 marines were killed in the early 1980s. Without thousands of marines, I don't think we can protect an embassy in a large city in Libya. It doesn't mean we don't have relations. When I argue for not putting the embassy back in, it is because I think long and hard about the danger to another ambassador and what their family will have to suffer if another ambassador is killed. I also think we can have probably an embassy in a neighboring country, and that is what I will recommend until things stabilize. If Libya wants to have aid, they should keep cooperating with us with regard to finding the assassins. They should try to work where they can become stable enough to have an embassy. The bottom line with Libya that a lot of people forget--as I talk about foreign aid, so many people say we can't cut off aid to Libya; they want to be pro-American. They have oil. When President Obama was bombing Libya, he kept saying: It will all be free. They will pay us for it later. It will be a free war. We heard that one before. Iraq was going to be a free war also. Iraqi oil was going to pay for it. It never ends up happening. That is what they told us about Libya. With regard to Pakistan, I have one additional requirement. They have to prove to us they will protect our embassy, and they have to release Dr. Afridi. I think this is very little to ask. He is under death threats in prison. His family is under death threats in the countryside. They are hiding and living in fear because they helped us. The other reason why this administration should take it personally is somebody leaked Dr. Afridi's name. His name should have never been known. I doubt it was someone with the CIA, but somebody who knew his name leaked this story. There were some stories about a month or two ago about how the President was doing a great job with terrorism. In those stories they talked about a doctor with a vaccine program and his name was found out. Somebody leaked it. Somebody very close to the President leaked it. I think that needs to be investigated. It is a crime and it should be punished. Not only is it a crime, but whomever in the administration leaked that information about Dr. Afridi, I hope they lie awake at night and worry about their soul in the sense that this man may well die. He is going to be in prison for the rest of his life because his name was leaked. That kind of behavior from high- ranking government officials is inexcusable. This evening we will have this vote. I will encourage Senators to vote for this resolution. It doesn't end aid. I would prefer we end it. This is a moderate step in the sense that it attaches conditions to it. I think the American people expect that of us, at the very least, and I encourage my fellow Senators to vote for my resolution. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Madam President, last evening I had a spirited exchange with the majority leader. The exchange was over whether we should send billions of dollars, billions of dollars we technically don't even have, to foreign countries that disrespect us, foreign countries that have tortured people who are friends of America. In Pakistan, Dr. Shakil Afridi helped us to get bin Laden. He has been tortured, kept in prison, and now been given a life sentence. I have asked one simple thing. I want to have 15 minutes, have a discussion, and have a vote on whether we should continue to send money to Pakistan. I have said we should send not one penny to Pakistan until this doctor is released. We offered at one time a $50 million reward for help in getting bin Laden. Young men and women sacrificed their limbs to go to Afghanistan, many sacrificed their lives to go to Pakistan to get bin Laden. And this man who helped get bin Laden, we are now letting him rot in a prison. We are now letting this man spend the rest of his life in prison. Do you know what this administration did? About a month ago they gave Pakistan about $1 billion more. Do you know how Pakistan responded? The head of the security agency for Pakistan said very snidely and with a great deal of arrogance: Come back and talk to us in 10 years about Dr. Afridi. They are going to keep him in prison for the rest of his life if he is not killed. His life has been threatened. Other prisoners and the public have threatened his family's life. Is this how we treat a friend of America? I have asked for 15 minutes to have a vote. Why don't they want to have a vote? Because they know the American people are with me. If you ask the question, ``Should we send money to countries that don't like us and disrespect us?'' 80 to 90 percent of the American people are with me. They are afraid to vote on this issue. I have been giving them a chance to debate this for 6 weeks now. We have spent the whole week up here not having a debate because they do not want to have a vote because they know if they vote their position, which is to send your money to Pakistan and to Egypt and to Libya, the American people will not like it. So they are not willing to stand in the broad daylight and vote to continue this aid. They just do not want to have the vote. Last evening the majority leader said that his concern is over the veterans benefits bill. I also am concerned, so I have reconsidered my amendment. My amendment before would return the money to the Treasury and to counteract the debt. We would take the somewhere between $3 and $4 billion and send it back to the Treasury. But if what is holding this up is that the majority leader thinks this is not in any way connected with veterans benefits, why don't we take half of the $4 billion that we would not send to Pakistan, let's take that half of that and put that into veterans benefits. I am willing to triple the size of the veterans benefits bill if we will take the money from where we should not be spending it. Some will stand and they will argue: Gosh, we have to be engaged in Pakistan because they have nuclear weapons. I am not saying disengage. I am just saying you don't have to bribe people to be our friend. We don't have the money anyway. We have to borrow the money from China to send it to Pakistan. I am not saying don't have relations with Pakistan. Many in Pakistan have been sympathetic to our country. Many in Pakistan have helped our country. But many in Pakistan, with a wink and a nod, look at us, take our money and laugh at us. They cash our check and they laugh at us. The American people are tired of this. Our Treasury is bare. There is a multitude of reasons why we should not continue to send good money after bad. Compound that with the tragedy that has occurred over the last couple of days, the tragedy of our Ambassador being assassinated in Libya and three of his fellow workers killed; the tragedy of our embassy being attacked in Egypt. We give Egypt $3 billion a year, and do you know what. Egypt cannot protect or will not protect our embassy. There was a phone call to the embassy from someone in Egypt saying the mob is coming. A phone call is not enough. Do you think they could have sent soldiers and tanks to protect our embassy? They gave us a phone call saying the mob is coming. Egypt needs to act as our ally if they want to continue to cash our checks. My position is: Not one penny more for Libya or Egypt or Pakistan until they act as our allies. Some say we have to keep sending it. Fine, let's send it when they act as our allies. Let's send it when they start behaving as civilized nations and come to their senses. I have an amendment, and I am going to ask unanimous consent to bring this amendment forward. I may be surprised, but I think the other side is going to object. I will be asking for 15 minutes of the Senate's time to vote on ending this aid. Instead, we are taking half of the $4 billion we are squandering overseas and giving to people who don't like us and putting it toward the deficit and using the other half of that aid and putting it into veterans' benefits. If we are really talking about veterans' benefits and really serious about providing money for the veterans, let's take it from an area which is insulting to veterans. Let's take it from a country that insults every veteran in this country, Pakistan. Our men and women gave their lives to fight a war in Afghanistan and in neighboring Pakistan to get the chief architect of 9/11, bin Laden. Let's memorialize those people who sacrificed their lives and the veterans by saying we are not going to give money to a country that disrespects and disavows everything we have done over the last 10 years to combat terrorism. I ask unanimous consent we resume consideration of S. 3457, set aside the pending amendments, and call up my amendment No. 2838.

Mr. PAUL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, where to start? I mean, what a charade and what a farce. The majority filibusters their own bills. They fill up the amendment tree. They do not even pretend like they are going to work with the other side. How do they expect to pass legislation if they will not allow any input from the other party? A charade and a farce. As far as helping that young veteran, our soldiers went to war in Afghanistan to get bin Laden. We finally got bin Laden, and we got him with the help of Dr. Shakil Afridi. I do not hear one peep from the other side, I do not see one bit of concern for the man who helped get bin Laden. Our soldiers went to Afghanistan. That young man lost a limb. A young man in my town also lost three limbs. They did it to get this horrible mass murderer bin Laden. This happened, and this is why we went to war. We are going to do nothing to support the man who helped us get bin Laden? We send good money after bad. Billions of dollars have been squandered in Pakistan. Pakistan then tortures the man who helped America get bin Laden. And we do nothing. I have asked for 15 minutes to vote on this issue--15 minutes. No one is obstructing this for any sort of personal vendetta. I am more than happy to work with the majority. I care deeply about the veterans. I care deeply about housing and helping the veterans who have fought for their country. But this is about whether we as a country and the American taxpayers will be asked to send good money after bad to allies that are not acting like allies. Today we are reminded that our enemies are relentless, but we are also reminded that our so-called allies are not acting like allies at all. We are saddened by the assassination of Ambassador Stevens and his fellow workers, and we are appalled by the lack of protection for our embassies by our supposed allies. We send billions of taxpayer dollars abroad. And what do we get in return? Disrespect, disdain, and now ultimately violence. I have two amendments I wish to call up. First, not one penny should be sent to Libya until the assassins are delivered to justice. Not one penny should go to Egypt until they guarantee the safety and protection of our embassies. Second, not one more penny should go to Pakistan until the doctor who helped us get bin Laden is freed. Is it too much to ask of the Senate? I am more than willing to cooperate. I am more than willing to let those go home who want to go home and campaign. I know it is going to be a tough election for the other side. But the thing is, I am more than willing to let them go home anytime. I do this because it is important that our allies act like allies. It is important that we have a vote, that this Senate go on record and say: Do you support the American taxpayer? Do you want to help the man who helped us get bin Laden? I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendments and call up amendment No. 2783 and also another amendment that is at the desk and yet to be numbered.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, Dr. Shakil Alfridi is a physician in Pakistan. He has been put in prison for the rest of his life for the crime, basically, of helping the United States get bin Laden. I think it is a travesty of justice that Pakistan is holding this man for the crime of helping America, and I think we should not tolerate it. We send Pakistan $2 billion a year, and recently, instead of withholding that, President Obama has given them an additional $1 billion--exactly the wrong thing to do. I have a bill that will withhold all further foreign aid to Pakistan unless this doctor is released. There are reports now that his life has been threatened. There are reports coming from the Information Minister in the province where he is being held that his life has been threatened by fellow inmates and throughout the community. My concern is that Dr. Alfridi may well be killed before he comes to trial. He was scheduled for an appeal on July 19. They have rescheduled this, and it will be on August 30. I have a bill, and I have the votes necessary to demand a vote in the Senate. No matter what the leadership wants, we will have a vote on ending all of Pakistan's aid if this political prisoner, Dr. Shakil Alfridi, is not released. We will have this vote. I had threatened to have the vote this week, but I am going to delay it for one month to see if the appeal works, to see if he is still safe in 1 month. But I hate to think of what might happen to him while we are waiting here and that we have not used every bit of the leverage of this money that we give to Pakistan. It is our money, it is your money, and we should not be sending it to a country that disrespects us. If Pakistan wants to be our ally, they should act like it. If Pakistan wants to work with us in the war on terrorism, they should act like it. And imprisoning the man who helped us get one of the world's worst mass murderers is not a way to encourage cooperation between our countries. This episode of imprisoning this man is driving a wedge between America and Pakistan. So if Pakistan wants to help us, good. Can we cooperate with them? Yes. But we should not continue to send good money after bad while they are imprisoning this man. This doctor deserves our respect. I have also introduced legislation that would allow him to come to the United States if there is a threat to his safety in Pakistan and if he wishes to come here as a reward for helping us get bin Laden. This vote will happen either in early September or late August, depending on what happens with his appeal. I hope some common sense will intervene and they will let him go. But at the very least, Americans need to know that Pakistan needs to cooperate with us, Pakistan needs to help this man, and that we all should be proud of what he did to help us get bin Laden. I will do everything possible, everything I have within my limits, to get this vote to occur, and this will happen within the next month when his trial comes forward on August 30. Mr. President, I yield back my time.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. PAUL. Madam President, there is a doctor in Pakistan by the name of Shakil Afridi. He has been identified as a doctor who helped us with information in order to get bin Laden. The Pakistan Government has now put him in prison for 33 years. I think this is an abomination. While we can't tell countries what they must do with their internal affairs, we certainly don't have to reward them with taxpayer money when they put someone in prison for attempting to help America. My point and my message to Pakistan is that if they want to be an ally, they should act like it. Putting this man in prison for 33 years for helping America get bin Laden, which Pakistan was ostensibly supposed to be doing, is a real travesty of justice. Bin Laden lived for nearly a decade in Pakistan, in a city, living comfortably a mile or two from one of their military academies. We finally got him, but it doesn't appear as if we got him with much help from the Pakistani Government. Now this doctor is in prison for 33 years. And how does President Obama respond? President Obama, this week, gave them $1 billion--an additional $1 billion. We are rewarding bad behavior with more of our money--money we don't even have. We have a $1 trillion deficit and we are giving them an extra $1 billion. Yesterday he was supposed to have an appeal. Dr. Afridi, the doctor who helped us, was supposed to get a chance to help prove his innocence. His trial has been indefinitely delayed. We have requested from the Pakistani Embassy whether there is going to be a trial. We want to know the date, and has the date been set for his appeal. We have gotten no answer. We have requested this information from President Obama's administration, from his State Department. Will Dr. Afridi get a trial? When will his trial be? We have gotten no answer. If we can't get an answer--if they are going to continue to hold this man--I see no reason to send taxpayer money to Pakistan. I have the votes and the ability to force a vote on this issue. My plan is to force a vote on this issue next week. The vote will be on ending all aid to Pakistan, ending the aid until this doctor is freed. This is not something I take lightly. This doctor's life is now being threatened. The information minister from that particular province in Pakistan says they want him transferred because they receive death threats on a daily basis toward him. They are worried about other prisoners killing him. I would hate for the Obama administration to have on their conscience the fact that this doctor, who helped us get bin Laden, is killed in prison. I would hate to have on my conscience the death of an innocent man, if he were to be killed in prison, whose only crime was helping America. At the very least, the Pakistani Government ought to immediately get him into a safe prison in one of the larger cities outside the tribal regions. We are concerned about Dr. Afridi's safety, we are concerned about imprisoning him for life for helping America, and we are also concerned about American taxpayers' money being taken from hard-working Americans and sent to a country that seems to disrespect us. I am all for cooperating with Pakistan. I hope they will continue to work with us. But we shouldn't have to buy our friends. We gave them an extra $1 billion. Yet they continue to disrespect us by holding this man in prison. I am very concerned about Dr. Afridi's safety. I am concerned his appeal was not heard today and his trial was canceled. So next week, if we don't have answers on his trial, we will be here on the floor until I get a vote on whether we should continue sending money to Pakistan while they hold him. This is a very important issue for Americans, and I hope all across America people are going to call their Senators and say: You know what. I am not so sure we should send our hard-earned dollars to Pakistan when they treat us this way. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, the question remains should taxpayers be forced to send money overseas to countries that disrespect us or, more precisely, should we borrow money from China to send it to countries that disrespect us. Should we borrow money from China to send to Pakistan? Should we borrow money from China to send to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt? Should we send good money after bad? For a decade we searched for bin Laden. We spent hundreds of billions of dollars searching for him. Where did we find him? Not in the remote mountains; we found him living comfortably in a city in Pakistan. We found him living in the middle of the city not far from a military academy. We were helped in this search by a doctor, a brave doctor in Pakistan by the name of Dr. Shakil Afridi, who helped us find bin Laden, helped us with ultimately getting bin Laden. How was he rewarded for this heroism? Where is Dr. Shakil Afridi now? He has been imprisoned by the Pakistani Government for 33 years. For 10 years we searched for bin Laden high and low throughout Afghanistan, throughout the world, throughout the mountains. We found him living comfortably in a city only miles from a military academy, and then the doctor who helped us Pakistan has now imprisoned for 33 years. How did the President respond to this? How did President Obama's administration respond to the imprisoning of this doctor, the doctor who helped us get bin Laden? President Obama sent them another $1 billion last week. We already sent Pakistan $2 billion, and they disrespect us, so what did we do? We sent them another $1 billion. People around this town are bemoaning there is not enough money for our military. Yet we took $1 billion out of the Defense Department, an extra $1 billion, and sent it to Pakistan last week. Where is Dr. Afridi? In jail for 33 years. I have obtained the signatures necessary to have a vote on this. The leadership does not want to allow a vote on this, but I will, one way or another, get a vote on ending aid to Pakistan if they continue to imprison this doctor. He has an appeal that will be heard this Thursday. If he is not successful in his appeal, if he is still imprisoned for life, we will have a vote in the Senate on ending all aid to Pakistan--not a small portion of their aid, every penny of their aid, including the $1 billion they got last week. We will attempt to stop all aid to Pakistan. I ask any of the Senators to step forward if they think it is a good idea and tell the American people why they are sending their money to Pakistan. We have bridges crumbling, we have roads crumbling, we have schools crumbling, and we are sending money to Pakistan, which disrespected us. We spent billions, if not maybe trillions of dollars, on the wars in Pakistan and Afghanistan trying to get bin Laden and then the doctor who helps us is now in jail for 33 years. Everywhere I go across our country--in my State in Kentucky we have two bridges that need to be replaced. We have one in the middle of one of our major cities that was closed down for 6 months last year for repairs. We don't have the money to repair our infrastructure. We are $1 trillion short of money, period. We are borrowing over $1 trillion a year. We now have a $16 trillion debt that equals our entire economy. Yet they are still sending taxpayer money to dictators overseas who disrespect us. Eighty percent of the public thinks this should come to an end. If we ask this question: Should we be sending this money overseas when we have difficulty and needs and wants at home, 80 percent of the public would say it should end. Yet when we force this body to vote, 80 percent of your Representatives are for sending more aid overseas. They were all clamoring and clapping their hands last week when President Obama said he sent another $1 billion overseas--they all stand and clap. I don't think the American taxpayer is clapping. I don't think the American taxpayer is happy we are $1 trillion in the hole and still sending this money overseas to countries that disrespect us. What I say to Pakistan is if they want to be our ally, act like it. If they want to be our ally, respect us. If they want to be our ally, work with us on the war on terrorism. But if they want to be our ally, don't hold Dr. Afridi, don't hold political prisoners, don't hold people who are actually working with us to get bin Laden. I will do everything in my power to get this vote. They don't want to have this vote. They like foreign aid over here. They all love sending taxpayer money overseas, but they don't want to vote on it so they have been blocking this vote and they will attempt to block my vote. I have the signatures necessary and you will see me on the floor next week. If Dr. Afridi is still in jail next week, I will make them vote on this. It is the least taxpayers deserve. The taxpayers deserve to know why their Senators are voting to send their money overseas when we are $1 trillion in the hole. Why are their Senators voting to send trillions of dollars to Pakistan when they imprison the guy who helped us get bin Laden. It is unconscionable. It has to stop. The debt is a threat to taxpayers, our country, a threat to the Republic, and I will do everything I can to force a vote on this and then the American people can decide. They can decide whether they want to keep sending these people back to Washington who are sending their money overseas to people who have no respect for us. I will do everything in my power to have this vote and we will record the Senate. Your representatives will be recorded on whether they want to continue sending your money to Pakistan while Pakistan imprisons this doctor who helped us get bin Laden. I yield the remainder of my time.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, currently Congress has about a 10-percent approval rating. One of the reasons is that we don't even obey our own rules. For goodness' sakes, this is a 600-page bill. I got it this morning. Not one Member of the Senate will read this bill before we vote on it. We are going to vote on this in the next 30 minutes. I, Senator Lee, and others will object to this. We will have a point of order that our own rule says it has to be posted online for 48 hours. It is 600 pages, and nobody will read it. No wonder our approval rating is 10 percent. Nobody knows what we are voting on. In fact, provisions were stuck in this bill last night that have nothing to do with any of these bills. They have been stuck in and we are just now discovering it. I passed two Senators in the hall who are trying to get something out of this bill that affects their States, which they found out about just minutes ago. Nobody would have known about it if they had not found out about it. There are three bills in question here: transportation, student loans--on the student loan bill, originally we had loans at 6 percent, and it was somehow bringing in money to the Treasury. We were using that money to pay for ObamaCare. Now it is at 3 percent, and that money is gone. Where is the money to pay for ObamaCare? We have a shell game up here. We say one thing will pay for it, and now this will pay for it--the money disappears. Now they are saying they are going to pay for this by taking money out of pensions. Raise your hand if you think it is a good idea to underfund pensions more. Over half of the pensions in this country are technically insolvent because they don't have enough money to pay for them. Is it a good idea to have less money go into workers' pensions to pay for a student loan program? I have a bill in Congress that says we should read the bill before we pass it. We should wait 1 day for each 20 pages, to be given time to read 600-page bills. At the very least, we ought to adhere to our own rules. They say it should be posted online at least 48 hours. Forty- eight hours is still a challenge to find out everything in here. Do you know how long the Federal Register is--55,000 pages, which is added to annually. When you read this, you have to refer to the Federal Register, which is hundreds of thousands of pages, to find out what they stuck in this bill in the dead of night. This isn't the way we should operate. The American people want to know why do we say the government is not going to do something for 3 days. What were they doing the previous 3 months? The other side hasn't produced a budget in 3 years. That is against the rules. The rules of the Senate say you must produce a budget, and they didn't do it for 3 years. When we presented them with a budget that we wrote for them, nobody voted for it, and zero on the other side voted for their own President's budget. How are we going to compromise if they are not showing up for work? How are we going to get anything done if they don't obey their own rules? I will raise a point of order in the next hour that says that we have broken the rules of the Senate, and I will ask them to vote on it. I fully expect that the Parliamentarian will rule in our favor. We will see. The other side will simply close their eyes to the rules, and they won't care what the Parliamentarian says, and they will overturn this by saying: We are the majority, and we deem it so. We are the majority, and we don't care what is in the bill or to take time to read the bill; we just deem it so. I think this is why the American people are unhappy with what is going on here. I object strenuously. I will vote against this, and I will raise a point of order that says we should read the bill before we pass it.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, I am not a big fan of foreign aid. We have a lot of problems in our country. I don't see how we can send billions of dollars overseas when we have bridges falling down in our country. Two bridges in my State were impassable. One was hit by a boat and has been impassable for 6 months. We have another bridge that is over 50 years old that was shut down for emergency repairs, and traffic stacked up for miles. Yet we send billions of dollars overseas when we don't have enough to fix our own bridges. It doesn't make any sense. We borrow $1 trillion a year from China to turn around and send it to some other country. It makes no sense. I am not a big fan of sending our money overseas. But I am even less of a fan of sending our money to countries that don't seem to be our friends. Pakistan has worked with us on the war on terror. But recently Pakistan has chosen not to let any of our supplies--food and military supplies--traverse Pakistan. Recently, Pakistan has said we owe them $3 billion. We are giving them $2 billion a year, and they say we owe them $3 billion that is not included in that. Recently, Pakistan also said they want to charge us $5,000 per container of food that goes across their land. For years bin Laden lived contentedly right in the middle of Pakistan underneath their noses. What is up with that? We are giving them $2 billion a year and bin Laden was twiddling his thumbs there and they are not letting our supplies go across and they are demanding a past payment of $3 billion for who knows what and we continue to pay them. Recently, it has gotten even worse. Dr. Shakil Afridi is a doctor who helped us get bin Laden. Somehow his name was leaked. I don't know who leaked the name or if they were trying to puff themselves up and make themselves look as if they were strongly fighting terrorism, but by leaking Dr. Afridi's name, he is now in prison in Pakistan for 33 years. Dr. Shakil Afridi is a Pakistani and they have put him in prison for 33 years. His life has been threatened. If he is released--which I hope he will be--his life has been threatened because his name is public. How did it become public? Somebody leaked his name. This is inexcusable. If this came from within our government, whoever leaked his name or this information should be held accountable. I mean put in prison in our country for leaking state secrets. Dr. Afridi's name is now known in public, and he is being threatened, and his family is being threatened. Not only that, anybody around the world who wants to help us stop terrorism, who is willing to stand and help America, is now threatened. Do you think people are going to want to help us if they know their names will be printed in the New York Times? We have to have things that we don't divulge about people who are helping us. But Dr. Afridi is in prison for 33 years, and I am going to do what I can to free him. We should not send Pakistan any more money. I say stop immediately. I am not saying take a small amount out next year; I say don't send them one more penny this year or next year. Don't send any of the $3 billion they want. We don't even have it to send to them. We have to borrow it from China. I would give them one chance. If they release Dr. Afridi, I would stand down. My bill was blocked. I tried to have a vote on it last week, and the leadership said: No, you won't have that vote. But we have a process where if you get enough signatures from Senators, you can ask for a vote and get it. That is where we are now. I have enough signatures to have the vote. I am going to be meeting with the Pakistani Ambassador, and meeting with President Obama's State Department, and what I will tell them is what I am telling you. This is not a secret. If Dr. Afridi is not successful with his appeal, which is coming up in the next 3 weeks, if he is not released and provided safe passage out of Pakistan, if he wishes, then I will have this vote. And I defy anyone in this body to stand here and vote to send U.S. taxpayer dollars to Pakistan when they are treating us this way. So we will have a vote in this body on ending all aid to Pakistan immediately if we don't get some results. This doesn't mean I don't want to have diplomacy with Pakistan. Pakistan has been a friend over many years, and I see no reason to end that. Pakistan has many elements that are pro-Western and that want to engage in the world. I am all for that. But we shouldn't have to buy our friends. We shouldn't have to pay a ransom. We shouldn't have to lavish them with taxpayer dollars. In fact, I think it encourages a disrespect when you give people so much money. Let's let them earn our respect. Let's work with them. Let's be friends with Pakistan. Let's have diplomatic ties to Pakistan. Let's try to help each other. Terrorism doesn't help Pakistan. They are threatened equally by it. I can list four Pakistani leaders who have been assassinated in the past 15 years. Why were they assassinated? Because of radical elements in their own country. So they should be with us in trying to stop extremism, on trying to stop this radicalism. My words for the Senate today and for the American people are that I am watching out for your money. I realize we have needs here at home that must come first, but also that I will force a vote on this. I am not going to send any more of your money or try not to let the Senate send any more of your money to Pakistan unless they are willing to cooperate, unless they are willing to be friends with America, unless they are willing to release the man who helped us get bin Laden. I will ask for a vote, it will come in the next few weeks, and I will keep everyone in America up to date on this. I thank the Senate for allowing me this time, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. The question is, Is pollution getting better or worse? With all the hysteria, one would think: My goodness. Pollution is getting so much worse. All measurements of pollution show we are doing a good job and much better than we have ever done. Most of the emissions--the big emissions, sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide--have been going down for decades. We are doing a good job with pollution. This rule is about mercury. Powerplants emit this much of the mercury, as shown on this chart. Do my colleagues know that over half the mercury comes from natural sources? Forest fires emit more mercury than powerplants do. We already have eight regulations at the Federal level on mercury. We have a plethora of regulations at the State level. The question is, Is mercury getting worse or is mercury lessening? For the last 5 years, the amount of mercury that is being emitted has been cut in half. If we measure mercury in the blood of women and children, it is getting less. If we say: What is a safe level of mercury in the blood, we are below that. If we look at populations who eat nothing but fish, the Seychelles Islands, they have found zero evidence that mercury is hurting any of them. When we look at mercury emissions, they are going down. So the question is, Are we going to have a balance in our country? Does the other side care whether people work? We can do everything possible to try to eliminate this last 1 percent, but the question is, At what cost? Many are estimating 50,000 people are going to lose their jobs. Do we care if people have a job? Yes. We want to be safe, but there has to be a balancing act. The question we have to ask is: Is the environment cleaner or worse off? The environment is so much cleaner than it used to be. The rules in place are somewhat balanced and are keeping pollution under control. What we don't want to do is go so far over the top that we lose jobs. This new rule is estimated to lose 50,000 jobs. I think the American people need to have a say in this. We don't need to give up that power to unelected bureaucrats we can't remove from office. Let's let our representatives get involved to have more of a balance in the regulations. I suggest we vote in favor of this resolution. I thank the Chair.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 2181.

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, this amendment will limit all payments or all farm subsidies to persons with an adjusted gross income of less than $250,000. My friends across the aisle are commonly saying: Why don't those of means pay more or receive less? This amendment would do precisely that. Nine percent of farmers earn more than $250,000 worth of adjusted gross income. This would limit their payments. Currently, 9 percent of the farmers--who are the well-off farmers--are receiving nearly a third of the benefits. A good question for the Senate might be: What do Scottie Pippen, Larry Flynt, and David Rockefeller have in common? The answer would be: that besides being very rich, they have all gotten farm subsidies in the past. I think this should change and that the wealthy should not be receiving farm subsidies. This amendment would get rid of this. I yield back the remainder of my time and encourage Senators to support this amendment.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, our system of helping ensure that no one in our country goes hungry is a noble one. We are now asking to spend $750 billion on food stamps. When we ask this, we need to remember that recently a woman in Chicago faked the birth of triplets in order to receive $21,000 in food stamps. We need to remember that millionaires, including Larry Fick, who won $2 million, is still receiving food stamps because he says he has no income. He has $2 million but no income. Amanda Clayton won $1 million recently in the lottery and she was aghast she lost a third of it to taxes. She now has two homes and mortgage payments and doesn't know how can she make it without food stamps. So we are paying millionaires food stamps. Thirty percent of Polk County inmates are getting food stamps. There has to be some reason. Should you be able to buy junk food on food stamps? Should you get to go to McDonald's on food stamps? This is out of control. It is not about helping those in need, it is about being wise with taxpayer dollars and not giving people $20,000 a year in food stamps. We need to give only to those who cannot work, those who are infirm, those who are diseased and are not able-bodied. But we are giving to millionaires, and we are paying for junk food and giving to those who go to McDonald's, and it has to stop. This program has doubled in the last 10 years. We do not have an endless supply of money. I think Americans would be flabbergasted at the amount of money and that some of these programs are duplicative. People getting food stamps for a meal are also getting a free lunch at school. Some of these programs are actually advertising for applicants. In my hometown they advertise to try to promote people coming in and getting the free lunch during the summertime. It is not that we won't help people, it is that we need to be conscious of how much money we have and that we help only those who cannot help themselves. I would ask for some reason. The food stamp program is exploding, and I recommend we vote for this amendment.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I am very concerned about Dr. Shakil Afridi. He is a doctor in Pakistan who got information that helped us and led to the capture of bin Laden. He is now being held in prison. He has been put in prison in Pakistan for 33 years. I don't think we should continue to send U.S. taxpayer money in the form of foreign aid to Pakistan when they are holding in prison a doctor who simply helped us to get bin Laden. This issue is of the utmost urgency. His case will be heard for an appeal. It is a political case. It can be influenced by U.S. actions. I think the U.S. taxpayers should not send money to Pakistan when Pakistan is holding this innocent man who helped us get one of the world's most dangerous men, a mass murderer who killed 3,000 Americans. We captured him with help from Dr. Shakil Afridi, and Dr. Afridi deserves our help now. I have an amendment that is very important. It is not germane. But that does not mean it is not important. It is very important that we send Pakistan a signal that we will not continue to send them a welfare check when they are holding in prison a political prisoner who helped us get bin Laden. This amendment is of the utmost urgency and would only require 15 minutes of the Senate's time. I am not asking for all day. I am asking for 15 minutes to vote on ending aid to Pakistan until they release Dr. Afridi. I do not think this is too much to ask. The Senate has historically been a body that allowed debate, that allowed amendments, pertinent or not pertinent. This one is very important. Time is of the essence for Dr. Afridi. It is the least we can do for someone who helped us to get bin Laden. I ask that we allow time for this amendment to occur. I object to the unanimous consent.