Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) broke with many in his party on Thursday's Washington Unplugged, defending embattled Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele and echoing Steele's controversial comments that Afghanistan is essentially an unwinnable war that now belongs to President Obama. "The only thing I'm seeking is the truth and [Steele] blurted out the truth and I think he was speaking from his heart and what he really believed in," Paul told host John Dickerson.
Paul also saw eye-to-eye with Steele's characterization of Afghanistan as "Obama's War", even though it began 6 years before Mr. Obama took office. According to Paul, "A president is the Commander-in-Chief. Obama has identified himself with this war, as being the 'good war.' He's made the strongest argument for more spending and more troops over there. So, it really is in a political sense, very realistically Obama's war."
In a Huffington Post op-ed with Rep. Barney Frank, Paul stressed the need to reduce military spending in order to avoid further damage to the US economy. Paul told Dickerson, "We are not winning the war in Afghanistan. I think what Obama has done, which is misleading, he tries to appease his base...then he tries to neutralize the hawks on the Right... That's the way politicians work, they try to appease everybody and we end up with a foreign policy that is hodge-podge and gets us into more trouble."
NATO is also a topic of interest for the congressman, who discussed how abandoning America's position within the organization could help reduce military spending.
"I don't believe we should be involved in NATO," he said. "They drain us and then they drag us into war. Just being out of NATO would save us a lot of money."
Watch Thursday's Washington Unplugged above, also featuring CBS News' Christina Ruffini with a "reality check" on the U.S. Census.
