Paul This past week, various news events again made it clear that our foreign policy is an abject failure.

Unfortunately, the administration is determined to stay on this destructive course, despite promises to change it.

For Afghanistan especially, if ever an opportunity existed to admit shortcomings and change strate- gies along with leaders, this past week was it.

Nothing is in Afghanistan to win. Our mission has morphed from apprehending those who attacked us, to apprehending those who threaten or dislike us for invading their country, to remaking an entire political system and even a culture.

I remain highly skeptical that, as foreign occupiers, we can ever impose western style democracy on another country. Our troops have debilitating restrictions on defending themselves against enemies, which are so often indistinguishable from civilians.

They also face dire setbacks in winning hearts and minds when innocents are mistakenly harmed, which happens all the time. We can never make friends this way. The tactic never works.

This is an expensive, bloody, endless exercise in futility. Not everyone is willing to admit this just yet. But every second they spend in denial has real costs in lives and livelihoods.

Many of us can agree on one thing, however: Our military spending is out of control. This is largely because fiscal accountability in military budgeting is seen, by many, as weak on defense. This is absolutely wrong and a dangerous way to think.

It is certainly possible for the military to waste money, or to spend money counterproductively, and indeed it has. But out of political correctness, the military has been getting blank checks from administrations and Congress for far too long.

It is important to defend our soil, but let us defend our own soil instead of defending Europe’s soil. Our willingness to defend Europe enables its lavish social spending at our expense, while it criticizes our model of capitalism.

It is time they allocated the money for their own defense. The same goes for Korea, Japan, and other countries such as Egypt and Israel.

It is also important that while our troops are in combat, our soldiers have what they need to do the best they can, even if we disagree with why they are there.

It is an embarrassment that some soldiers and families have had to buy body armor at their own expense when billions are awarded to politically well-connected defense contractors for weapon systems that don’t work, are over-budget, and past deadline.

This is the kind of waste that needs to end. I firmly believe enough waste is in the military budget that we can save money overall and be safer.

Military budgets must be cut with everything else.

Ron Paul represents the 14th Congressional district of Texas.