Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul says the U.S. is never going to make Afghanistan a “grand Democracy” and it’s long past time to bring the troops home.

“Let’s clean up our act here. Let’s set an example for the world and let’s make sure people want to follow our lead and emulate us,” Paul says. “We cannot use force of bombs or buying with our month and tell other people how to live. It’s none of our business most of the time and it never helps our national security. And, besides, we’re broke.”

Paul spoke to about 200 people in Cedar Falls on Wednesday afternoon. He spent most of his 45-minute-long speech stressing his economic message.

“You talk about globalism and internationalism at its worst, it’s when we lose control of our system and we allow a Federal Reserve, in secret, to create money and credit to bail out their friends not only on Wall Street but their friends around the world,” Paul said. “It’s time for a change and it’s time to have sound money and it’s getting awfully close to the time we actually get rid of the Federal Reserve system.” 

Paul opposes raising the federal debt ceiling and suggests its time for significant changes in so-called “entitlement” programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

(Reporting in Cedar Falls by Scott Fenzloff  of KCNZ Radio; editing by Radio Iowa’s O. Kay Henderson)