GOP Rep. Tim Johnson blasts U.S. involvement in 'senseless, silly wars'

While introducing Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul at the University of Illinois on Wednesday, Rep. Tim Johnson (R) said the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wasted too many lives and too much money.

Paul has "led the crusade for limited government, constitutional principles, individual liberties, fiscal sanity and restraint, and opposition to senseless, silly wars that kill innocent civilians," he said. "It's killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians around the world, American service men and women, and cost trillions of dollars which add to our burgeoning national debt."

"Is there anybody in this room today, and I'll be glad to entertain hands, who feels one iota safer because our government for the last eons has conducted an onslaught on the Middle East with somehow the vision that we could win a war." Johnson asked the audience of more than 4,000 people.

The crowd shouted back decisively: "no."

According to a Politico analysis from 2011, Johnson has one of the most independent voting records in the 112th Congress, voting against the party line 38.4 percent of the time.

Watch video, uploaded to YouTube by American Bridge 21st Century, below: