Afghanistan

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, when I listened to the speech by Senator McConnell, the Republican leader, about Afghanistan, it transported me back in history to October of 2002, when I was a U.S. Senator representing the State of Illinois, just days away from a reelection campaign, and we faced a historic vote here in the U.S. Senate. The vote was whether or not we would invade Iraq; whether the United States would give the President the authority to send American forces to Iraq. There were 23 votes against that invasion. I was 1 of them, 22 Democrats and 1 Republican.

I can remember that night so well. It was late, past midnight, when the vote was finally taken. But we had previously taken another vote, and although I had voted against the invasion of Iraq, I saw the invasion of Afghanistan as a different story. We believed that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, responsible for 9/11, were in Afghanistan. And the story was--the story line, and I bought it completely--if we don't tell people like Osama bin Laden that there is a price to pay for attacking America and killing 3,000 innocent people, who are we, and who will be the next attacker?

So I voted. I voted for the invasion of Afghanistan and believed that was the right thing to do at that moment in history. That vote passed unanimously here in the Senate. There was only one dissenting vote in the House of Representatives, Congresswoman Barbara Lee of California. Virtually everyone else--everyone else, both political parties--voted for the invasion of Afghanistan.

I will tell you, there was not a single Senator or Congressman who would have stood up that evening on that vote and announced ``I am prepared to vote for the longest war in American history,'' because that is what we ended up voting for.

It was our belief that if we came into Afghanistan, we could stop using this country as a haven for terrorism and we could help escort them into the 21st century.

Well, after 20 years, after thousands of Americans gave their lives and thousands more were critically injured, after the spending of trillions of dollars in Afghanistan, we learned a bitter lesson. Our willingness was not enough. The people in Afghanistan have to be prepared to embrace change for it to happen.

We had to create an army in Afghanistan, a security force. It virtually didn't exist. The warlords had their military, and they were for sale, usually, to the highest bidder. And we were trying to create a national security force. We were trying to create a nation, which was quite a challenge.

I am not going to dwell on what happened, the bitter disappointments. But when I hear Senators come to the floor saying, ``Isn't it a shame that we are leaving Afghanistan? They are going to descend into chaos and many, many problems,'' my question to them is: So what would you have us do? Continue with the troops risking their lives in Afghanistan for another 20 years, for another trillion dollars?

Not me. I believe we have reached a point where we have to do everything we can to help Afghanistan really progress into the 21st century. Yes, I feel a personal obligation to the men and women who risked their lives for our troops.

For those who are opposed to or unaccepting of the notion of refugees coming to the United States, for goodness' sake, let us have the character to stand behind those Afghan men and women who risked their lives for our soldiers and who are now probably marked by the Taliban for death themselves. Yes, I would open our doors to them. They gave their lives for our men and women, and we should never forget it. I hope my friends on the other side of the aisle who have strong feelings about immigration would at least realize that these individuals are critically important to our role in history and our message to the rest of the world when we seek their assistance.

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