The War in Afghanistan

Floor Speech

Mr. WELCH. Madam Speaker, I, first of all, wish to associate myself with the remarks of Mr. Duncan, Mr. Jones, and Mr. McGovern, who spoke earlier; and I intend to address the issue of the war in Afghanistan.

This war has got to end. It's got to end because it's making us weaker, not stronger. It's a dead-end strategy that is the result of decisions that were made that do not treat with the respect they are entitled to the willingness of our men and women in uniform to serve. They will do whatever it is we ask them to do.

Our job is to give them a policy that's worthy of the sacrifice that they are always willing to make. This war in Afghanistan has been going on for 10 years. It has morphed into the United States military and the United States taxpayer having the burden of building a nation in Afghanistan. That can't be done. We know it can't be done, but there is an unwillingness to have a reckoning in this Congress and in this country to turn the direction of our national defense into fighting terrorism in a sensible way, not nation-building in Afghanistan.

So the central issue here is not just the money, which I'll address; it's not just the time that this war has been going on, which I'll address; it's the basic strategy. This nation-building approach, over 100,000 American troops in Afghanistan, over 110,000 contractors, does that make sense when the enemy that we're fighting is decentralized and dispersed? It's not a nation state threat.

And the answer to that, we all know--it's common sense, you don't have to be a military strategist--is no. And the main reason we continue on in Afghanistan is because arguments are made that it will look bad or it will look weak if we leave.

Mr. Duncan said something, I think, that makes a lot of sense. When you are persistent in the face of facts that show that what you are doing is wrong, it's time to adjust the strategy. We in this Congress owe it to the men and women in uniform to give them that strategy that's worthy of their willingness to sacrifice.

We went into Afghanistan for a legitimate reason. That reason does not exist today. We went in because that was the launching sight where Osama bin Laden planned the 9/11 attacks. And we had a right, in our national self-defense, to take out the sanctuaries and to pursue Osama bin Laden.

Those sanctuaries have been taken out, and now what we are engaged in is a continuation and a stumbling ahead towards a policy of this nation-building where we have 100,000 troops, 40,000 international troops, 110,000 contractors, where we're throwing money at problems as though these contractors can get something done, and the corruption associated with a lot that contracting is rampant.

There are 286,000 Afghan National Security Forces troops who are poorly trained and leave at a moment's notice. This has come at an enormous expense to this country: $10 billion a month; $2.3 billion a week; $328 million per day; $13.7 million an hour.

What is happening? Is that where the threat to the country is coming from? The terrorist plots that we can identify that have happened in recent years, the Fort Hood shooting that killed 13 people in November 2009, that was planned in Yemen by Anwar Al Awlaki. The plot to bring down Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day 2009 was planned in Yemen by the same man. The attempt to bomb Times Square in May 2010 was planned and ordered by the Pakistani Taliban. And the October 2010 plot to bomb cargo planes was again planned in Yemen.

So the threat is real. Terrorism is a threat to this country. We have to address it, but we have to have a strategy that works. And having 100,000 of our troops in one nation when the terrorist threat is dispersed and decentralized throughout other parts of the world doesn't make any sense. It's time for this Congress and this President to call the question, change the strategy which requires us to right-size what our effort is, because that will, A, protect the American people in a better, more effective way; and, B, it will be a sustainable strategy, which has to be a responsibility of the policymakers.

There's been enormous sacrifice by the men and women in uniform. The troops from the State of Vermont have sacrificed and lost more lives in the Iraq and Afghanistan war on a per capita basis than any other State in the Nation. They are entitled to a policy worthy of their sacrifice.

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