[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 78 (Tuesday, June 14, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H4406-H4407]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   AFGHANISTAN, THE NEW FORGOTTEN WAR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the gentleman from 
Missouri (Mr. Skelton) for his leadership on the Armed Services 
Committee on the Democratic side, and his poignant remarks here this 
morning.
  Not only are we dealing with the situation, Mr. Speaker, in Iraq, we 
are also dealing with a major forgotten situation in Afghanistan. And 
as we began the war in Iraq, many, many, many months ago, we began to 
shift our focus from Afghanistan to Iraq.
  And we must remember that it was the Taliban who was harboring Osama 
bin Laden. And it was Osama bin Laden who funded and coordinated the 
attacks on September 11 on the World Trade Towers in New York, on the 
Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
  So it is important for us to remember where this all started. And 
now, today, several years later, we have 19,000 troops in Afghanistan, 
and 140,000 troops in Iraq. We have forgotten and taken our eye off the 
ball. And one of the major concerns I have, Mr. Speaker, with the 
situation in Afghanistan is the issue of opium, the poppy cultivation 
in Afghanistan.
  Two-and-a-half billion dollars, one-half of the GDP of Afghanistan is 
poppy, 70 percent of that sold in Europe as opium, funding through the 
black market, the terrorists cells not only in this country but all 
across the world. And it is very difficult for us to trace that 
underground economy. And I believe it was 5 or 6 months ago when the 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was before our Armed Services Committee. I 
asked him, what are we going to do

[[Page H4407]]

about the drug production and the farming going on in Afghanistan, and 
about this year's crop, and what are we going to do?
  And General Myers said, ``Well, we have a little problem this year. 
The harvest came in early. The harvest came in early. So we missed 
it.''
  Now, can you imagine, and it is the same as Mr. Skeleton has been 
saying, and many others in this chamber have been saying, we do not 
have enough troops in Afghanistan, and we did not have enough troops to 
get the job done in Iraq. That goes all of the way back to what was the 
planning, what was the end game, what was the exit strategy for both of 
these wars?
  It is like our foreign policy has attention deficit disorder. We 
start a war in Afghanistan, it is not finished. We have not eradicated 
the poppy cultivation, $2 and a half billion. And then all of a sudden, 
before the job is finished we go off and we start something else. And 
now we are in Iraq with no end in sight. And that goes back to basic 
planning, basic military philosophy. You need an exit strategy. You 
need a game plan. And we have not been able to do it in Iraq, and we 
have not been able to do it in Afghanistan.
  Just some statistics on what is going on in Afghanistan. 3 years 
after the fall of the Taliban, Afghanistan remains the world's sixth 
least developed country, 173rd out of 179 ranked by the United Nations. 
Miserable health and education systems, based on UN calculations, 
three-quarters of adult Afghanis are illiterate. Fewer than one in five 
girls go to school in many of the provinces in Afghanistan, and half of 
the Afghanis are poor. The average life expectancy for an Afghani is 45 
and a half years, 20 years less than any neighboring country.
  One Afghani woman dies in pregnancy every 30 minutes. We have been 
there for 3 years and we cannot set up basic health facilities so women 
could deliver a baby in safety? And it is because we have diverted our 
attention.
  Four were injured yesterday in a car bombing, 20 were killed on June 
1. Human Rights Watch is calling for NATO to send in more security 
forces to Afghanistan, following a marked deterioration of the security 
situation throughout May.
  In the past month, Afghanistan has seen a series of political 
killings, violent protests, attacks on humanitarian workers, and 
bombings targeting foreign civilians and troops. Let us get it right. 
Let us focus on Afghanistan and make sure that the underground black 
market drug economy does not continue to fund terrorism.

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