[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 125 (Tuesday, September 8, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H9305-H9306]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      U.S. PRESENCE IN AFGHANISTAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. JONES. Madam Speaker, on June 25, 2009, I joined Congressman Jim 
McGovern in offering an amendment to the National Defense Authorization 
Act. The amendment would have required the Secretary of Defense to 
submit a report to Congress which outlines an exit strategy for our 
Armed Forces in Afghanistan.
  During the floor debate that day, I, along with other Members, talked 
about the history of Afghanistan and about the difficulties that other 
nations have had there--from Alexander the Great to England and Russia. 
As just one measure of the hazardous conditions facing our troops in 
Afghanistan, 99 American servicemembers have been killed in Afghanistan 
since June 25, 2009--the day we debated the amendment.
  While I regret that the amendment was not approved, I still believe 
it is critical for the current administration to clearly articulate 
benchmarks for success and an end point to its war strategy in 
Afghanistan.
  Last week, on September 1, 2009, conservative columnist George Will 
wrote an op-ed, titled ``Time to Get Out of Afghanistan.'' In it, he 
shares his insights on our Nation's current strategy in Afghanistan.
  I submit the full text of this op-ed for the Record.

               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 1, 2009]

                     Time to Get Out of Afghanistan

                          (By George F. Will)

       ``Yesterday,'' reads the e-mail from Allen, a Marine in 
     Afghanistan, ``I gave blood because a Marine, while out on 
     patrol, stepped on a [mine's] pressure plate and lost both 
     legs.'' Then ``another Marine with a bullet wound to the head 
     was brought in. Both Marines died this morning.''
       ``I'm sorry about the drama,'' writes Allen, an 
     enthusiastic infantryman willing to die ``so that each of you 
     may grow old.'' He says: ``I put everything in God's hands.'' 
     And: ``Semper Fi!''
       Allen and others of America's finest are also in 
     Washington's hands. This city should keep faith with them by 
     rapidly reversing the trajectory of America's involvement in 
     Afghanistan, where, says the Dutch commander of coalition 
     forces in a southern province, walking through the region is 
     ``like walking through the Old Testament.''
       U.S. strategy--protecting the population--is increasingly 
     troop-intensive while Americans are increasingly impatient 
     about ``deteriorating'' (says Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of 
     the Joint Chiefs of Staff) conditions. The war already is 
     nearly 50 percent longer than the combined U.S. involvements 
     in two world wars, and NATO assistance is reluctant and often 
     risible.
       The U.S. strategy is ``clear, hold and build.'' Clear? 
     Taliban forces can evaporate and then return, confident that 
     U.S. forces will forever be too few to hold gains. Hence 
     nation-building would be impossible even if we knew how, and 
     even if Afghanistan were not the second-worst place to try: 
     The Brookings Institution ranks Somalia as the only nation 
     with a weaker state.
       Military historian Max Hastings says Kabul controls only 
     about a third of the country--``control'' is an elastic 
     concept--and `` `our' Afghans may prove no more viable than 
     were `our' Vietnamese, the Saigon regime.'' Just 4,000 
     Marines are contesting control of Helmand province, which is 
     the size of West Virginia. The New York Times reports a 
     Helmand official saying he has only ``police officers who 
     steal and a small group of Afghan soldiers who say they are 
     here for `vacation.' '' Afghanistan's $23 billion gross 
     domestic product is the size of Boise's. Counterinsurgency 
     doctrine teaches, not very helpfully, that development 
     depends on security, and that security depends on 
     development. Three-quarters of Afghanistan's poppy production 
     for opium comes from Helmand. In what should be called 
     Operation Sisyphus, U.S. officials are urging farmers to grow 
     other crops. Endive, perhaps?
       Even though violence exploded across Iraq after, and partly 
     because of, three elections, Afghanistan's recent elections 
     were called ``crucial.'' To what? They came, they went, they 
     altered no fundamentals, all of which militate against 
     American ``success,'' whatever that might mean. Creation of 
     an effective central government? Afghanistan has never had 
     one. U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry hopes for a ``renewal of 
     trust'' of the Afghan people in the government, but the 
     Economist describes President Hamid Karzai's government--his 
     vice presidential running mate is a drug trafficker--as so 
     ``inept, corrupt and predatory'' that people sometimes yearn 
     for restoration of the warlords, ``who were less venal and 
     less brutal than Mr. Karzai's lot.''
       Mullen speaks of combating Afghanistan's ``culture of 
     poverty.'' But that took decades in just a few square miles 
     of the South Bronx. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. 
     commander in Afghanistan, thinks jobs programs and local 
     government services might entice many ``accidental 
     guerrillas'' to leave the Taliban. But before launching New 
     Deal 2.0 in Afghanistan, the Obama administration should ask 
     itself: If U.S. forces are there to prevent reestablishment 
     of al-Qaeda bases--evidently there are none now--must there 
     be nation-building invasions of Somalia, Yemen and other 
     sovereignty vacuums?
       U.S. forces are being increased by 21,000, to 68,000, 
     bringing the coalition total to 110,000. About 9,000 are from 
     Britain, where support for the war is waning. 
     Counterinsurgency theory concerning the time and the ratio of 
     forces required to protect the population indicates that, 
     nationwide, Afghanistan would need hundreds of thousands of 
     coalition troops, perhaps for a decade or more. That is 
     inconceivable.
       So, instead, forces should be substantially reduced to 
     serve a comprehensively revised policy: America should do 
     only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, 
     drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent Special 
     Forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border 
     with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters.
       Genius, said de Gaulle, recalling Bismarck's decision to 
     halt German forces short of Paris in 1870, sometimes consists 
     of knowing when to stop. Genius is not required to recognize 
     that in Afghanistan, when means now, before more American 
     valor, such as Allen's, is squandered.

                              {time}  1945

  I would like to highlight just a couple of Will's key points. He 
wrote, ``The war already is nearly 50 percent longer than the combined 
U.S. involvement in two world wars, and NATO assistance is reluctant.
  ``The U.S. strategy is `clear, hold and build.' Clear? Taliban forces 
can evaporate and then return, confident that U.S. forces will forever 
be too few to

[[Page H9306]]

hold gains. Hence nation-building would be impossible even if we knew 
how, and even if Afghanistan were not the second-worst place to try.''
  Will further states, ``Counterinsurgency theory concerning the time 
and the ratio of forces required to protect the population indicates 
that, nationwide, Afghanistan would need hundreds of thousands of 
coalition troops, perhaps for a decade or more. That is 
inconceivable.''
  Madam Speaker, on this same morning this op-ed was published, the 
retired Marine general Chuck Krulak, the 31st commandant of the Marine 
Corps, responded by writing an e-mail to Will.
  Madam Speaker, I submit the full text of the e-mail for the Record.

                                                September 1, 2009.
     Subject: Afghanistan
       Sir, I would imagine that your article, ``Time to Get Out 
     of Afghanistan'' will result in some ``incoming'' on your 
     Command Post. First and foremost, let me say that I am in 
     total agreement with your assessment. Simply put, no desired 
     end state has ever been clearly articulated and no strategy 
     formulated that would lead us to achieve even an ill defined 
     end state.
       A few points:
       1. The strategy of ``clear, hold and build'' would lead one 
     to believe that the US and its Allies are capable of 
     coordinating the elements of national power needed to affect 
     such a strategy. Nothing could be further from the truth. 
     Just getting DOS and DOD on the same page is difficult enough 
     . . . getting NGO's and nation building expertise into the 
     fight is simply a non-starter in a country as dysfunctional 
     as Afghanistan.
       2. Your point about troop strength required to ``protect'' 
     the population and carry out effective counterinsurgency 
     operations is spot on. Instead of a surge of 21,000 troops, 
     McChrystal would need a surge of hundreds of thousands. Not 
     only would our Nation not support such a surge but, MOST 
     distressing, the Military could not support such a surge. Not 
     only are our troops being run ragged but, equally important 
     and totally off most people's radar screens, our equipment is 
     being run ragged. At some point in time, the bill for that 
     equipment will come due and it will be a very large bill.
       3. Typical of the 21st Century fight, we are fighting ideas 
     as well as warriors. You cannot defeat ideas with bullets . . 
     . you must defeat them with better ideas. For many reasons 
     such as the dysfunction found in the Karzai government, the 
     tribal nature of the country, the abject poverty of the 
     average citizen, the inextricable link to Pakistan, we have 
     been unable to come up with better ideas. We are 
     systematically destroying the poppy fields . . . the 
     country's major source of revenue. At the same time, we are 
     trying to encourage other agricultural efforts. This is one 
     of our ``better ideas''?? Sad as it is to say, we would do 
     better to buy the poppy crop ourselves . . . ridding the 
     world of a source of drugs and maintaining the Afghan 
     economy.
       4. What in Afghanistan is deemed in our Nation's vital 
     interest? Seriously? Who is the enemy? Seriously? Is the 
     enemy of the United States the Taliban? Is the enemy al 
     Queda? We need to determine the answer to those questions 
     immediately. One would think we would have answered them 
     already but none of our actions to date would indicate that 
     we have.
       Finally, your recommendation is sound. I would put 
     ``hunter-killer teams'' along the borders and in suspected al 
     Queda strongholds. I would support them with intelligence, 
     logistics thru the use of parasail's, responsive airpower 
     (need to be close), armed and unarmed (fitted with cameras, 
     infrared, etc) drones, ``reach back'' capability for cruise 
     missiles, and other capability as needed. The H-K Teams 
     should be given minimal rules of engagement . . . when they 
     identify the bad guys, they need to be empowered to take them 
     out.
       Again, don't be dismayed by the people who disagree with 
     you. There are many retired and active duty military who feel 
     you hit the bull's eye.
           Semper Fidelis,

                                                 Chuck Krulak,

                                              General, USMC (Ret),
                              31st Commandant of the Marine Corps.

  In the e-mail General Krulak expressed his ``total agreement'' with 
Will's assessment and concluded, ``There are many retired and active-
duty military who feel you hit the bull's eye.''
  The general also wrote, ``Simply put, no desired end state has ever 
been as clearly articulated and no strategy formulated that would lead 
us to achieve even an ill-defined end state. Instead of a surge of 
21,000 troops, McChrystal would need a surge of hundreds of thousands. 
The military could not support such a surge. You cannot defeat ideas 
with bullets. You must defeat them with better ideas.''
  Madam Speaker, President Obama is in the midst of reviewing a report 
by the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal. It is 
expected that this review will determine whether or not the President 
decides to alter the number of U.S. troops to Afghanistan.
  The men and women of our military who have served in Iraq and 
Afghanistan have done a magnificent job. Many have been deployed four 
and five times. Their desire to serve is greater than ever, but the 
stress placed on our all-volunteer forces and their families cannot 
continue forever. That's why it is so important for the current 
administration to articulate an end point to its war strategy rather 
than simply ordering another surge of troops.
  With that, Madam Speaker, I close by asking God to please bless our 
men and women in uniform. I ask God to please bless the families who 
have given a child dying for freedom in Afghanistan and Iraq.
  And I close by asking God, please, God, please, God, please continue 
to bless America.

                          ____________________