[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 125 (Tuesday, September 8, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H9306-H9307]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       U.S. POLICY IN AFGHANISTAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I rise to express my strong concern over 
U.S. policy in Afghanistan. I worry that we are getting sucked deeper 
and deeper into a war with no end. Our mission continues to grow and 
grow, with no clear sense of where we are ultimately going. It has been 
8 long years. We have lost too many brave men and women, and we have 
spent billions and billions of dollars.
  The Government of Afghanistan, led by President Hamid Karzai, is 
incompetent and corrupt. The Afghan president has formed alliances with 
warlords and drug-lords who have no interest in a better Afghanistan. 
His military is not reliable and his police are a mess. By all 
accounts, forces close to Mr. Karzai stuffed ballot boxes in the most 
recent elections.
  Madam Speaker, if this fraud had occurred in virtually every other 
country in the world, the condemnations from Congress and the 
administration would be loud and forceful.
  After all the sacrifices our troops have made, after all the 
financial and development assistance, after all the training and 
military aid, is this the best that we can expect? Don't we deserve 
better? Don't the Afghan people deserve better?
  At a very minimum, we must insist that any aid be contingent on a 
responsible Afghan government. Without that, then all our investments 
and good intentions could achieve very little that is sustainable.
  The United States has an incredible and magnificent team assembled in 
Afghanistan. I had the pleasure of meeting many of them during a brief 
visit to the country over the recess. Both the military and State 
Department personnel are impressive. I only wish they were in place 8 
years ago.
  But even a brilliant team can't make up for the inadequacies of the 
current Afghan government. Our troops are exceptional. I had the 
privilege of eating dinner with many of them from Massachusetts. I am 
in awe of their courage and commitment and their patriotism. We owe 
them a policy that is worthy of their sacrifice. Everyone, Madam 
Speaker, from the President on down, agrees that a political solution 
is the only path for a successful, stable Afghanistan.
  During consideration of the Department of Defense authorization bill 
a few months ago, I, along with my colleague, Walter Jones, offered an 
amendment that would have simply required the Secretary of Defense to 
report to Congress by the end of the year what our exit strategy for 
Afghanistan was. We are not asking for a date certain, we are not 
advocating an immediate withdrawal, but we wanted an answer to this 
fundamental question: At what point has our military contribution to 
the political solution in Afghanistan come to an end so that we can 
bring our troops home?
  I don't believe that the United States should enter into a war 
without a clearly defined mission, and that means a mission with a 
beginning, a middle, a transition period and an end. Without that 
definition and clarity, we will continue to drift from year to year, 
from administration to administration. Madam Speaker, we need an exit 
strategy for Afghanistan.

[[Page H9307]]

  I believe that sending thousands more American troops into 
Afghanistan, as some in the administration appear to be urging, is a 
mistake. An escalation of U.S. military forces would further create the 
impression of an occupation and, in turn, provide a powerful rallying 
point for those we are trying to defeat.
  In last Sunday's New York Times, Nicholas Kristoff cites a statement 
by many former U.S. intelligence officials warning that the more troops 
we put in, the greater the opposition.
  Madam Speaker, I am not suggesting that we walk away from 
Afghanistan. We, along with the international community, should help 
with development aid, investments in education, school feeding, 
training of their police and military and help with strengthening their 
civilian institutions.
  I also understand the threat from al Qaeda. I still strongly believe 
that we should hold those responsible for September 11, the attacks of 
September 11, accountable; and we should be committed to defeating 
them. I voted for the authorization to use military force after the 
terrorist attacks.
  But, Madam Speaker, al Qaeda is more of a problem in Pakistan than in 
Afghanistan. And for those who justify our expanded military presence 
in Afghanistan as a way to prevent al Qaeda from ever coming back and 
establishing a safe haven, I would ask, are we going to send more 
troops to Somalia and Sudan and other countries that have provided safe 
havens for al Qaeda in the past?
  Madam Speaker, there are no easy answers in Afghanistan. It is a 
complicated place, from its people to its geography. I don't pretend to 
have all the answers.
  But I do feel deeply that an escalation of American military forces 
there would be a mistake and would not solve the many problems and 
challenges of that country. I fear it would only further complicate 
matters at a very high cost to our troops and our country.

                [From the New York Times, Sept. 6, 2009]

                         The Afghanistan Abyss

                        (By Nicholas D. Kristof)

       President Obama has already dispatched an additional 21,000 
     American troops to Afghanistan and soon will decide whether 
     to send thousands more. That would be a fateful decision for 
     his presidency, and a group of former intelligence officials 
     and other experts is now reluctantly going pubic to warn that 
     more troops would be a historic mistake.
       The group's concern--dead right, in my view--is that 
     sending more American troops into ethnic Pashtun areas in the 
     Afghan south may only galvanize local people to back the 
     Taliban in repelling the infidels.
       ``Our policy makers do not understand that the very 
     presence of our forces in the Pashtun areas is the problem,'' 
     the group said in a statement to me. ``The more troops we put 
     in, the greater the opposition. We do not mitigate the 
     opposition by increasing troop levels, but rather we increase 
     the opposition and prove to the Pashtuns that the Taliban are 
     correct.
       ``The basic ignorance by our leadership is going to cause 
     the deaths of many fine American troops with no positive 
     outcome,'' the statement said.
       The group includes Howard Hart, a former Central 
     Intelligence Agency station chief in Pakistan; David Miller, 
     a former ambassador and National Security Council official; 
     William J. Olson, a counterinsurgency scholar at the National 
     Defense University; and another C.I.A. veteran who does not 
     want his name published but who spent 12 years in the region, 
     was station chief in Kabul at the time the Soviets invaded 
     Afghanistan in 1979, and later headed the C.I.A.'s 
     Counterterrorism Center.
       ``We share a concern that the country is driving over a 
     cliff,'' Mr. Miller said.
       Mr. Hart, who helped organize the anti-Soviet insurgency in 
     the 1980s, cautions that Americans just don't understand the 
     toughness, determination and fighting skills of the Pashtun 
     tribes. He adds that if the U.S. escalates the war, the 
     result will be radicalization of Pashtuns in Pakistan and 
     further instability there--possibly even the collapse of 
     Pakistan.
       These experts are not people who crave publicity; I had to 
     persuade them to go public with their concerns. And their 
     views are widely shared among others who also know 
     Afghanistan well.
       ``We've bitten off more than we can chew; we're setting 
     ourselves up for failure,'' said Rory Stewart, a former 
     British diplomat who teaches at Harvard when he is not 
     running a large aid program in Afghanistan. Mr. Stewart 
     describes the American military strategy in Afghanistan as 
     ``nonsense.''
       I'm writing about these concerns because I share them. I'm 
     also troubled because officials in Washington seem to make 
     decisions based on a simplistic caricature of the Taliban 
     that doesn't match what I've found in my reporting trips to 
     Afghanistan and Pakistan.
       Among the Pashtuns, the population is not neatly divisible 
     into ``Taliban'' or ``non-Taliban.'' Rather, the Pashtuns are 
     torn by complex aspirations and fears.
       Many Pashtuns I've interviewed are appalled by the 
     Taliban's periodic brutality and think they are too extreme; 
     they think they're a little nuts. But these Pashtuns also 
     admire the Taliban's personal honesty and religious piety, a 
     contrast to the corruption of so many officials around 
     President Hamid Karzai.
       Some Taliban are hard-core ideologues, but many join the 
     fight because friends or elders suggest it, because they are 
     avenging the deaths of relatives in previous fighting, 
     because it's a way to earn money, or because they want to 
     expel the infidels from their land--particularly because the 
     foreigners haven't brought the roads, bridges and irrigation 
     projects that had been anticipated.
       Frankly, if a bunch of foreign Muslim troops in turbans 
     showed up in my hometown in rural Oregon, searching our homes 
     without bringing any obvious benefit, then we might all take 
     to the hills with our deer rifles as well.
       In fairness, the American military has hugely improved its 
     sensitivity, and some commanders in the field have been 
     superb in building trust with Afghans. That works. But all 
     commanders can't be superb, and over all, our increased 
     presence makes Pashtuns more likely to see us as alien 
     occupiers.
       That may be why the troop increase this year hasn't calmed 
     things. Instead, 2009 is already the bloodiest year for 
     American troops in Afghanistan--with four months left to go.
       The solution is neither to pull out of Afghanistan nor to 
     double down. Rather, we need to continue our presence with a 
     lighter military footprint, limited to training the Afghan 
     forces and helping them hold major cities, and ensuring that 
     Al Qaeda does not regroup. We must also invest more in 
     education and agriculture development, for that is a way over 
     time to peel Pashtuns away from the Taliban.
       This would be a muddled, imperfect strategy with 
     frustratingly modest goals, but it would be sustainable 
     politically and militarily. And it does not require heavy 
     investments of American and Afghan blood.

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