[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 176 (Tuesday, December 1, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H13358]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     THE ESCALATION IN AFGHANISTAN

  (Mr. KUCINICH asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. KUCINICH. Today our President will announce an escalation in 
Afghanistan: as many as 35,000 additional troops, costing an additional 
$35 billion to prop up a government which most acknowledge is 
indefensibly corrupt.
  We need to redefine our national security. Our national security will 
not be found in occupations which fuel insurgencies. Our national 
security will not be found through paying off contestants in 
Afghanistan who are with us one day and who shoot at our soldiers the 
next.
  We can secure our borders without expanding them across the world. 
And we can redefine our national security by making sure that every 
able-bodied person in America has a job, by helping people save their 
homes and protect their savings and their investments and their 
retirement security.
  We need new thinking and a new course of action, not further into 
Afghanistan but out. Not further away from the concerns of the American 
people, but focusing on what's important here at home.

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