[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 190 (Tuesday, December 15, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H14947-H14948]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              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 today with a number of my 
colleagues to express our continuing concern about the President's 
decision to escalate our military effort in Afghanistan by an 
additional 30,000 troops. Thirty thousand additional Americans put into 
harm's way in Afghanistan is a big deal, Madam Speaker, and I am 
concerned that the House of Representatives will be adjourning for the 
year without a real, meaningful, substantive debate about this 
important issue.
  I happen to believe that increasing our military presence by 30,000 
troops will make it 30,000 times harder to extricate ourselves from 
this mess. But whatever my colleagues believe about this decision--
support, oppose, or noncommittal--we owe it to ourselves and to the 
people that we represent to have a thorough debate about our policy.

                              {time}  1745

  I would urge this administration to submit their supplemental request 
for this escalation sooner rather than later. Congress has a 
constitutional role to play. We have the power of the purse and the 
responsibility to declare war. We haven't played that role in any 
meaningful way since 2001. That was the last time that this Chamber had 
a debate on Afghanistan, 2001.
  In those eight long years hundreds of American soldiers have lost 
their lives, thousands have been wounded, and we have spent hundreds of 
billions of dollars, and we still do not have a clear exit strategy. 
Everyone seems to agree that Afghanistan requires a political solution. 
The question I still have is this: When does our military commitment to 
that political solution come to an end so that we could bring our 
troops home?
  In no way do I believe that we should abandon Afghanistan or its 
people. They have been through far too much trauma over the last 
several decades. Nor do I believe that we should abandon our fight 
against the people who murdered thousands of Americans on September 11, 
2001.
  Indeed, I am concerned that by committing over 100,000 American 
troops to nation building in Afghanistan, we will be less able to 
target those who attacked us, and that is al Qaeda, because al Qaeda no 
longer has a large presence in Afghanistan. Our top generals say that 
maybe there are 100 or less al Qaeda still in Afghanistan. They have 
moved to Pakistan.
  I do not believe that the best, most effective way to fight al Qaeda 
is to increase our military footprint in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan we 
need a new strategy.
  I would urge my colleagues to read a recent op ed in The New York 
Times by Nicholas Kristof. He points out that for the cost of one U.S. 
soldier deployed in Afghanistan, we could build 20 schools in 
Afghanistan. Let me repeat that. For the cost of one American soldier 
in Afghanistan for a year we could build 20 schools in Afghanistan.
  Not only that, it seems that before the administration announced this 
new escalation, they failed to thoroughly consult with the elders and 
the local leaders and others in Afghanistan about the best way forward. 
Madam Speaker, without local support, without the support of the local 
leaders who have the respect of the Afghan people, nothing we do will 
work or be sustainable.
  I also continue to be deeply troubled about the Karzai government. 
Today President Karzai is scheduled to convene a three-day conference 
on corruption. At a minimum, this conference is supposed to provide a 
forum where the Afghan government admits publicly that it runs on 
bribery, graft and cronyism which, in turn, fuels the Taliban 
insurgency.
  President Karzai called this conference--not because he campaigned on 
cleaning up this government--but because of international pressure. He 
ran a fraudulent election that undermined international support for the 
war on Afghanistan, and this is an attempt to show the international 
community, and especially the United States, that he will somehow clean 
up his own house.
  We will have to wait and see if it's more than just more talk, talk, 
talk. We will have to see if he is willing to kick out of office the 
very warlords, drug lords, family members, and cronies he appointed to 
high government positions, and if he does, whether he appoints reform-
minded Afghans in their place.
  Again, Madam Speaker, we are about to embark on another huge 
escalation in a very troubled part of the world.

[[Page H14948]]

Congress needs to debate this critical issue. Our men and women in 
uniform, and every other American we represent, deserve no less.

                [From the New York Times, Dec. 3, 2009]

               OP-ED Columnist; Johnson, Gorbachev, Obama

                        (By Nicholas D. Kristof)

       Imagine you're a villager living in southern Afghanistan.
       You're barely educated, proud of your region's history of 
     stopping invaders and suspicious of outsiders. Like most of 
     your fellow Pashtuns, you generally dislike the Taliban 
     because many are overzealous, truculent nutcases.
       Yet you are even more suspicious of the infidel American 
     troops. You know of some villages where the Americans have 
     helped build roads and been respectful of local elders and 
     customs. On the other hand, you know of other villages where 
     the infidel troops have invaded homes, shamed families by 
     ogling women, or bombed wedding parties.
       You're angry that your people, the Pashtuns, traditionally 
     the dominant tribe of Afghanistan, seem to have been pushed 
     aside in recent years, with American help. Moreover, the 
     Afghan government has never been more corrupt. The Taliban 
     may be incompetent, but at least they are pious Muslim 
     Pashtuns and reasonably honest.
       You were always uncomfortable with foreign troops in your 
     land, but it wasn't so bad the first few years when there 
     were only about 10,000 American soldiers in the entire 
     country. Now, after President Obama's speech on Tuesday, 
     there soon will be 100,000. That's three times as many as 
     when the president took office, and 10 times as many as in 
     2003.
       Hmmm. You still distrust the Taliban, but maybe they're 
     right to warn about infidels occupying your land. Perhaps 
     you'll give a goat to support your clansman who joined the 
     local Taliban.
       That's why so many people working in Afghanistan at the 
     grass roots are watching the Obama escalation with a sinking 
     feeling. President Lyndon Johnson doubled down on the Vietnam 
     bet soon after he inherited the presidency, and Mikhail 
     Gorbachev escalated the Soviet deployment that he inherited 
     in Afghanistan soon after he took over the leadership of his 
     country. They both inherited a mess--and made it worse and 
     costlier.
       As with the Americans in Vietnam, and Soviets in 
     Afghanistan, we understate the risk of a nationalist 
     backlash; somehow Mr. Obama has emerged as more enthusiastic 
     about additional troops than even the corrupt Afghan 
     government we are buttressing.
       Gen. Stanley McChrystal warned in his report on the 
     situation in Afghanistan that ``new resources are not the 
     crux'' of the problem. Rather, he said, the key is a new 
     approach that emphasizes winning hearts and minds: ``Our 
     strategy cannot be focused on seizing terrain or destroying 
     insurgent troops; our objective must be the population.''
       So why wasn't the Afghan population more directly 
     consulted?
       ``To me, what was most concerning is that there was never 
     any consultation with the Afghan shura, the tribal elders,'' 
     said Greg Mortenson, whose extraordinary work building 
     schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan was chronicled in ``Three 
     Cups of Tea'' and his new book, ``From Stones to Schools.'' 
     ``It was all decided on the basis of congressmen and generals 
     speaking up, with nobody consulting Afghan elders. One of the 
     elders' messages is we don't need firepower, we need 
     brainpower. They want schools, health facilities, but not 
     necessarily more physical troops.''
       For the cost of deploying one soldier for one year, it is 
     possible to build about 20 schools.
       Another program that is enjoying great success in 
     undermining the Taliban is the National Solidarity Program, 
     or N.S.P., which helps villages build projects that they 
     choose--typically schools, clinics, irrigation projects, 
     bridges. This is widely regarded as one of the most 
     successful and least corrupt initiatives in Afghanistan.
       ``It's a terrific program,'' said George Rupp, the 
     president of the International Rescue Committee. ``But it's 
     underfunded. And it takes very little: for the cost of one 
     U.S. soldier for a year, you could have the N.S.P. in 20 more 
     villages.''

     

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