[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 95 (Wednesday, June 23, 2010)]
[House]
[Page H4734]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           A NEW STRATEGY FOR A BETTER RESULT IN AFGHANISTAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, the President has today been given a 
unique opportunity with the firing of General McChrystal. General 
McChrys-
tal was the principal author and advocate of the surge of U.S. forces 
in Afghanistan.
  His theory was that it would be a clear hold and transfer--that is, a 
transfer to the Afghan police, who do not exist, to the Afghan security 
forces, which are in a state of disarray, and to the Afghan Government, 
which does not exist meaningfully outside of the capital. He tested his 
theory in Marjeh this spring.
  The U.S. and allied forces performed admirably, with tremendous 
sacrifice and effort. They did, in fact, go into a very hostile area, 
and they did, in fact, at least temporarily, drive the Taliban and 
other dissident elements out or underground.
  Then he said he was going to bring in government in a box, that it 
was ready to come in. Now, there wasn't, unfortunately, any government 
in a box. There is unbelievable corruption rife through the Karzai 
regime at the national level, through the police and through the 
security forces. They brought in some police who were not of the area, 
not of that tribe, and that didn't work out too well. They brought in 
security forces who refused to do their mission, and they brought in a 
few, again, government officials who had no local support. They have 
since left, and pretty much, Marjeh has devolved to what it was.
  Even before he was fired, General McChrystal admitted that this was 
going to take a lot longer and was going to be a lot harder than he 
thought, which means President Obama's dictate of beginning the 
withdrawal next year is a fantasy. That was part of the criticism that 
General McChrystal and his allies at the Pentagon put forward.
  So there is really a choice here--to get into a very long-term, a 
very high-level engagement in Afghanistan at a cost of $30 billion a 
year and with tremendous sacrifice by our troops on a strategy that 
has, thus far, not worked or to rethink that strategy, perhaps more 
along the lines of Vice President Biden's ideas, which were also 
derided by General McChrystal and by some of his colleagues. Actually, 
what Vice President Biden said was, look, mostly this is an internal 
issue. It's an inter- and intratribal fight. Yes, there are some 
radical Taliban elements, and there are some radical Pakistani Taliban 
elements and very few al Qaeda.
  How about we guarantee that we will take care of any intervening 
forces--that is, terrorist forces--coming in from outside, in any 
number, with a smaller troop presence and with our technology? How 
about we let the Afghans work out their intertribal/intratribal 
conflicts that they have been carrying on about for 600 years, and we 
encourage them to do that and to adopt policies to help them 
meaningfully rebuild their country?
  Instead, General McChrystal won the day, but now he is gone. Now, I 
understand that the President has said this does not mean a change in 
policy. I think that he should step back from that remark and should 
consult again with all of his best security advisers and with the Vice 
President, and he should look at the results so far and find out what 
those critical comments were which were mentioned in that article 
where, basically, the Pentagon is saying, hey, this is going to be 
years and years and a much bigger force, and maybe there will have to 
be a second surge into Afghanistan.
  Starting to sound like Vietnam to anybody here?
  With huge amounts of money, we prop up a government that has no 
relationship to the rest of the country. They have huge corruption. 
They don't have support in the countryside. That government falls, and 
another one comes in and another one. This echoes that failure.
  So, in the strongest terms possible, I would urge the President to 
reconsider, to reconvene his advisers now that General McChrystal is 
gone, and to think very carefully about a much less expensive, much 
less troop-intensive strategy to bring about a better result in 
Afghanistan.

                          ____________________