[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 173 (Wednesday, December 22, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Page S11028]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                              AFGHANISTAN

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, as Congress begins next year to consider a 
range of policy choices in both domestic and foreign policy areas, I 
hope that at long last, we will decide that the war in Afghanistan must 
end.
  That war has lasted 9 years and we are now engaged in nation building 
in a country with a government that I believe is both incompetent and 
corrupt.
  We began the actions in Afghanistan to capture or kill the terrorist 
groups that had launched the 9/11 attack on our country.
  Now, many years later, we are bogged down in a war in Afghanistan 
where our intelligence officials tell us there is only a minimal 
presence of the terrorist group al-Qaida. Some estimates put the number 
of al-Qaida operatives in Afghanistan at fewer than one hundred.
  We are now engaged in fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan and, 
frankly, there are a number of foreign armies that have tried and 
failed in Afghanistan over many centuries.
  I don't believe there is any chance of our ever controlling the 
tribal regions of Afghanistan.
  Furthermore, we ought to be fighting terrorism where terrorists, are 
rather than where terrorists were. We know that al-Qaida has 
reconstituted training camps in Northern Pakistan, and we suspect that 
is where their leadership is. We know al-Qaida is in Somalia and Yemen 
and other places. But, we are bogged down fighting the Taliban in 
Afghanistan. And frankly, that is not where the terrorists are.
  It is time for our country to understand that this is an effort that 
will continue to drain our treasury and will result in the deaths of 
more American troops, but will not result in our controlling the 
territory of Afghanistan. We will be stuck for a long period of time 
with a permanent military presence at great cost and we will be paying 
for Afghanistan's defense even while failing to control the tribal 
regions of Afghanistan.
  Recognition of those facts ought to persuade us to begin withdrawing 
from Afghanistan as soon as possible and begin pursuing terrorists 
where terrorists are now, not where they were then.

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