[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 147 (Wednesday, October 7, 2015)]
[House]
[Page H6839]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       CONGRESS SHOULD FOCUS ON FIXING OUR PROBLEMS HERE AT HOME

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
North Carolina (Mr. Jones) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. JONES. Mr. Speaker, the recent news about Afghanistan is, at 
best, distressing. Soon Congress will be debating an increase in the 
debt ceiling so we can borrow more money to pay our bills. The sad part 
is that some of that money will go to Afghanistan.
  Three recent headlines are most discouraging:
  One from the Fiscal Times, September 23, ``U.S. Wasted Billions of 
Dollars Rebuilding Afghanistan.''
  The second headline from the New York Times, October 1, ``Afghan 
Forces on the Run.''
  The third headline, ``U.S. Soldiers Told to Ignore Sexual Abuse of 
Boys by Afghan Military Leaders.''
  I am so outraged about the third headline story that I am demanding 
answers on the Pentagon's policy of permitting Afghan men to rape young 
boys on U.S. military bases. I have written a letter to the chairman of 
the House Armed Services Committee and asked him to hold hearings on 
this issue. We need to get to the bottom of this.
  Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires. We are headed to the 
graveyard. We need to borrow money just to carry on the needless war. 
We need to borrow money just to pay our bills.
  We are over $18 trillion in debt, and President Obama signed us up 
for 8 more years in Afghanistan, 8 more years of wasted money. No one 
even listens to John Sopko, the Inspector General for Afghan 
Reconstruction, who has testified before Congress many times. He 
releases report after report detailing the waste, fraud, and abuse in 
Afghanistan, and no one in Congress seems to care.
  According to Sopko, we have spent more in 14 years trying to shape 
Afghanistan into a functional country, which is a fool's errand, at 
best, than we did on the entire Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after 
World War II.
  In the next fiscal year, we will spend $42.5 billion in Afghanistan, 
and the Congressional Budget Office estimates that we will spend $30 
billion a year for the next 8 years. We are committed to staying in 
Afghanistan. This is the longest war in the history of America.
  History has proven that we will never change this tribal nation and 
we should stop trying. Instead, let's focus on fixing our problems here 
in America.
  The little girls beside me, Mr. Speaker, Eden and Stephanie Balduf, 
their daddy was training Afghanistan citizens to be policemen, and they 
were shot and killed by the man they were training. Poor little girls 
represent so many families whose loved ones have died in Afghanistan 
for nothing but a waste.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I ask God to please bless our men and women 
in uniform, please bless America, and, God, please wake up the Congress 
before it is too late on Afghanistan.

                          ____________________