[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 15]
[House]
[Page 20623]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2100
      U.S. FOREIGN POLICY PLAGUED WITH ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, it has been a very interesting time in 
the past couple of years. I have come to this floor on many occasions 
to talk about what is happening in Afghanistan. The truth and the 
reality I think is becoming more apparent to all of us as American 
citizens; and as the Presidential debates and the Presidential contest 
and the election of this year coming up in the next few weeks is coming 
to a close, this issue is becoming more and more relevant.
  I think it is becoming more and more relevant, Mr. Speaker, because 
it illustrates that the foreign policy of the United States of America 
has attention deficit disorder.
  After 9/11, in which we were attacked by Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, 
housed by the Taliban in Afghanistan, an international coalition went 
to Afghanistan and said to the world that we are together in the fight 
against terrorism. Unfortunately, several months after that, the United 
States, pretty much by itself, even though the President said the other 
night, well, we have Poland with us; well, now Poland is withdrawing 
its troops and its support from the battle in Iraq.
  So we shift our focus from the battle in Afghanistan, and the 
international coalition that we had, to Iraq. The satellites that were 
focused on Afghanistan trying to find Osama bin Laden, trying to find 
exactly what was going on with the drug trade and opium production in 
Afghanistan, the satellites turned and began to face Iraq. Troops that 
we had in Afghanistan went to Iraq. Interrogators that we had in 
Afghanistan went to Iraq. Funding that should have gone to Afghanistan 
went to Iraq.
  Now, the President said several weeks ago that the Taliban is gone, 
that the Taliban does not exist anymore. That is completely and utterly 
false. The Taliban is still in existence. They are still fomenting 
problems in Afghanistan. They are still controlling some of the attacks 
that are going on in Afghanistan. And the quotes in today's paper were 
saying, a quote from a high-ranking official in the Taliban, the quote 
was, we are going to kill anyone who goes and tries to vote in 
Afghanistan elections, anyone who wants to run for office in 
Afghanistan, and anyone who would otherwise participate in the 
elections in Afghanistan. Why? Because Karzai is a puppet to the United 
States of America.
  We have 17,000 troops in Afghanistan. We have 130,000 troops in Iraq. 
We cannot find Osama bin Laden. And today in the newspapers all over 
the country, stated from Afghanistan officials who are working with the 
United States, United States officials, that the trail to Osama bin 
Laden is cold. Cold. We have nowhere to go, we have nowhere to look; we 
do not know where he is. We dropped the ball, we outsourced the project 
to people in Afghanistan instead of giving it to the best, most highly 
trained, highly skilled units in the world, because we have attention 
deficit disorder, because we had to go to Iraq, we had to drop $200 
billion, and everything this administration said to us before the war 
has proven not to be true.
  We are going to be able to use the oil in Iraq for reconstruction: 
not true. We have spent $200 billion; the taxpayer has spent funding 
this debacle in Iraq. We were told we were going to be greeted as 
liberators. Now we are greeted as occupiers. It has gotten so bad in 
Iraq, the Italians are now paying $1 million to get hostages back. So 
the Italians are paying $1 million to the insurgents in Iraq to fund 
the insurgents against us. It is ridiculous. This has been a debacle 
from the get-go, and it is time we square things around before we have 
a narco-state in Afghanistan on our hands.

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