[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 18]
[House]
[Pages 25027-25033]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              AFGHANISTAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam Speaker, tonight I rise once again to draw the 
attention of my colleagues and the American people to Afghanistan. I 
say ``once again'' because over my 20-year career in Congress I have 
spoken many times and at great length about that distant and desolate 
country.
  My interests and involvement in Afghanistan in fact date back before 
I was elected to Congress. During the 1980s, I was a special assistant 
to President Ronald Reagan. While I was primarily a speech writer, I 
soon learned after arriving at the White House with Reagan's team at 
the beginning of his

[[Page 25028]]

administration that the President's words, once spoken and in the 
Record, become the policy of the executive branch.
  As a speech writer, I not only would write the words, but would help 
determine what would be said. When I realized the influence I would 
have, I was in awe of where my life had led me.
  I had worked hard in Ronald Reagan's gubernatorial campaigns when he 
first ran for Governor back in California. Later on, I worked on 
Presidential campaigns when Ronald Reagan ran for President in 1976 and 
1980. And when he won in 1980, I went with him to the White House.
  I am still honored that President Reagan brought me to the White 
House with him and that he trusted me enough to hold such a position of 
writing his words and working with him on his speeches. And I really 
appreciate the fact that often enough President Reagan backed me up 
when the remarks that I wrote were a little bit tougher than the policy 
statements that most of the senior staff of the White House wanted the 
President to say.
  But I worked for President Reagan, I knew that. I didn't work for his 
staff; I worked for him. And I understood that he wasn't there to be 
President. He was there to make things happen, to change the course of 
our country, to redirect the confidence of our people from a downward 
spiral at that time to an upward thrust.
  Those of us who worked for him knew firsthand that an unmistakable 
goal to which President Ronald Reagan was committed was to bring about 
a more peaceful world. That lofty goal was not going to be achieved by 
ignoring or downplaying threats or by sincere expressions of a desire 
for peace or by holding hands and singing kumbaya. Yes, part of 
Reagan's strategy to obtain a more peaceful world was rebuilding our 
military forces, this to deter aggression.
  But let us look back and note that he rebuilt our military forces, 
but only on rare occasion did President Reagan send our troops into 
troubled spots in the far reaches of the world. He was hesitant to give 
the green light to use the military in such actions. He did so 
sparingly. He had a sense not to get us trapped into a prolonged 
conflict or a no-win situation.
  He sent our marines to Lebanon for a specific mission. They were 
there to accomplish that mission, and they were supposed to leave 
within days. Then President Reagan was convinced, over his better 
judgment, to keep the marines in that war-torn city, Beirut, as a 
stabilizing force--get that, a stabilizing force in the most volatile 
region of the planet. The result was, of course, 295 dead marines, a 
setback for our country, but a catastrophe for 295 American families 
who lost loved ones.
  It was especially hurtful to me. I grew up in a marine family. My 
father was a lieutenant colonel in the United States Marine Corps. I 
went to school and lived at Camp Lejeune and Cherry Point, North 
Carolina, when I was in eighth, ninth and 10th grade.
  There my brother, who was also going to school with me, met and 
befriended a man who became his best friend, in fact, David Battle, who 
shortly after graduating from Camp Lejeune High School joined the 
Marine Corps. He was still 17 years old. Sergeant David Battle remained 
my brother's best friend.
  And as Ronald Reagan was being inaugurated, right afterwards we went 
to Camp Lejeune and we visited with his family and with David Battle. 
He was a sergeant at that time. He had been in the Marines all that 
time, two tours of duty in Vietnam, and he was looking forward in a few 
years ahead to retiring from the Marine Corps. And there he had a small 
boat which he was going to be working the rivers and estuaries in North 
Carolina, collecting seafood and oysters and clams. He had his life 
picked out for him. It was going to be a fine retirement. We were very 
close to that family.
  Then I went up and joined the White House staff. A few years later, 
when the bomb went off in the Marine barracks in Beirut killing 295 of 
our people, I immediately sought out the list of casualties and 
Sergeant David Battle, his name was the first on the list of those who 
had been killed. I went to my office in the White House and I wept. At 
that point, I pledged to myself that I would never, ever cease to step 
forward and try to make sense of something that didn't make sense and 
that would put our people in jeopardy.
  President Reagan learned a bitter lesson; and to his credit, against 
the advice of some very aggressive national security advisers, 
President Reagan decided not to reinforce the decimated marine force in 
Lebanon. Instead, he pulled them out before we got stuck in a quagmire 
that would have been exploited by our major global enemy at that time, 
the Soviet Union. He took great care not to get us into a fight that we 
wouldn't be able to get out of.
  Let me note, for all the name-calling suggesting Ronald Reagan was a 
warmonger for building up our Nation's military, Reagan's predecessors, 
both Republican and Democrat, sent our military into action far more 
often than did President Reagan. The liberation of Grenada from a 
bizarre and murderous Communist takeover--and that was just a very 
small, short operation--and in Lebanon, which turned out so badly, 
that's about as far as it goes in terms of Ronald Reagan ordering U.S. 
troops into harm's way.
  So sending American combat troops into battle was not how Ronald 
Reagan succeeded in making the world a safer place, a world where 
universal peace would have a chance. Well, number one, to accomplish 
that, Ronald Reagan built up our military might in weapons, quality of 
personnel, and advance technology. For example, his famous commitment 
to a missile defense system, which even today looks like such an 
important investment to protect us against missiles from Korea or Iran, 
or perhaps China.
  He improved our intelligence, which had been gutted in the 1970s. 
And, lastly, and most importantly, by implementing a strategy that 
became known as the ``Reagan Doctrine,'' he helped end the reign of 
Communist tyranny and made the world a safer place.
  It was Charles Krauthammer who first identified that Reagan's words 
and actions were part of a comprehensive strategy being brought to bear 
against Soviet communism, a strategy that had been outlined in his 
speeches. The Reagan Doctrine had nothing to do with sending U.S. 
troops to far-off lands and defeating an enemy. Reagan instinctively 
knew there were limits to what the power of government, even the Army, 
could accomplish; but he also understood the mighty power of people who 
loved freedom. Ronald Reagan understood that struggling against 
tyranny, especially Communist tyranny, were America's greatest allies. 
They would be our brothers and sisters throughout the world of people 
who were resisting tyranny, especially Communist tyranny.
  The Reagan Doctrine, in short, was to achieve our goals of a safer 
world and a more secure world and a safer and more secure America by 
supporting those brave souls in various countries who were resisting or 
fighting pro-Soviet Communist dictatorships, which was our enemy as 
well as their oppressor.
  In Poland, we covertly helped the Solidarity Movement. We bolstered 
our broadcasting to captive nations in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. We 
provided funds and resources to the anti-Sandinistas insurgents in 
Nicaragua, which eventually forced that Marxist gangster regime to have 
a free election; and when they did, those Sandinistas, those Marxist 
Sandinistas lost overwhelmingly.
  The implementation of the Reagan Doctrine, not just rebuilding U.S. 
military strength, was what broke the will and the bank account of the 
Soviet Union. Nowhere was it more effective and harder fought than in 
Afghanistan, which in the mid-1980s was in the front lines of the Cold 
War.
  A few years into the Reagan administration, I was approached by an 
old friend, Dr. Jack Wheeler, who, interestingly enough, was the 
chairman of Youth for Reagan in Ronald Reagan's first campaign for 
Governor in California back in 1966. That's where I met

[[Page 25029]]

him. After that, Dr. Wheeler had gone on to earn a Ph.D. in philosophy 
and had been earning his living as a tour guide which took people on 
adventure tours into some of the world's most dangerous territories. He 
was a real Indiana Jones; but more than that, he was a real patriot.
  Jack Wheeler wanted to be part of President Reagan's historic effort 
to reduce communism's influence on this planet and to relegate it to 
the ash heap of history. Dr. Wheeler's plan was to travel to some of 
the most inhospitable locations in the world and to contact the 
leadership of various anti-Communist insurgencies who were there in 
those far-off places engaged in taking on Soviet military power. I 
agreed to receive his reports and documentation as he traveled, and 
after 6 months it began to arrive. He was on the road and into the 
front lines.
  I started receiving information, pictures and notes and descriptions 
and audiotapes and videotapes in my office in the White House; much of 
it came through diplomatic pouch from far away embassies.
  When Dr. Jack Wheeler returned from searching out the leaders of the 
various anti-Communist insurgencies, he came directly to the White 
House where I arranged for him to brief about 30 national security-
focused staff members at the White House. What they heard was 
electrifying. There was a very real opportunity to defeat the Soviet 
Union and to usher in a new era of world peace.

                              {time}  1945

  The Soviet empire was vulnerable, and that's where the Reagan 
Doctrine started at that particular briefing. Everybody knew it could 
be a strategy, and we went to work putting it in place and presenting 
it to the President.
  This strategy of the Reagan Doctrine was implemented by men like Dr. 
Constantine Menges, who had been in the CIA. He was a great academic as 
well. At that time, he was working with the National Security Council 
of the White House. Yes, CIA Director Bill Casey was also significant 
in the success of the Reagan Doctrine--and yes, we have to admit Ollie 
North as well.
  President Reagan, of course, was the real hero of this particular 
policy. He approved a strategy that defeated the Soviet Union without 
sending our troops into action against Soviet troops or even coming 
into direct confrontation with Soviet military forces. We feared a 
nuclear war for decades. Reagan ended that threat, that nuclear war 
with the Soviet Union that we all felt someday might happen and 
obliterate most of mankind. Reagan ended that threat. Communist tyranny 
was advancing when Ronald Reagan became President. He turned it around 
and laid the foundation for a collapse of the Soviet Government in 
Russia. Afghanistan was the tip of the Reagan Doctrine spear.
  So, our assistance to the Afghanistan resistance escalated, and as it 
did, I became more personally involved in this historic effort. In 
those days, Jack Wheeler would send us firsthand accounts of the 
frontline fight in Afghanistan. At times, he would bring Afghanistan 
warriors to my office in the White House. Other times, these rugged 
fighters--the Mujahedeen as they are called--would come to Washington 
for secret meetings, and I would end up taking them for lunch at the 
White House dining room or introducing them to specific people in the 
bureaucracy and in the power structure who could help them. So I got to 
know and admire these brave people.
  In the late 1980s, the Soviets upped the ante, unleashing Hind 
helicopter gunships which ripped the Mujahedeen, and they were just 
destroying them at will. At this moment of desperation, there was a 
major debate in the White House over the proposal to neutralize the 
helicopter gunships by providing Stinger missiles, which are shoulder-
held missiles that can take out airplanes or helicopters. There was a 
debate as to whether to provide them to the Afghan resistance.
  Ronald Reagan personally made the decision, and the anti-aircraft 
weapons were sent. It changed the outcome of that battle in 
Afghanistan, and it changed all of history. Yet it was not just 
weaponry or even U.S. financing or material support. It was the courage 
and sacrifice of the Afghan people that carried the day. A million of 
them lost their lives. It was an overwhelming loss for every family of 
Afghanistan. Several million were displaced, but all of them stood tall 
and stood up to the Soviet empire. We were proud to stand by such 
people.
  Yes, Charlie Wilson, who used to be a Member of Congress and a member 
of the Appropriations Committee, played an important role in getting 
the money allocated to help these brave people, and other people in 
Reagan's White House can be proud of what was done to support these 
Afghan freedom fighters. I would have to say, for as much as we did--
Charlie Wilson and those of us in the White House and other people--
it's the Afghan people who thoroughly deserve the credit of not only 
defeating this Soviet Army in Afghanistan but of breaking the will of 
the Communist Party bosses who controlled the Soviet Union.
  When the Soviet Army retreated from Afghanistan, Soviet confidence 
crumbled, and a new world emerged free from the threat of a Russia 
controlled by a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship--a Russia committed to 
Communist world domination.
  It was an historic achievement which can be traced to the Reagan 
Doctrine but also to the blood and to the sacrifice of the Afghan 
people. How did we repay this enormous sacrifice that made all of us 
safer, this tremendous gift that we still enjoy? How did we repay it? 
We walked away and left a crippled and wounded Afghan population to 
sleep in the rubble. We didn't even provide them with an ample level of 
support to clear land mines that were planted all over their country, 
land mines that we had given them, mines that to this day continue to 
blow the legs off of Afghan children.
  To say America was guilty of ingratitude is to put it mildly, but 
President Reagan was gone by then. His term of office was over, and 
George Bush, Sr. was President--George Bush, Sr., the same President 
who sent American troops all over the world and sent a huge number of 
deployments of American troops into battle, the same George Bush, Sr. 
who walked away not only from the Afghans but from the democracy 
movement in China, leaving them to be slaughtered both in Afghanistan 
and in Tiananmen Square. No, George Bush, Sr. was no Ronald Reagan.
  As time passed, chaos reigned in Afghanistan. During the Clinton 
administration, our government took steps to do something about the 
mayhem in that country. Unfortunately, President Clinton's team did 
exactly the wrong thing. What do I mean?
  One of the reasons for the continued bloodletting in Afghanistan 
after the Soviets left and their puppet regime collapsed--what brought 
that on and continued that bloodletting was that, during the war, the 
American Government had agreed to let the Pakistani Intelligence 
Service--that's the ISI, the equivalent of our CIA--dole out our 
supplies, American supplies, to the various anti-Soviet Afghan 
factions. The ISI--that's the Pakistani CIA--was then and is now a 
hotbed of radical Islam. Much of our military supplies, which were 
being channeled right through this group, ended up in the hands of 
radical, radical, the most radical Islamists--people like Gulbuddin 
Hekmatyar, Sayoff and other murderous Islamic radicals.
  We could have and should have insisted on the direct delivery of U.S. 
supplies to the insurgent groups, and we would choose the insurgent 
groups. We did not insist on that. Instead, our own CIA punted. Even to 
this day, they say, Well, we couldn't have looked at things for the 
future. You know, how do you expect us not to have a battle in the 
future when we've got a battle right now to determine? No. You could 
make a determination of not giving weapons to the worst radicals in 
Afghanistan. They could have made the determination that, in the long 
run, it wouldn't have been in our interest, because there were many 
other moderate Afghan Mujahedeen groups who needed

[[Page 25030]]

that support and who didn't get anywhere near as much as these radicals 
did from the Pakistani CIA, the ISI.
  Basically, the CIA is giving the ISI leverage, which was then used to 
promote Islamic fascism. It was also used to secure the Pakistani 
dominance of Afghanistan, which has been one of the major reasons, 
dynamics, that has kept Afghanistan in turmoil for decades. So what 
happened? The situation got worse and worse. The chaos got worse and 
worse.
  During this time, I was one of the few who did not turn my head and 
walk away. I kept looking for a way out of the insanity and chaos. Yes, 
there was a way out, but it was a path the Saudis and the Pakistanis 
did not want to take. There was one man revered by almost all of the 
Afghan people of every faction and every tribe. It was King Zahir Shah, 
the king who is in exile, who had led his country for 4 decades through 
peace and stability. When he was overthrown, Afghanistan ended up in 
decades of chaos and bloodletting and invasions on a massive scale.
  During that time, King Zahir Shah, as he was deposed in a coup, ended 
up living in exile in Rome. I met with him there on a number of 
occasions in the 1990s. He was the obvious leader to bring peace and 
stability to his bloody and torn country but not so obvious to the 
Pakistanis, who wanted to dominate and control Afghanistan, not so 
obvious to the Saudis who were doing the bidding of the most violent 
and anti-Western manifestations of Islamic fascism, and not so obvious 
to the Clinton administration, whose goal was to go along with the 
Saudis and the Pakistanis.
  I, personally, argued my case to Prince Turki, then the head of the 
Saudi CIA. Prince Turki had been very involved with supporting the 
anti-Soviet Mujahedeen during the war against the Soviet occupation. I 
begged with him and pleaded with everyone else who would listen. King 
Zahir Shah was a moderate Muslim leader who would bring peace and 
stability. No. What the Saudis and the Pakistanis wanted was a radical 
Islamic force that would supposedly unite the devout Muslims of 
Afghanistan but, more importantly, would be a Pakistani and Saudi ally, 
an ally who would be willing to do their bidding.
  What did the Clinton administration do? What did the Clinton 
administration want? Well, what they wanted was to make the Saudis and 
the Pakistanis happy. So, in the mid-1990s, the Taliban emerged. They 
are not the same as the Mujahedeen. Many Americans mistakenly believe 
that the people who fought against the Soviet Army, who were named the 
Mujahedeen, later became the Taliban.
  By and large, it was the Mujahedeen later on who drove the Taliban 
out of power. It was the Taliban which had been kept as a reserve 
force, you might say, going to these moderate schools in Pakistan until 
after the Soviets had been defeated. The lion's share of Mujahedeen 
leaders, who fought against the Soviet troops, were not part of the 
Taliban.
  Well, I hoped for the best after it was clear that the Taliban was 
anointed by the Clinton administration, by the Saudis and the 
Pakistanis, and they took over Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan. 
I hoped for the best for about 2 weeks. I was just hoping. People told 
me maybe they'll come through, and maybe they'll start moderating, but 
my worst nightmares began to come true after just a few weeks.
  A brutal fundamentalist, Islamic movement that hated the West was 
taking control of Afghanistan, supported by the United States 
Government in the name of stability. That was it. In the name of 
stability, we're going to support these radical fundamentalists and 
other tyrannical forces.
  For several years, at this time in the 1990s, I was a voice in the 
wilderness here in the House, warning that the creation and support of 
the Taliban would come back to haunt us someday. I had no idea how true 
these warnings were, and how much it would hurt us. During that time in 
the 1990s, I met with the leaders of Afghan tribes and ethnic groups in 
and out of Afghanistan in an effort to forge an anti-Taliban coalition. 
The core of the plan was to bring back Zahir Shah, King Zahir Shah, as 
the focal point for dislodging the Taliban--someone everyone could 
rally around, who would treat people fairly and create a peaceful, more 
democratic country.
  At the end of the year 2000, after a Herculean effort, there was a 
meeting that had been arranged of all the Afghan factions except for 
the Taliban. After that meeting, King Zahir Shah agreed to return to 
Afghanistan to hold a Loya Jirga in July of 2001. The Loya Jirga, let 
me note, is a convention of tribal elders which was to take place in 
the territory that was controlled by Commander Masood. Commander Masood 
is a man who was never beaten by the Soviets. He was also never beaten 
by the Taliban, and he was one of the last commanders who held any part 
of territory in Afghanistan. The rest was controlled by the Taliban.
  Considering this agreement of Zahir Shah to go to Commander Masood's 
territory and have a Loya Jirga to talk about the future governance, 
the governance of Afghanistan, this was a great step forward, and this 
agreement was forged despite the opposition of the Clinton 
administration. It was a great accomplishment just to get that 
agreement. Those involved in making this happen included International 
Relations Committee Chairman Ben Gillman; Tom Lantos, a senior member 
of the Foreign Affairs Committee; as well as a few others but just a 
few.
  After George W. Bush was elected, I was able to meet several times 
with his new National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, whom I knew 
from the Reagan days. Well, we discussed Russia, and we talked 
extensively about Afghanistan. I pitched the idea of overthrowing the 
Taliban using the coalition that I'd been building--the anti-Taliban 
coalition.
  Well, the idea wasn't rejected, but no action was taken, at least 
until 9/11. The 9/11 slaughter of 3,000 Americans was planned and set 
in motion by bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network, then allied with 
the Taliban, which was headquartered there in Afghanistan and was 
operating freely in that country.

                              {time}  2000

  On 9/11, I was given an incredible opportunity to utilize the 
knowledge that I had gained and the relationships I had built in that 
region over the many years. It was the opportunity to make a 
significant difference for my country at a time of great chaos and 
crisis.
  Only a few days before, al Qaeda/Taliban assassins had murdered 
Commander Masood. I had met with Commander Masood in Afghanistan in one 
of my several forays into Afghanistan during the 1990s. I visited him 
in a mountain hideout, his retreat, or his fortress you might say, and 
we talked for a long time. We had been in contact ever since the time 
in the Reagan White House when he sent his brother to see me. And we 
had negotiated and kept in touch verbally, but that was the first time 
I met him. Our friendship was already in existence, and by that 
meeting, it really was solidified.
  And then Commander Masood in the days before 9/11--and we'd been 
looking forward to having this meeting in his territory with the King, 
Commander Masood was blown apart in an assassination scheme--of course, 
Taliban and al Qaeda scheme. And I remember then how much despair that 
I had that this great man who held such promise to be a leader of his 
country, like others who were killed during a war against the Russians 
and now the Taliban, so many young leaders killed in Afghanistan--a 
brave man, Abdul Hawk, lost his life.
  But Commander Masood, I sat down in my office in total despair and I 
said, I gotta get control of myself. Why did they kill him? Why did 
they do that now? I thought it out, and I realized that they had killed 
Commander Masood in order to prevent the United States from having an 
avenue to counterattack against them for something that they were going 
to do to us. It made all the sense in the world.
  They were going to have a major attack on the United States, and it 
must

[[Page 25031]]

have been something that was going to be humongous and cause much loss 
of life or they wouldn't have gone out of the way to kill Commander 
Masood because we wouldn't have wanted to try to retaliate against 
them, to use him to retaliate against them for something they did to 
us. Well, yes, that was exactly the case. And I realized there would be 
a monstrous attack on the United States, so I immediately called the 
White House.
  I called the White House. I called for National Security Adviser 
Condi Rice, and her assistant came on the phone and said, Congressman 
Rohrabacher, what is it? And I said, I've got to see her. I've got to 
warn her about an imminent, major terrorist attack that is going to 
happen very soon in our country. There will be a huge terrorist attack. 
I need to talk to her about it and give her some details of what I 
think is going to happen.
  And the aide said, You know, Congressman, she's talked about 
Afghanistan before. We know you're an expert on that, but she can't see 
you today. She's a busy person. But if you come over tomorrow at 3 
o'clock, she will talk to you, and I will put you on the schedule.
  So I was on the schedule at 3 o'clock to talk to Condoleezza Rice to 
warn her of an imminent major terrorist attack. That's what the 
schedule says. The day that I was supposed to meet her was 9/11. That 
day, the planes began flying into the buildings at 8:45.
  So on that horrible day, 9/11, I understood what was happening, and I 
immediately began to provide information and contacts to the CIA, 
Defense Department, and National Security Council. The team who had 
helped me during the years organizing an anti-Taliban coalition was now 
brought to play to help America plan its counterattack.
  Charlie Santos, a confidant of Afghan Uzbek leader General Dostum, 
was a treasure house of information and direction for our government 
and part of my team during the years before. Al Santoli on my staff 
ended up talking directly via satellite cell phones to village and 
tribal leaders. One of them, for example, was so-called warlord Ishml 
Khan, thus paving the way for the injection of our special forces 
troops.
  Paul Berkowitz, who now works for me, then working for Chairman Ben 
Gilman, opened doors throughout the administration. Paul Behrends, a 
Marine major, a former member of my staff who had been in Afghanistan 
with me and knew the players in the territory, was there to help. And 
Dusty Rhodes, an expert from the intelligence community, he was on my 
staff at the time and had very special skills that were incredibly 
important to helping us determine how to proceed.
  I have never sought much credit for the small but significant 
contribution my team made after 9/11. It's like that saying Reagan had 
framed on his desk: ``There is no limit to what a person can accomplish 
if he doesn't care who gets the credit.''
  Well, our military originally wanted to send in heavy American Army 
divisions into Afghanistan; basically, what we did in Iraq. They would 
be supplied by depots located in the northwestern provinces, provinces 
of Pakistan where that invasion would have been staged from. It would 
have been a disaster had we done that. The northwestern provinces are 
the most anti-American territories in the world, which, right now, 
people are struggling against Taliban control over those areas.
  Our team managed to convince America's decisionmakers to come at 
Afghanistan from the north through Uzbekistan, and most importantly, to 
let our Afghan coalition do the fighting. Most of those making this 
decision on which way to go--whether to send in the big heavy divisions 
or not--had never even heard of Tarmez, which is an Uzbek city on the 
Afghan border that later served as our staging area.
  They had, of course, never been at the northwest provinces, nor did 
they know about the strategically important Afghan city of Mazar-e-
Sharif, which later turned out to be pivotal in the defeat of the 
Taliban. I had been to those cities. I had been to those places, and 
our little team knew the territory and the forces at play. And luckily, 
some high-level decisionmakers at the DOD and the CIA and, yes, the 
National Security Council listened to us.
  Too many Americans don't fully appreciate the fact that it was an 
army of Afghans--that was called the Northern Alliance--that defeated 
the Taliban and drove them out of their country. Only about 200 U.S. 
military personnel were there at the time. Only 200 men, boots on the 
ground, yes. Only 200 men were there of American military personnel. 
And we gave the Northern Alliance the financial support and supplied 
them the arms and the ammunition and, most importantly, the air cover 
they needed to defeat the Taliban.
  We also promised to rebuild their country, and that's how the 
Taliban--who were immensely more powerful than they are today--that's 
how they were defeated after 9/11.
  So 7 years have passed, and it appears now that America is pulling 
defeat out of the jaws of victory. American political restructuring and 
military firepower has not been working, and it should be of no 
surprise that it's not working. We can defeat any army and dislodge any 
tyrant or regime. We cannot conquer or subjugate a people. Once we are 
viewed as occupiers and not liberators, we lose.
  The people of Afghanistan are devout Muslims. Yet after 9/11, large 
numbers of them came to our side and fought against and defeated the 
Taliban and al Qaeda Muslim extremists. Oh my, how history repeats 
itself.
  After promising to rebuild their war-torn country, after the victory 
over the Taliban, we then, instead of keeping our word, moved on and 
committed ourselves to freeing Iraq from the Saddam Hussein 
dictatorship and helping those people. That commitment dramatically 
undercut our ability to make the kind of effort and expenditure of 
resources that the brave Afghan people had a right to expect at that 
time.
  Well, they fought the Russian Army and helped end the cold war, and 
it was an enormous price that they paid to do that. Then after 9/11, 
they joined us again to fight radical Islam's grip on their country, 
which had been used as a base camp for the 9/11 attack that slaughtered 
3,000 Americans. The Afghans are brave and honorable people. We have to 
do justice by them. We have to yet pay back this debt that we still owe 
them.
  Instead, over the years, we have sent our military with its 
incredibly sophisticated weapons into Afghanistan. When the Taliban 
were driven out, 90 percent of the Afghans loved us and they were doing 
the fighting against the extremists. Now, years later, our troops are 
doing the fighting and the hearts of the Afghan people are turning 
against us.
  Afghanistan is a country of 4,500 villages. Each has a militia. 
Either the villages are with us or they're against us. We've made the 
age-old mistake of thinking this society of villages and fiercely 
independent people can be pacified and controlled by our forces or 
those of a central authority in Kabul. Trying to impose centralized 
government power on these villages rather than approaching them as 
friends who are there to help has turned friend into foe, ally into 
enemy.
  We can defeat a foreign army, be it a German or Japanese military 
power of World War II or Republican Guard of Saddam Hussein. We cannot 
defeat the country of Afghanistan. We cannot occupy or control its 
people. We can be their friend, and if we do so, we will win. If we 
attempt to use our military might to force an outcome based on control 
and pacification of a vast and inhospitable countryside, we will 
eventually lose. The 4,500 villages will be with us or against us. They 
will be with our enemy, radical Islam, or they will be against it.
  Just as I was in a position to influence enormously important 
decisions after 9/11, I believe I am here at this moment to try again 
to influence a decision that will have horrendous negative consequences 
if not made with an understanding of Afghanistan and its people.
  Today we are facing a decision to send or not to send 35,000 more 
combat troops into Afghanistan. Thirty-five thousand more troops, by 
definition,

[[Page 25032]]

means Americans will do more fighting. It is a wrong strategy, a 
strategy that will not work and will cost too much financially and cost 
too much in terms of the lives of our military personnel. A better plan 
is to re-earn the loyalty of these brave and long-suffering people.
  Afghan children are the most beautiful kids in the world, but this 
country has the world's highest infant mortality rate. It tears at the 
heart and soul of these people that they're losing their children. 
Let's help them change that.
  The money needed to finance sending 35,000 more combat troops into 
Afghanistan is a mind-boggling 35 billion--that's ``billion''--dollars 
per year. A commitment of even a small portion of this would bring 
life-elevating progress throughout that land of 4,500 villages. It 
would win the goodwill of those villages and their militias. After 
that, they could become a real asset. They would be a real force 
against radical Islam. And yes, we need to re-earn the loyalty and gain 
the loyalty of our Afghan allies. After 9/11, we disarmed the Northern 
Alliance. We need to re-arm them, and we need to rebuild a solid 
friendship with those people.
  Building a central army, however, in Kabul is not the way to defend 
against Taliban insurgents. Sending in more U.S. combat troops is not 
the answer, nor is just building up a central army in Kabul. Reaching 
out to the villages and tribal elders and establishing local militias, 
perhaps buying their goodwill if need be, these are the things that 
will work. And it will cost a pittance compared to $35 billion more per 
year for 35,000 more troops who may end up turning off the people of 
Afghanistan rather than enlisting them to our side.
  Opposing our enemy by arming and financing local and village leaders 
was a strategy that worked against the Soviet Army, and it worked 
against the Taliban after 9/11, and it will work again. Let us admit 
that our goals these last 7 years, that the goals that we have actually 
tried to put in place these last 7 years were wrong. The goals were 
wrong. Not just the implementation. The goals were wrong.
  Honest and decentralized government in Afghanistan should have been 
the goal. Decentralized. Honest and decentralized, perhaps 
representative, government in Afghanistan should have been the goal, 
not creating a central power, the fallacy that you can't have a real 
country unless you really have a government in charge in the capital 
that then controls the rest of the country. That was a total illusion, 
and it was wrong. It was never something we could have accomplished.
  Instead, what we wanted to do instead of a decentralized government, 
we wanted to establish a national power, and we wanted to have national 
power wielders with whom we could do business. Karzai was never someone 
who had any loyalty of the Afghan people.

                              {time}  2015

  He was not a political force in that country. We forced Karzai on the 
Afghan people after 9/11, and we forced the king into a more 
subservient role when he returned rather than a role where he could 
have selected true Afghan leaders to help rebuild their country, 
leaders that would have been honest instead of what we have now in the 
Karzai administration, which is nothing more than a kleptocracy, 
gangster regime.
  In the United States our schools are run locally. Remember this. Our 
schools are run locally. Our police are run locally. The criminal 
justice system is run at the State or local level. What would have 
happened if somebody had come into our country during the American 
revolution and said, No, we have to reconfigure it so that all the 
power's in Washington and all the appointees are going to be in 
Washington D.C., and that's where all the power is going to be and 
you're going to have to have a centralized government. Our Founding 
Fathers would have revolted against that, because that wasn't 
consistent with how we knew that freedom was going to be preserved; it 
wasn't consistent with representative government and democracy. No, we 
wouldn't have done that.
  Well, let me just note, what we've got there in Afghanistan and what 
we've tried to establish in Afghanistan is a Kabul-based centralization 
of authority. How can we expect the people of Afghanistan to accept 
something--centralization of power--which is totally contrary to their 
own decentralized society which they have had for thousands of years, 
especially when the centralized authority that we're trying to foist on 
them has been corrupt and in no way reflects the consent of the 
governed?
  Members of parliament there are elected in a slate. The people there 
in that country don't have individual districts that represent them, 
individual congressmen who are elected from individual districts. They 
aren't even elected at specific villages. No, there is not one person 
in that government who most people in Afghanistan can identify as 
someone for whom they voted for to represent them, not in the 
parliament, not in the Kabul government, because there's no congressmen 
that are elected. They're elected at a province-wide level which means 
it's a slate and almost all of the villages, nobody knows anybody on 
the slate because the slate is dictated politically from Kabul which, 
of course, is a corrupt center of power.
  Do we expect the Afghan people to just accept orders from people who 
they haven't voted for, whom they don't know? And the corruption and 
the ineptitude of that central authority, of course, which we have 
foisted upon them is not an acceptable alternative. We're not giving 
them an acceptable alternative. No wonder why the Taliban is being 
considered. All this means is that local people have no honest system 
to settle disputes, to determine rights or to organize the effort 
that's needed to elevate the condition of this suffering and poverty-
stricken people. These people are devout, but they're not fanatics. But 
they will acquiesce again to the Taliban Islamic fringe if it is at 
least honest at its core as compared to visiting crooks who are 
claiming the right to make decisions that have the finality and power 
of law but people whom they don't even know who they are, much less 
have voted for them.
  What we do now is what we should have done originally. Let the local 
villages appoint their own elders to positions of local authority. Let 
them pick a wise person who they know to be a judge and make decisions 
for them locally. Let the village militias become part of a National 
Guard. Give them uniforms, give them guns and ammunition, give them 
communication gear, and use the central army to back them up, not to 
disarm them for fear of their sympathies.
  Yes, the U.S. can remain a major military force in Afghanistan, but 
we cannot and will not succeed if we believe our military forces, 
foreign fighters in a foreign land, can bring a recognizable military 
victory. Adding more troops feeds the illusion that we can win some 
kind of victory if we just exercise more power and send more military 
personnel. Alexander the Great left the bones of his entourage there as 
did the British and, yes, the Russians. The sword has never conquered 
these people. It may for a limited time give an appearance of stability 
but, instead, will feed a simmering antipathy that will not cool but 
only grow hotter and more ferocious. Again, we can defeat any army. We 
cannot conquer and subdue the nation of Afghanistan. Only Afghans, from 
the bottom-up, can control and pacify their countryside.
  There is still time for our action in Afghanistan to end with honor 
and success, for the Afghans and for Americans. They can still have a 
great ending to all of this. The first step towards that is to signal 
to the whole nation of Afghanistan, send them a message heard in every 
corner of those 4,500 villages, and that is that the United States is 
not trying to foist upon them a corrupt central government. To 
accomplish this, we must recognize the travesty of this last election. 
While we cannot have an entirely new election, we can insist on a 
runoff between Messrs. Karzai and Abdullah. In this runoff election, a 
respected international organization, perhaps the

[[Page 25033]]

OSCE, could be given a free hand to correct problems as they appear and 
throw out illegal ballots if necessary. After the elections we should 
commit ourselves to a new course, a new course that respects the 
traditional village structure and reaches out with assistance to 
improve health, water, education and agriculture in Afghanistan. Yes, 
at first the risk of such a plan will be great for the individuals who 
are willing to go to the front lines with our helping hand offensive. 
But this approach, a helping hand, will be far more effective than a 
mailed fist approach. It will take money. We may need to begin to buy 
goodwill. Maybe we need to offer to put some people on consulting fees 
at the local level, some of these local leaders and village elders. 
Well, that can be done; and we can also do things like, for example, 
some expenditures that prove our good faith, like setting up clinics or 
schools or economic projects that will improve the life of those 
villagers. It may take courage and we will lose some people. But in the 
end the expense and the loss of life will be far less than a warrior-
focused alternative. And, yes, fighting will be necessary. The Taliban 
are evil. They are inseparable from al Qaeda because they are the same 
radical extremists. We know that. Anybody who is a dreamer, who thinks 
that, well, we can bring back the Taliban but we can separate them from 
al Qaeda, that is just so much nonsense. But the Taliban need not come 
back. There is opposition to the Taliban if we offer a tangible 
alternative. Let us build up the militias in the towns and villages 
across that desolate country and let these militias do the fighting. We 
can and should help establish a militia system and back them up, from 
the air or even on the ground if necessary. But it will be the Afghans, 
not the Americans, who are on the front lines of this effort.
  How much will it cost us to deploy 35,000 more troops? $35 billion. 
What I'm talking about is a strategy that would cost a minuscule amount 
of that and have a much greater chance of success. Let's stand down 
these troops. Let's let these 35,000 American military personnel stay 
home with their families. And let's send to the Afghans a portion of 
what that additional troop cost would be.
  Every time in the past we got to this situation, it was either send 
those troops and spend the money for them or not give them anything, or 
just give them a little bit. No, let's give them a substantial infusion 
into their society of wealth and expertise that can help build that 
society. That will be so much cheaper and more cost effective, and with 
a billion dollars, yes, you can buy the loyalty of a number of Afghan 
leaders at the village and provincial and tribal level that can get us 
over the hump. Now that's certainly better than spending money to send 
people over there to kill more Afghans. We can be their partners in 
building and improving the life of the Afghan people. And it will bring 
change to that country and have a much greater chance at success.
  Let me end this tonight with one last story, which I didn't mention. 
Before I came to Congress, I actually went into Afghanistan with an 
Afghan military unit, a mujahadeen unit, who were fighting the Soviet 
Union. And I had met so many of these leaders, I told them one day that 
I would join them in a great battle if I had left the White House. And 
so I went to the battle of Jalalabad as part of a small military force. 
All we had were AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades. I had a beard. I 
was in Afghan garb. I was just one of the team, one of that unit. Our 
job was to protect and to work with a rocket unit that was about to 
attack and give them protection, about to launch rockets into a Soviet 
position outside the city of Jalalabad.
  As we marched to the battle of Jalalabad, it was late at night and 
the bombs and things were going off, you could hear the explosions and 
see them; and I was with about 120 Afghans by that point, worming our 
way through the hillsides toward the battle. A young Afghan lad, 
perhaps 16 years old, an AK-47 over his shoulder, came up to me and 
said, ``I understand that you're in politics in America.'' I said, 
``Yes, I am.'' He said, ``Well, are you a donkey or an elephant?'' I 
said, ``Well, I'm an elephant.'' He said, ``I thought you were.''
  And as we talked, I said to him, ``What do you plan to do once this 
war with the Soviets is over?'' And as we marched toward that battle, 
he said, ``I want to be an engineer or an architect. I want to rebuild 
my country. I want to rebuild my country. And I know, with you 
Americans, we can do that.''
  I don't know whatever happened to that young man. He may never have 
survived that battle. I left after a week and I was back here in the 
safety of our country. I only could have died of diarrhea or by 
drinking bad water. He could have stepped on a land mine. A Russian 
plane napalmed one part of the group that I was with. He could have 
died in something like that. But that young man, 16 years old, is now 
probably 40 years old. We owe him a lot. We can only hope that he is 
still that idealistic, that he wants to work with Americans to rebuild 
his country and to see that his family has a better chance even though 
life now has passed his generation by.
  Life didn't have to pass his generation by. We should have done our 
duty by them. We have a chance to do that again, to remake that, to 
redo that and to do what's right, and it will be successful for us as 
well as for the people of Afghanistan. Let us not send more combat 
troops there. Let us not put more of our people at risk or have our 
people killing more Afghans in the name of obtaining some illusionary 
victory. Let us reach out and win the loyalty of these people who have 
shown their loyalty to us time and again. We can do that now with just 
a minor expenditure. Give us $5 billion to rebuild that country and to 
help build a militia system so they can protect themselves. That is 
what America is supposed to be all about.
  That young man had a dream. That young man now is 40 years old, 
hopefully somebody who still has faith in us, we need to reach out to 
him and the other young people of Afghanistan and say we can make this 
a better world. We are willing to work with you to do that. We respect 
your society and structure and your traditions, and it's not in any way 
contradictory to what America believes in local government and 
democracy, and people choosing their own government and those people 
who make laws for them.
  It's time for America to stand for principle. I hope that my 
Republican colleagues will understand that every time someone in the 
military--and I respect General McChrystal. Just because he is in the 
military, he does not have ``the plan'' that will necessarily bring 
about the type of change in a society or another kind of dynamic rather 
than a military dynamic. Many times military officers don't understand 
that. We should stand up after thinking about it and doing what is 
right and listen to those of us who have been in Afghanistan over these 
years to try to have a policy that's a positive policy that can 
succeed, and not just looking for an illusionary military victory that 
will always be out of our grasp.
  Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I yield back the balance of my 
time.

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