[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 21]
[House]
[Pages 28161-28168]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   FUTURE INVOLVEMENT IN AFGHANISTAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kagen) is recognized 
for 60 minutes.
  Mr. KAGEN. Madam Speaker, I rise this evening to begin a bipartisan 
conversation about the future investments of our resources in both 
human and capital resources in the region of Afghanistan and Pakistan. 
Everyone will agree that we must do whatever it takes to protect 
America and keep hostilities from our shores. And over time, I believe 
we'll also come to understand that religious fundamentalism is 
civilization's real enemy, no matter if it is disguised in Muslim, 
Judeo-Christian, Hindu, Sikh or any other religious clothing.
  Terrorism is not really the enemy, for violent extremists simply use 
terrorism as a tactic. Overcoming the violent extremists will require 
skilled and talented police work as coordinated between civilized 
nations, not only our mutual military might. And we must hunt, capture 
and prosecute the violent extremists wherever they seek to establish 
themselves, sharing the expense and doing so with our colleagues in our 
mutual nations overseas, our friends, particularly in NATO. Most 
importantly, throughout this process, we must continue to defend 
ourselves within the laws as established by our United States 
Constitution. We're still paying for the poor judgments of the previous 
administration which, in 2003, placed our children in the middle of a 
centuries' old religious civil war in Iraq, when, in fact, our invasion 
of Iraq was not necessary. By continuing to spend millions of our hard-
earned tax dollars over there, we are unable to solve our own problems 
here at home.
  The truth about Iraq is this: no weapons of mass destruction were 
present in Iraq, and al Qaeda extremists were not based there before 
President Bush convinced Congress to go to war. And remember this: Iraq 
was not involved in the attacks against America, and did not pose a 
risk to our national security, and it was not a danger to our national 
security at all.
  We all have the same goal, to support our troops before, during and 
after they've served in harm's way, as we begin to build a better and 
safer and more secure Nation for all of us. Recent testimony before 
Congress, before the Armed Services Committee in the last several 
weeks, by our military leaders has made it clear: first, that they all 
don't agree on what we should be doing in the region, and secondly, 
that there is no purely military solution in either Iraq or 
Afghanistan, only a political one. We must, therefore, move our troops 
away from Iraq, focusing again upon al Qaeda.
  Tonight, here on the House floor we will be discussing our ongoing 
involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which for centuries has been 
the graveyard of invading empires, a place where our Nation's most 
precious resources, our soldiers, are presently engaged in efforts to, 
as President Obama has stated, ``disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda 
and its safe havens in Pakistan and to prevent their return to Pakistan 
and Afghanistan.''
  I'm very grateful that President Obama has taken time to listen, 
taken time as well and trust that he will design a strategy that has as 
its first goal the safe return of all of our troops as soon as 
possible, for there is really no purely military solution to the 
complex global problems that we're all facing. And as history has 
proven time and time again, making war is our worst human failure.
  So what are some of the numbers in Afghanistan? Suicides, post-
traumatic stress disorder, a wound that we cannot see, but which our 
soldiers carry with them all their lives, a wound that damages not just 
themselves but their families and their businesses when they come home, 
amputations, burns, shrapnel wounds, fractured spines.
  Thirty percent of our returning servicemen have PTSD, post-traumatic 
stress disorder. Seventy thousand of our soldiers have traumatic brain 
injury since 2007. In January of this year through October of this 
year, 1,800 have been wounded in Afghanistan, 1,000 being wounded in 
the last 3 months alone. And for the cause? The cause of helping, in 
part, to support the very fraudulent government, a government that has 
been formed by an election process not witnessed in our country, no 
matter what election you take a look at.
  I will quote now from an article:
  ``You can't build a new political system with old politician accused 
of war crimes,'' said lawmaker, Ramazan Bashardost, who finished third 
in the country's fraud-marred August election. ``You can't have peace 
with warlords in control.''
  Rights groups have accused soldiers and police loyal to the warlords 
of kidnapping, extortion, robbery and the rape of women, girls and 
boys. In the countryside, local commanders run their own fiefdoms with 
illegal militias. They intimidate people into paying them taxes, 
extracting bribes, steal their land, and trade drugs. They essentially 
rule with impunity, and no government official, no judge, no policeman 
can stand up to them. This is the Afghanistan world as we know it. This 
is the Afghanistan situation as President Karzai may soon be sworn in 
and give his speech in several hours in Kabul.
  Earlier today, there was a newspaper report that is entitled Afghan 
Official Said to Take Bribe for Copper Deal. This is how business is 
being done in Afghanistan. $20 million bribe to a minister who gave a 
contract to a Chinese corporation who was coming in to mine their 
copper. Fraud and bribery are the rule of the day today in Afghanistan, 
where nearly 40 percent of the money that our taxpayers are sending 
into the region is taken down in bribes and plain thievery.
  Well, some of the testimony that has been offered by the Armed 
Services Committee was put forward by people that we know and people we 
trust.

                              {time}  1845

  Wesley Clark finished his testimony with these words: ``But it is 
important to face the reality of the situation at this point: much has 
already been accomplished: our obligations are limited; there will 
never be a complete and wholly satisfactory solution, and we must focus 
on meeting our own--the United States' and NATO's--security needs. And 
the real security need in the region now is to reduce the continuing 
threat of al Qaeda, reportedly located principally in Pakistan. It is 
their decisive defeat that we must seek.'' These are the counsel and 
opinion of the former NATO commander, Wesley Clark.
  There is somebody else that testified, Kimberly Kagan. And she spells 
it with an A-N, so we are not related by marriage or by genealogy. 
Perhaps the most interesting sentence in her publication, which is 
entitled--I want you to read it some day--``Why the Taliban Are Winning 
for Now,'' Kimberly Kagan, Foreign Policy Magazine, August 10, 2009, 
was ``The fact that we have not been doing the right things for the 
past few years in Afghanistan is actually good news at this moment.'' I 
don't know if that is ``Saturday Night Live'' material, but I've got to 
tell you, this is not something we should be sending our troops in to 
when we are doing the wrong thing.
  Andrew Krepinevich wrote: ``Simply stated, the military foundation of 
our global dominance is eroding.'' That's his opinion. It's also a 
fact. The empire of the United States, the global reach, may be coming 
to an end.
  And the final quote I will offer as we begin our discussions comes 
from Gilles Dorronsoro, who is a visiting scholar with South Asia 
Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. And he concludes 
his remarks before the Armed Services Committee with this sentence: 
``The only solution to this problem is a political negotiation and the 
awareness of what is really at stake here: the credibility of NATO as a 
military alliance.''
  These are some of the problems that we face today, but this is not a 
new problem. For 2,300 years ago, 1 day after the Battle of Kalinga, in 
265 B.C., where over 100,000 people perished in

[[Page 28162]]

the lands our Nation has sent its own children, trained in war, the 
then-King of Maurya dynasty, Ashoka, recorded his thoughts for our 
Nation's guidance today.
  And Ashoka wrote: ``What have I done? Is this a victory? What is a 
defeat then? This is a victory or a defeat. This is justice or 
injustice. It's gallantry or a rout. Is it a valor to kill innocent 
children and women? I do it to enwiden the empire or for prosperity or 
to destroy the other's kingdom or splendor? Someone has lost her 
husband, someone a father, someone a child, someone an unborn infant. 
What is this debris of corpses? Are these marks of victory or defeat? 
Are these vultures, crows, eagles, the messengers of death or evil? 
What have I done? What have I done?''
  After he conquered the region of Afghanistan, he transformed his own 
personal philosophies and his kingdoms to promote peace, to promote 
Buddhism and a nonviolent way of solving problems.
  I believe there is a better way of doing things in America; and I am 
convinced that by working together, we are going to be able to find it 
and to do that in a very bipartisan way.
  I yield to my friend, my colleague, a physician and Congressman, Ron 
Paul of Texas.
  Mr. PAUL. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I want to express 
my appreciation for your getting this Special Order on this very 
important subject.
  Of course, a lot of people in this country are asking, What should we 
do about Afghanistan? It's a pretty important question. It might be one 
of the most important questions that we are asking right now. And yet 
nobody seems to have an answer. I think the difficulty in finding an 
answer comes sometimes from not having fully understood why we got 
there. I just can't imagine this debate that's going on within our 
government today, the executive branch, the legislative branch, and 
with the people--can you imagine this going on during World War II? How 
many troops should we have? What is our exit strategy? Who is our 
enemy? How are we going to impose democracy? It's so far removed from 
what a traditional responsibility is of our government, which is to 
provide national security.
  Now they have practically run out of excuses for why we are over in 
Afghanistan. The only one that is left that they seem to cling to is 
that we are there for national security; we want to fight the bad guys 
over there because we don't want to fight them over here. I will talk a 
little about that later; but, quite frankly, I think that's a 
fallacious argument and actually makes things a lot worse.
  It just bewilders me about how we get trapped into these situations. 
I happen to believe that it's because we get ourselves involved too 
carelessly, too easily and we don't follow the Constitution, because 
under the Constitution, you're supposed to declare the war, know who 
your enemy is, and know when you can declare victory and bring the 
troops home. And we did that up until and through World War II. But 
since then, that hasn't been the case.
  I recall a book I read in the 1980s written by Barbara Tuchman. She 
wrote a book called the ``March of Folly,'' and she went back as far as 
Troy, all the way up through Vietnam and took very special interest in 
countries where they were almost obsessed or possessed with a policy, 
even though it was not in their interest, and the foolishness and the 
inability to change course. She died in 1989, but I keep thinking that 
if she had lived, she would probably write a history of our recent 
years, another ``march of folly.''
  Just think of what has happened since the Berlin Wall came down and 
the Soviet system collapsed. It didn't take us long. Did we have any 
peace dividends? No. There were arguments for more military spending, 
we had more responsibility, we had to go and police the world. So it 
wasn't long after that, what were we doing? We were involved in the 
Persian Gulf war.
  And then, following that, we had decades of bombing in Iraq which 
didn't please the Arabs and the Muslims of the world and certainly the 
Iraqis, but it had nothing to do with national security.
  And then, of course, we continued and accelerated our support of the 
various puppet governments in the Middle East. In doing so, we actually 
went to the part of not only supporting the governments, but we started 
putting troops on their land. And when we had an air base in Saudi 
Arabia, that was rather offensive. If you understand the people over 
there, this is a violation of a deeply held religious view. It is 
considered their holy land; and foreigners, especially military 
foreigners, are seen as infidels. So if you're looking for a fight or a 
problem, just put troops on their land.
  But also, as a result of the policy that we have had in the Middle 
East, we have been perceived as being anti-Palestinian. This has not 
set well either. Since that time, of course, we haven't backed off one 
bit. We had the Persian Gulf war, and then we had 9/11.
  We know that 9/11 changed everything. We had 15 individuals from 
Saudi Arabia, a few from Yemen and a few from Egypt, but, aha, this is 
an excuse that we have got to get the bad guys. So where are the bad 
guys? Well, Iraq, of course. Of course, they figured, well, we can't 
quite do that, let's go into Afghanistan. Of course, not one single 
Afghani did anything to us. They said, oh, no, the al Qaeda visited 
there.
  But I just can't quite accept the fact that the individuals that were 
flying those airplanes got their training by going to these training 
camps in Afghanistan doing push-ups and being tough and strong. What 
did they do? Where was the planning? The planning was done in Spain and 
they were accepted there in legal bases. They were done in Germany; 
they were accepted there. As a matter of fact, they even came to this 
country with legal visas. And they were accepted by the countries.
  And, no, no, we said, it's the Taliban; it's the people of 
Afghanistan, never questioning the fact that a few years back, back in 
1989 when the Soviets were wrecking the place, we were allied with the 
people who were friends of Osama bin Laden, and we were over there 
trying to support him. So he then was a freedom fighter.
  And the hypocrisy of all this and the schizophrenia of it all, they 
were on again and off again. No wonder we get ourselves into these 
difficulties. And it doesn't seem to ever lead up.
  The one assessment that was made after Vietnam, and I think you can 
apply it here, is how do we get in and why do we get bogged down? And 
two individuals that were talking about this, East and West, Vietnam 
and the United States, they sort of came to the conclusion that we, the 
Americans, overestimated the ominous power of our military, we could 
conquer anybody and everybody. And we underestimated the tenacity of 
people who are defending their homeland, sort of like we were defending 
our homeland in the Revolutionary War, and the invaders and the 
occupiers were the Red Coats. There's a big difference, and you can 
overcome all kinds of obstacles; but we have never seemed to have 
learned that. And unless we do, I don't think we can solve our 
problems.
  Indeed, we have to realize that we are not the policemen of the 
world. We cannot nation-build. And Presidential candidates on both 
sides generally tell the people that's what they want, and the people 
say, keep our fingers crossed, hope it's true. But then, once again, 
our policies continue down the road, and we never seem to have the 
energy to back off of this.
  I emphasize, once again, that I think we could keep our eye on the 
target, emphasize what we should be doing if we went to war a lot more 
cautiously, if we have an enemy that we have to fight in our national 
defense and then there is a declaration of war.
  Mr. KAGEN. Would the gentleman yield for a moment?
  Mr. PAUL. I will yield.
  Mr. KAGEN. In the beginning in the formation of the United States, we 
had an outside observer come over here, Alexis de Tocqueville. And de 
Tocqueville observed that with our Republic, it would be very difficult 
to get this country, this Nation, to go to war. But once involved in a 
war, it would be

[[Page 28163]]

very difficult to stop it. And I think that MO, that picture, that 
frame is in part what is happening here. Now that we are involved in a 
ground game in other areas of the world, it's very difficult for our 
Republic to pull back.
  I would like now to welcome to the floor Congressman McGovern from 
the State of Massachusetts. And I thank you for joining us on this 
discussion on Afghanistan and Pakistan and where do we go from here.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Thank you very much, and I want to thank you and my 
other colleagues here for taking the time to come to the floor to talk 
about this issue. We are at war, and there is very little debate about 
this war. I think it is important and it is incumbent upon every Member 
of this House to encourage the fullest possible debate on our policy in 
Afghanistan.
  We are told that the President any day now or any week is going to 
come up with a new policy. There are rumors that it will include an 
increase in the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
  That needs to be debated.
  Part of our job is to be a check and balance on the executive branch. 
And it is our constituents who are going to war. It is our constituents 
who are dying over there. It is our constituents who are getting 
wounded over there and coming back to the United States and requiring a 
lifetime of care. And we need to make sure they get the care that they 
deserve. They have earned that.
  I am very concerned about our policy in Afghanistan. I'm concerned 
for a whole number of reasons. I'm concerned because I don't think 
there is any definition to our policy. Depending on whom you talk to, 
you get a different answer as to what our goal is. Originally, our goal 
was to get al Qaeda. After September 11, I, and I think virtually every 
Member of this House and every Member of the Senate, voted to use force 
to go after al Qaeda, who were responsible for the terrible atrocities 
of September 11. It was the right vote then, and I think it's the right 
vote now.
  But al Qaeda, which used to be in Afghanistan, has now moved to 
Pakistan. We are told by our military experts that there are no al 
Qaeda in Afghanistan, maybe less than 100, some say. Well, do we need 
100,000 American troops to go after less than 100 members of al Qaeda? 
And if that is not our goal, then this is an example of mission creep 
where our mission has suddenly enlarged itself without any kind of 
input from this Congress.
  Now some say we need to have more troops there to make sure that al 
Qaeda never comes back to Afghanistan. Well, al Qaeda has not only been 
in Afghanistan, they have been in Sudan, they have been in Somalia, 
they have been in Yemen. They have been in south Florida. Do we want to 
deploy more troops all over there?
  I'm concerned because there is not a clearly defined mission. When I 
ran for Congress, I said I would never vote to send anybody to war 
without a clearly defined mission. That's a beginning, a middle, a 
transition period and an end. I have asked over and over of the 
previous administration and this administration, At what point does our 
military contribution to the political solution that you say will 
happen in Afghanistan, at what point does our military contribution to 
that political solution come to an end? And I usually get, ``Good 
question.'' I don't think anybody knows.
  I think that that's a problem, and that's something that we need to 
address.
  Let me just say I'm also concerned because Afghanistan is not 
accustomed to a centralized government. Well, we have helped give them 
a centralized government. And the government of Mr. Karzai is corrupt 
and incompetent. By conservative estimates, we are told that in the 
last election, 30 percent of his vote was fraudulent. Thirty percent of 
his vote was fraudulent. And then there was going to be a run-off 
election, and then the opposition candidate, I think understandably, 
said, I don't see how you can put together a credible election in a 
couple of weeks.

                              {time}  1900

  And he backed out. So here is our President by default--here's the 
President by default, who is about to be sworn in again, and the 
examples of corruption and fraud in his government, the examples of the 
Afghan government using American taxpayer money for things that they're 
not intended to be used for--basically stealing from the American 
taxpayer. The examples of that are too numerous to mention in this 
debate.
  Mr. KAGEN. Will the gentleman yield for a question?
  Mr. McGOVERN. I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. KAGEN. Mr. McGovern, is there any word or any sentence or phrase 
that the newly ``elected'' President of Afghanistan could say to 
convince you that the fraud is behind him, he didn't mean it?
  Mr. McGOVERN. The answer is no. He's had his chance. He blew it. I 
wouldn't trust that government to tell me the correct time after what 
they have done over the last 8 years. We have been supporting this 
system for 8 years. This war just didn't start. We have been there for 
8 years. At some point, enough is enough. The idea of supporting a 
government that is corrupt and incompetent and saying that we're going 
to keep this government in power, we're going to help support them, our 
men and women are going to die for this government, and then at some 
point magically everything is supposed to be perfect, that we hand over 
everything back to this government that has stolen from the American 
taxpayers, this government that is guilty of fraud--I think that this 
is a mistake. And 57 Members of this House, bipartisan Members of this 
House, sent a letter to President Obama saying ``no'' to the increase 
in American forces there. And I think there's a lot more that feel that 
way. I'd like to insert this into the Congressional Record.

                                Congress of the United States,

                               Washington, DC, September 25, 2009.
     Hon. Barack Obama,
     President of the United States,
     The White House,
     1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW.,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. President, as you consider the latest assessment 
     of U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan by General Stanley 
     A. McChrystal, we urge you to reject any recommendation to 
     increase the number of combat troops there, particularly in 
     the absence of a well-defined military exit strategy.
       We have enormous confidence in the ability of the U.S. 
     military, but we question the effectiveness of committing our 
     troops to a prolonged counterinsurgency war that could last 
     ten years or more, involve hundreds of thousands of troops, 
     and impose huge financial costs on taxpayers already saddled 
     with trillions of dollars of government debt.
       According to General Charles Krulak (retired), the 31st 
     Commandant of the Marine Corps, the current strategy of 
     protecting the people of Afghanistan with U.S. forces would 
     require an escalation of several hundred thousand additional 
     troops. He warns that our military has already been 
     overburdened: ``Not only are our troops being run ragged but, 
     equally important and totally off most people's radar 
     screens, our equipment is being run ragged.'' It is unlikely 
     that our NATO allies will be able to sustain the political 
     support necessary for continuing such a mission placing even 
     more of a burden on American forces and the American people.
       2009 is already the deadliest year for U.S. forces since 
     the war began eight years ago. Fifty-one of the seven hundred 
     and thirty-eight U.S. soldiers who have lost their lives in 
     Afghanistan were killed last month alone.
       The national Afghanistan election that U.S. Ambassador Karl 
     Eikenberry hoped would lead to a ``renewal of trust of the 
     Afghan people for their government'' was a disaster and will 
     almost certainly have the opposite effect. The official 
     Electoral Complaints Commission in Afghanistan has announced 
     that is has found ``clear and convincing evidence of fraud.'' 
     A government already mired in allegations of widespread fraud 
     and incompetence is now facing serious charges and compelling 
     evidence that it has attempted to steal the national 
     election.
       A February 2009 ABC/BBC/ARD poll found that only 18 percent 
     of Afghans support increasing the number of U.S. troops in 
     their country. This should come as no surprise. Historically, 
     Afghans have always forcefully resisted the presence of 
     foreign military forces, be they British, Soviet or American. 
     The presence of our forces strengthens the hand of Taliban 
     recruiters. Indeed, an independent analysis early this year 
     by the Carnegie Institute concluded that the presence of 
     foreign troops is probably the single most important factor 
     in the resurgence of the Taliban.
       We support your administration's declared goals of 
     defeating Al Qaeda and reducing the

[[Page 28164]]

     global terrorist threat. But, we believe that adding even 
     more U.S. troops to the military escalation that your 
     administration ordered in March would be counterproductive. 
     We urge you to consider and pursue the full range of 
     alternative options including applying the lessons of the 
     Cold War where we isolate and contain those who pose a threat 
     to our national security.
       Mr. President, the last thing that our nation needs as it 
     struggles with the pain of a severe economic crisis and a 
     mountain of debt is another military quagmire. We believe 
     that this is why recent polls consistently show that a 
     majority of Americans are opposed to a military escalation in 
     Afghanistan. We urge you to reject any recommendation for a 
     further escalation of U.S. military forces there.
       Sincerely,
       List of Signatures on Bipartisan Letter to President Obama 
     Urging the Rejection to an Increase in Number of U.S. Combat 
     Troops in Afghanistan:
         James P. McGovern, Walter Jones, Ron Paul, Ed Whitfield, 
           Neil Abercrombie, Jim McDermott, Pete Stark, Bruce 
           Braley, Phil Hare, Raul Grijalva, Lynn Woolsey, Lloyd 
           Doggett, Bob Filner, John Olver, Jose Serrano, Barbara 
           Lee, Jerry Costello, Ben Ray Lujan Alan Grayson.
         Peter Welch, Kurt Schrader, Tammy Baldwin, Ed Pastor, 
           Yvette Clarke, Sheila Jackson-Lee, John Lewis, Carolyn 
           B. Maloney, Richard Neal, Diane Watson, John Conyers, 
           Jr., Dennis Kucinich, Tim Johnson (IL), Steve Cohen, 
           Keith Ellison, Donna Edwards, Laura Richardson, Michael 
           Honda, Jan Schakowsky.
         Daniel Maffei, Steve Kagen, Michael Capuano, Sam Farr, 
           Chellie Pingree, Luis Gutierrez, Maurice Hinchey, 
           Maxine Waters, Mazie Hirono, Jared Polis, Roscoe 
           Bartlett, John J. Duncan, Jr., Dana Rohrabacher, Mike 
           Michaud, Earl Blumenauer, Rush Holt, Mike Quigley, 
           Peter DeFazio, Jerrold Nadler.

  I think the American people are way ahead of us on this issue. The 
American people get it. They know we're getting sucked into a quagmire, 
they know we're getting sucked into a war that has no end, and they 
don't want any part of it. All I'm simply saying is, if al Qaeda is our 
enemy, then let's focus on al Qaeda. Let's not get bogged down in a war 
that has no end.
  Alexander the Great found out he wasn't so great in Afghanistan. 
Genghis Khan couldn't do anything in Afghanistan; the British, the 
Soviet Union. I think we got bogged down in a war there, and I think 
there's a strong argument to be made that's one of the reasons the 
Soviet Union fell.
  So we need to debate this thoroughly. We need to know what we're 
doing. We owe this to our constituents, we owe this to our country. So 
I hope that before any escalation of American forces occurs that there 
is a full and thorough debate in this Congress and a vote up or down on 
whether or not we should send more troops.
  I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. KAGEN. I couldn't agree more. I really appreciate your being here 
with your busy schedule. I align myself with your remarks.
  We're also joined by Walter Jones from North Carolina. You've had 
some experience in representing soldiers, haven't you?
  Mr. JONES. Yes. Congressman Kagen, I want to thank you for giving me 
a chance to be a small part of this debate tonight. I'm glad its a 
bipartisan support. Yes, I have Camp Lejeune Marine Base in my 
district; Cherry Point Marine Air Station; and also Seymour Johnson Air 
Force Base.
  I want to take just a few minutes; a very few. I wanted to share with 
this debate tonight that this is not--as Mr. McGovern said, this is an 
American issue. It's not a Democrat or Republican, it's not a liberal 
or conservative. But let me start with two conservatives.
  This was written by George Will, a nationally syndicated column of 
September 1, 2009. George Will, ``Time to Get Out of Afghanistan.''
  ```Yesterday,' reads the e-mail from Allen, a marine in Afghanistan, 
`I gave blood because a marine, while out on patrol, stepped on a 
(mine's) pressure plate and lost both legs.' Then `another marine with 
a bullet wound to the head was brought in. Both marines died this 
morning.'
  `I'm sorry about the drama,' writes Allen, an enthusiastic 
infantryman willing to die `so that each of you may grow old.' He says: 
`I put everything in God's hands.' And: `Semper fi!'''
  George Will further writes, ``Allen and others of America's finest 
are also in Washington's hands. This city should keep faith with them 
by rapidly reversing the trajectory of America's involvement in 
Afghanistan, where, says the Dutch commander of coalition forces in a 
southern province, walking through the region is `like walking through 
the Old Testament.'''
  Let me read from another conservative, Peggy Noonan. This was written 
on October 10 in The Wall Street Journal. ``So far, oddly, most of the 
debate over Afghanistan has taken place among journalists and foreign-
policy professionals. All power to them: They've been fighting it out 
on op-ed pages and in journals for months now, in many cases with a 
moral seriousness, good faith, and sense of protectiveness toward the 
interests of the United States that is, actually, moving. But nobody 
elected them. We need a truly national debate.''
  Those two articles, I wanted to read those parts because I want to 
thank you, Congressmen Kagen, McGovern, and Ron Paul and myself, Walter 
Jones, for being here tonight, for this reason: Mr. McGovern is exactly 
right, you're right, so is Mr. Paul. This is a debate that needs to 
take place in the daytime with 435 Members of Congress, because our men 
and women in uniform will go to their death for this country, but 
they're worn out. There are four and five deployments to Afghanistan 
and Iraq. And if we don't meet our constitutional responsibility--and I 
agree with Mr. Paul, we should declare war, but we don't do that any 
more. We just pass these resolutions to give the authority to the 
President. The time has come for the Congress to act on behalf of the 
American people and, more important, to act on behalf of our troops 
that we are about to break.
  The last point. Today, I wrote Mr. Obama a note and thanked him for 
taking time to look carefully at what the options should be. And I want 
to say as a conservative Republican, again, thank you, Mr. Obama, for 
taking the time, because our boys and girls, our young men and women, 
they deserve the right decision as it relates to Afghanistan. Thank 
you.
  Mr. KAGEN. I thank you for your remarks, and I align myself with 
everything you just said. And I want to just express for a few moments 
some of the experiences I've had as a physician caring for our 
soldiers--our soldiers who served not just in World War II, but also 
Korea and Vietnam and elsewhere. And having served as a physician 
taking care of our soldiers, I can just say it this way. You know, it's 
really hard to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Once a soldier 
has been broken mentally and physically, it is very difficult to put 
him or her back into the world they came from.
  More recently, one of my son's friends from his speed skating days, 
who was a tremendous athlete, signed up and served in Iraq. And then we 
got the phone call from Andy's mother that when he came back she was 
afraid to be in the same house with him because of his anger that would 
just come out. The only place he felt safe was back in theater in Iraq, 
guarding not just the people visiting Iraq and Congressmen and women, 
but the Vice President, then-Vice President Cheney.
  A story about a four-star general whom I took care of in 1976, giving 
him his chemotherapy. I spent a lot of time with him on his way out. 
And he told me this about the Marines, and it stuck with me forever. 
The Marines, Dr. Kagen, the Marines are a killing machine. When 
politicians call us into a theater, we already know before we go in, 
within 2 percent, how many body bags to bring. Our purpose is to 
destroy human life. Don't ask us to build a bridge, don't ask us to 
build institutions or a new financial system. Our purpose is to destroy 
human life. That is what the military's job is to do, from his 
perspective. To destroy human life.
  That is the instrument of the military that is being used with a very 
wide swath today. I think we can do better. I am so proud of this 
President. And I understand, judging not only by the time that he's 
taking but also by the number of gray hairs he's generated on his head, 
that he really is taking this very seriously, trying to find a way 
forward.

[[Page 28165]]

  In my view, it's incumbent upon all of us Members of the House to 
find a way, to help find a way to debate this issue. And I think there 
are going to be three questions. It's the three questions I ask myself 
when I look at any bill before the Congress. Number one: Will it work?
  So, Mr. President, whatever strategy you're putting together, if 
you're listening tonight, make sure it's a strategy that's 
comprehensive, something that's going to work for the American people, 
because right now we need the help here at home. We should be building 
a better Nation not overseas but here at home, rebuilding our own 
infrastructure, the lives and families that we represent. Will it work?
  Secondly, can we afford it? What's the real price, not just in 
dollars and cents, not just in debt accumulation, but in human cost.
  The third question is: Is it the right thing to do? Is it ethical? 
These are the three questions.
  Mr. McGovern.
  Mr. McGOVERN. I agree with the gentleman. I want to again also thank 
our friend, Mr. Kagen, for organizing this, and, again, my friend 
Walter Jones, who's been unbelievably eloquent on the need for there to 
be more debate on this issue--I appreciate that--and my friend, Mr. 
Paul, for all of his work.
  The gentleman raises, I think, a very important point, and that is 
that there's a cost to this war. There's a cost in terms of human life. 
My friend is a doctor. He has seen firsthand the trauma that war can 
inflict on our soldiers. We have all been to Walter Reed Hospital. We 
have visited many young men and women who have been wounded in this 
conflict. But there's also a cost, as he mentions, in terms of dollars 
and cents.
  I always find it somewhat ironic that we have debates on this floor 
about health care or child care or feeding the hungry or making sure 
people have adequate housing or even in terms of giving our veterans 
more. People always get up and say, Boy, we can't spend any more; we 
can't spend any more. We have to worry about our debt and our deficit.
  Well, where is the outrage over the fact that we have spent all this 
money on these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan off budget? It's all gone 
on our credit card. I introduced a bill along with Mr. Obey and Mr. 
Murtha last year, a couple of years ago, saying that we should have a 
war tax. It got shot down in a bipartisan way. But I think that we need 
to understand that in these wars it is only really a tiny sliver of our 
country that is actually sacrificing--our soldiers and their families. 
The rest of us are being asked to do nothing. But understand one thing. 
These wars are adding incredible amounts to our deficit and our debt. 
People need to understand there's a cost here. And we need to have that 
debate.
  I'll just tell you one other thing, if I can. Look, I, too, am 
grateful that the President is deliberating on this issue. I wish the 
deliberation had occurred before we had the surge that we had a few 
months ago, because I think it was important to have this debate before 
any more soldiers got sent there. But I am grateful that he is 
deliberating. And we don't know what his policy will be. But I'm going 
to tell you I am personally offended by the fact that the President of 
Afghanistan is openly taking on the United States, criticizing the 
United States, for what our motives may be and what our role may be 
over there when we are supporting him and he is guilty of fraud, he is 
guilty of corruption. If he were in this country, there would be a 
special investigation and he would go to jail. This is the extent of 
the corruption over there. And at some point you have to say that this 
doesn't work.
  We have to ask: Why are we there while al Qaeda's in Pakistan, no 
longer in Afghanistan? What are we trying to do? I don't think it is 
worth spending the money or sacrificing the lives to defend a corrupt 
regime. And I think that is where we are right now.
  Mr. Karzai has had 8 years to show what he is about. That's why when 
you asked me before whether if he adds anything to his speech about 
finding corruption, whether I will believe him. No, I will not, because 
he's had 8 years to prove what he's about. And we have had good members 
of our Foreign Service community who have resigned over the fact that 
this government is so corrupt.
  So, enough. We need to develop a policy that has an exit strategy and 
it includes a flexible withdrawal strategy.

                              {time}  1915

  I want to help the Afghan people. I'm not against development aid. I 
think we should try to help them any way we can, in a way that is 
sustainable, in a way that works, and in a way that they want. But 
let's understand that there is no military solution to be had here, and 
expanding our military footprint will only allow the Taliban greater 
propaganda points for recruiting and will cost us dearly. So enough. 
It's time to reevaluate this policy. It is time to figure out a way to 
end our military involvement, and we need to do so in a sensible and 
thoughtful way.
  Mr. KAGEN. Mr. Paul?
  Mr. PAUL. I thank you for yielding.
  I want to just make a couple of points in closing. The statement at 
the beginning of this war was made that it's different this time. Even 
though the history is well known about Afghanistan--it's ancient 
history, but it's different this time because we're different, and it's 
not going to have the same result. But so far, you know, they haven't 
caught Osama bin Laden, and we don't have a national government, 
really. We don't have really honest elections. We haven't won the 
hearts and minds of the people. There is a lot of dissension, and it is 
a miserable place. It is really a total failure, let alone the cost, 
the cost of life and limb and money. I mean, it is just a total 
failure. The thought that we would pursue this and expand it and send 
more troops just blows my mind.
  I just want to mention a couple of things that I think are bad 
arguments. One thing is we are involved there, we have invested too 
much, and, therefore, we have to save face because it would look 
terrible if we had to leave. But it is like in medicine. What if we, in 
medicine, were doing the wrong thing, made the wrong diagnosis? Would 
we keep doing it to prove that we are right or are we going listen to 
the patient and to the results?
  Mr. KAGEN. You would lose your license.
  Mr. PAUL. Yes, that's right. But it seems like politicians don't lose 
their license. Maybe they should. Maybe there will be more this year or 
something. But the other argument they make is, if you take a less 
militant viewpoint as we all do that we're not supportive of the 
troops. The troops don't believe that. The troops I talk to and the 
ones Mr. Jones talks to, they know we care about them, and they 
shouldn't be put in harm's way unless it is absolutely necessary.
  This other argument is, well, we have got to go over there to kill 
them because they want to kill us. Well, like I mentioned before, it 
wasn't the Afghans that came over here, but if we're in their country 
killing them, we're going to create more terrorists. And the more 
people we send, the more terrorists, and the more we have to kill. And 
now it's spreading. That's what I'm worried about in this war.
  There was one individual--I don't know his name--but they believed he 
was in Pakistan, so he was part of the terrorist group, the people who 
were opposing the occupation. So they sent 15 cruise missiles, drones, 
over looking for him. It took the 15th one to kill him. But 14 landed, 
and there was an estimate made that about 1,000 civilians were killed 
in this manner. How many more terrorists have we developed under those 
circumstances?
  I do want to have 1 minute here to read a quote, and then I will 
yield back. This quote comes from a Russian general talking to 
Gorbachev, and Gorbachev went into office in 1985, and this was a year 
later. The general was talking to Gorbachev. Just think, Gorbachev was 
in office 1 year. He had the problem. He was trying to get out. He 
didn't get out until 1989. But the general says, ``Military actions in 
Afghanistan will soon be 7 years old,'' and told Mr. Gorbachev at a 
November

[[Page 28166]]

1986 Politburo session, ``There is no single piece of land in this 
country which has not been occupied by a Soviet soldier. Nonetheless, 
the majority of the territory remains in the hands of rebels.'' It 
reminds me of the conversation between Colonel Tu and Sumner after 
Vietnam. And Sumner, our colonel, says, You know, we defeated you in 
every battle in Vietnam. And Tu looked at him, and he said, Yes, I 
agree, but it was also irrelevant.
  I yield back.
  Mr. KAGEN. Thank you very much.
  And Gorbachev also publicly said recently that there is no military 
solution. In his words, he said, Say ``yes'' to domestic 
considerations, ``no'' to war. And dialogue, he said, is best along 
with an international solution. Why? Because there is a dangerous 
concentration of terrorism and violent extremists in the Hindu Kush 
area. There is a concentration of violent extremists who seek to solve 
their problems not by dialogue, not by debate and conversation, but by 
vengeance and violence. There is a better way of doing things.
  Mr. Jones.
  Mr. JONES. Congressman, thank you very much for yielding. I will be 
brief.
  I think what's been said by Mr. McGovern, you, as well as Congressman 
Paul, is that Congress needs to meet its responsibility to debate these 
issues. That's why I want to read from the former commandant of the 
Marine Corps who e-mailed me this information. I just want to read one 
brief paragraph.
  ``With all due respect to the `COIN experts,' to execute the clear, 
hold and build strategy being put forth will require far more than the 
40,000 to 80,000 more troops being discussed. No one who knows anything 
about counterinsurgency would argue that fact. I can promise you, our 
troops are so overextended right now that they couldn't produce the 
numbers needed . . . and the equipment would not be available.''
  One other point. I am certainly skipping around but trying to pick 
out something that would be of interest to this debate. ``Finally, 
Afghanistan is not Iraq . . . or Vietnam . . . or Iran. It is totally 
different!
  ``This is a country (notice I don't dignify it with the term 
`nation') that is totally tribal in nature. It has no real government. 
You cannot even imagine it as a nation-state that can be dealt with and 
considered an ally.''
  This, again, is why we are frustrated, the four of us tonight on the 
floor. We have seen the pain, the hurt. You've talked about it; Jim's 
talked about it; Ron's talked about it; I've talked about it. This 
country owes it to the families of our military to debate this on the 
floor of the House with 435 here on the floor of the House to be part 
of the debate or we're not meeting our responsibility to the men and 
women in uniform.
  I yield back.
  Mr. KAGEN. I thank you and align myself with those comments.
  Mr. McGovern.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Let me just say in closing, I want to associate myself 
with the comments of my colleague, Mr. Jones.
  I also will insert in the Record two recent articles, one that 
appeared in The Washington Post, entitled ``U.S. Envoy Resists Increase 
in Troops: Concerns Voiced About Karzai,'' in which Ambassador 
Eikenberry apparently has raised many of the same issues that we have 
raised here, and the other from the L.A. Times, ``Ridding Afghanistan 
of Corruption Will Be No Easy Task,'' and it's an article that goes 
into great detail about the corruption that exists in Afghanistan.

               [From the Washington Post, Nov. 12, 2009]

                 U.S. Envoy Resists Increase in Troops

            (By Greg Jaffe, Scott Wilson and Karen DeYoung)

       The U.S. ambassador in Kabul sent two classified cables to 
     Washington in the past week expressing deep concerns about 
     sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan until President Hamid 
     Karzai's government demonstrates that it is willing to tackle 
     the corruption and mismanagement that has fueled the 
     Taliban's rise, senior U.S. officials said.
       Karl W. Eikenberry's memos, sent as President Obama enters 
     the final stages of his deliberations over a new Afghanistan 
     strategy, illustrated both the difficulty of the decision and 
     the deepening divisions within the administration's national 
     security team. After a top-level meeting on the issue 
     Wednesday afternoon--Obama's eighth since early last month--
     the White House issued a statement that appeared to reflect 
     Eikenberry's concerns.
       ``The President believes that we need to make clear to the 
     Afghan government that our commitment is not open-ended,'' 
     the statement said. ``After years of substantial investments 
     by the American people, governance in Afghanistan must 
     improve in a reasonable period of time.''
       On the eve of his nine-day trip to Asia, Obama was given a 
     series of options laid out by military planners with 
     differing numbers of new U.S. deployments, ranging from 
     10,000 to 40,000 troops. None of the scenarios calls for 
     scaling back the U.S. presence in Afghanistan or delaying the 
     dispatch of additional troops.
       But Eikenberry's last-minute interventions have highlighted 
     the nagging undercurrent of the policy discussion: the U.S. 
     dependence on a partnership with a Karzai government whose 
     incompetence and corruption is a universal concern within the 
     administration. After months of political upheaval, in the 
     wake of widespread fraud during the August presidential 
     election, Karzai was installed last week for a second five-
     year term.
       In addition to placing the Karzai problem prominently on 
     the table, the cables from Eikenberry, a retired three-star 
     general who in 2006-2007 commanded U.S. troops in 
     Afghanistan, have rankled his former colleagues in the 
     Pentagon--as well as Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, defense 
     officials said. McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander 
     in Afghanistan, has stated that without the deployment of an 
     additional tens of thousands of troops within the next year, 
     the mission there ``will likely result in failure.''
       Eikenberry retired from the military in April as a senior 
     general in NATO and was sworn in as ambassador the next day. 
     His position as a former commander of U.S. forces in 
     Afghanistan is likely to give added weight to his concerns 
     about sending more troops and fan growing doubts about U.S. 
     prospects in Afghanistan among an increasingly pessimistic 
     public and polarized Congress.
       Although Eikenberry's extensive military experience and 
     previous command in Afghanistan were the key reasons Obama 
     chose him for the top diplomatic job there, the former 
     general had been reluctant as ambassador to weigh in on 
     military issues. Some officials who favor an increase in 
     troops said they were surprised by the last-minute nature of 
     his strongly worded cables.
       In these and other communications with Washington, 
     Eikenberry has expressed deep reservations about Karzai's 
     erratic behavior and corruption within his government, said 
     U.S. officials familiar with the cables. Since Karzai was 
     officially declared reelected last week, U.S. diplomats have 
     seen little sign that the Afghan president plans to address 
     the problems they have raised repeatedly with him.
       U.S. officials were particularly irritated by a interview 
     this week in which a defiant Karzai said that the West has 
     little interest in Afghanistan and that its troops are there 
     only for self-serving reasons.
       ``The West is not here primarily for the sake of 
     Afghanistan,'' Karzai told PBS's ``The NewsHour With Jim 
     Lehrer'' program. ``It is here to fight terrorism. The United 
     States and its allies came to Afghanistan after September 11. 
     Afghanistan was troubled like hell before that, too. Nobody 
     bothered about us.''
       Karzai expressed indifference when asked about the 
     withdrawal of most of the hundreds of U.N. employees from 
     Afghanistan after a bombing late last month in Kabul. The 
     blast killed five foreign U.N. officials.
       ``They may or may not return,'' he said. ``I don't think 
     Afghanistan will notice it.''
       Eikenberry also has expressed frustration with the relative 
     paucity of funds set aside for spending on development and 
     reconstruction this year in Afghanistan, a country wrecked by 
     three decades of war. Earlier this summer, he asked for $2.5 
     billion in nonmilitary spending for 2010, a 60 percent 
     increase over what Obama had requested from Congress, but the 
     request has languished even as the administration has debated 
     spending billions of dollars on new troops.
       The ambassador also has worried that sending tens of 
     thousands of additional American troops would increase the 
     Afghan government's dependence on U.S. support at a time when 
     its own security forces should be taking on more 
     responsibility for fighting. Before serving as the commander 
     of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Eikenberry was in charge of 
     the Afghan army training program.
       Each of the four options that were presented to Obama on 
     Wednesday were accompanied by troop figures and the estimated 
     annual costs of the additional deployments, roughly 
     calculated as $1 billion per thousand troops. All would draw 
     the United States deeper into the war at a time of economic 
     hardship and rising fiscal concerns at home.
       Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense 
     Secretary Robert M. Gates have backed a major increase in 
     U.S. forces to drive the Taliban from populated areas and 
     provide Afghan security forces and the government the space 
     to snuff out corruption and undertake development projects. 
     They have argued that only a large-scale counterinsurgency 
     effort can produce a strong Afghan government capable of 
     preventing the

[[Page 28167]]

     country from once again become an al-Qaeda haven.
       Those views have been balanced in internal deliberations by 
     the hard skepticism of other Obama advisers, led by Vice 
     President Biden. They have argued for a more narrow 
     counterterrorism strategy that would not significantly expand 
     the U.S. combat presence.
       The most ambitious option Obama received Wednesday calls 
     for 40,000 additional U.S. troops, as outlined by McChrystal 
     in his stark assessment of the war filed in late August.
       Military planners put the additional annual cost of 
     McChrystal's recommendation at $33 billion, although White 
     House officials say the number is probably closer to $50 
     billion. The extra troops would allow U.S. forces to attempt 
     to take back and hold several Taliban havens in the southern 
     and eastern regions of Afghanistan.
       One compromise option put forward by the Pentagon, with the 
     backing of Gates, would deploy an additional 30,000 to 35,000 
     U.S. troops--fewer than McChrystal's optimal number to carry 
     out his strategy--and rely on NATO allies to make up the 
     5,000- to 10,000-troop difference. The third option, known by 
     military planners as ``the hybrid,'' would send 20,000 
     additional U.S. troops to shore up security in 10 to 12 major 
     population areas. In the rest of the country, the military 
     would adopt a counterterrorism strategy targeting forces 
     allied with the Taliban and al-Qaeda, primarily in the north 
     and east, with fighter jets, Predator drones and Special 
     Operations troops that leave a light U.S. footprint on the 
     ground. The military puts the annual cost of that option at 
     $22 billion.
       The most modest option calls for deploying an additional 
     10,000 to 15,000 troops. While under consideration at the 
     White House, the proposal holds little merit for military 
     planners because, after building bases to accommodate 10,000 
     or so additional soldiers and Marines, the marginal cost of 
     adding troops beyond that figure would rise only slightly.
                                  ____


              [From the Los Angeles Times, Nov. 18, 2009]

         Ridding Afghanistan of Corruption Will Be No Easy Task

                          (By Alexandra Zavis)

       Afghans have a name for the huge, gaudy mansions that have 
     sprung up in Kabul's wealthy Sherpur neighborhood since 2001. 
     They call them ``poppy palaces.''
       The cost of building one of these homes, which are adorned 
     with sweeping terraces and ornate columns, can run into the 
     hundreds of thousands of dollars. Many are owned by 
     government officials whose formal salaries are a few hundred 
     dollars a month.
       To the capital's jaded residents, there are few more potent 
     symbols of the corruption that permeates every level of 
     Afghan society, from the traffic policemen who shake down 
     motorists to top government officials and their relatives who 
     are implicated in the opium trade.
       Cronyism, graft and the flourishing drug trade have 
     destroyed public confidence in the government of President 
     Hamid Karzai and contributed to the resurgence of the Taliban 
     by driving disaffected Afghans to side with insurgents and 
     protecting an important source of their funding.
       With casualties mounting and a decision on military 
     strategy looming, President Obama and other Western leaders 
     are finding it increasingly difficult to justify sending 
     troops to fight for a government rife with corruption.
       This month, when Karzai was declared the winner of an 
     election marred by rampant fraud, the top United Nations 
     official in Afghanistan warned that without major reforms, 
     the Afghan president risked losing the support of countries 
     that supply more than 100,000 troops and have contributed 
     billions of dollars in aid since the Taliban was toppled in 
     2001.
       Karzai has publicly acknowledged the corruption and pledged 
     to ``make every possible effort to wipe away this stain.'' On 
     Monday, the interior minister, national security director, 
     attorney general and chief justice of the Supreme Court 
     joined forces to announce a new crime-fighting unit to take 
     on the problem.
       But in the streets, bazaars and government offices, where 
     almost every brush with authority is said to result in a 
     bribe, few take the promises to tamp down corruption 
     seriously.
       ``It's like a sickness,'' merchant Hakimullah Zada said. 
     ``Everyone is doing it.''
       In these tough economic times, Zada said, there's one 
     person he can count on to visit his tannery: a city 
     inspector.
       The lanky municipal agent frowns disapprovingly when he 
     finds Zada and five other leather workers soaking and 
     pounding hides in the grimy Kabul River and demands his cut--
     the equivalent of about $40.
       ``He says we are polluting the river,'' Zada says. ``So we 
     have to pay every day. Otherwise, he will report us to the 
     municipality, and they will close down our shops.''
       A 2008 survey by Integrity Watch Afghanistan found that a 
     typical household pays about $100 a year in bribes in a 
     country where more than half the population survives on less 
     than $1 a day.
       Government salaries start at less than $100 a month, and 
     almost everything has its price: a business permit, police 
     protection, even release from prison. When Zada was afraid of 
     failing his high school exams, he handed his teacher an 
     envelope stuffed with more than 1,500 Afghanis--about $30. He 
     passed with flying colors.
       The corruption extends to the highest government officials 
     and their relatives. Even Karzai's brother, Ahmed Wali 
     Karzai, has long been suspected of cooperating with drug 
     barons, charges he denies.
       Abdul Jabar Sabit, a former attorney general who between 
     2006 and 2008 declared a jihad, or holy war, against 
     corruption, said he quickly learned that a class of high-
     ranking officials is above the law. They include members of 
     parliament, provincial governors and Cabinet ministers.
       ``I wanted to tear that curtain down, but I could not do 
     it,'' he said over tea in his modest sitting room at the top 
     of a rundown apartment block.
       As required by the constitution, he said, he wrote repeated 
     letters to parliament requesting permission to investigate 
     charges against 22 members ranging from embezzlement to 
     murder. ``Despite all my letters, the issue never made it 
     onto the agenda of either house,'' he said.
       Sabit estimates that he filed corruption charges against 
     more than 300 provincial officials before he was dismissed in 
     2008. Few were convicted, and ``none of them are in jail 
     now,'' he said.
       Obama and other world leaders have told Karzai that they 
     expect him to take concrete steps to back up his promises to 
     fight corruption. Karzai counters that donor countries share 
     responsibility for the problem because of poor management of 
     the funds pouring in for development projects, a concern 
     shared by U.N. officials.
       Among the practices raising alarm is the so-called flipping 
     of contracts, which are passed along from subcontractor to 
     subcontractor. Each one takes a cut until there is little 
     money left for the intended project. The result is often long 
     construction delays and shoddy workmanship.
       Many foreign and local observers think Karzai can't begin 
     to address corruption until he severs ties with former 
     warlords who helped drive the Taliban from power in 2001 and 
     shored up his administration when U.S. attention was focused 
     on Iraq.
       U.S. and other Western officials are pressing Karzai to 
     form a government of competent professionals. But he will 
     have to balance their demands against promises made to ethnic 
     and regional strongmen who helped deliver the votes he needed 
     for a second five-year term.
       Western officials were particularly troubled by the recent 
     return from Turkey of Abdul Rashid Dostum, a notorious former 
     warlord who endorsed Karzai's campaign. He is accused of 
     overseeing the deaths of up to 2,000 Taliban prisoners during 
     the 2001 invasion, charges he denies. Karzai's two vice 
     presidents, Mohammad Qasim Fahim and Karim Khalili, are also 
     former warlords accused of rights abuses.
       ``There are also new figures who will try very hard to get 
     their supporters in government,'' said Fahim Dashy, editor of 
     the independent Kabul Weekly. ``They are coming with empty 
     pockets and they will see this as a golden opportunity to 
     make money, either by legal or illegal ways.''
       Karzai has said there will be no place in his government 
     for corrupt individuals. But his aides say that dismissals 
     alone won't solve a pervasive and systematic problem.
       An investigation by the High Office of Oversight and Anti-
     Corruption, set up more than a year ago to oversee the 
     government's efforts to fight graft, found that on average it 
     took 51 signatures to register a vehicle. Each signature had 
     its price, for a total cost of about $400.
       ``It is hardly surprising if Afghans prefer to bribe 
     policemen on a daily basis to turn a blind eye to their 
     unregistered vehicles,'' said Ershad Ahmadi, the bureau's 
     British-educated deputy director.
       Ahmadi said his office helped streamline the process to 
     four or five steps, and it requires that payments be made 
     directly to the bank, thereby reducing the opportunities for 
     corruption. But without the minister of transportation's 
     cooperation, he said, his team would have been powerless.
       ``We do not have the necessary powers and independence to 
     fulfill our mandate,'' Ahmadi said. For a start, it was never 
     given the legal authority to investigate or prosecute 
     corruption--only to refer cases to law enforcement agencies, 
     themselves part of the problem.
       ``The police are corrupt. The prosecutors are corrupt. The 
     judges are corrupt,'' Ahmadi said.
       It was not clear whether the new anti-corruption unit, 
     which was set up with the help of U.S. and British law 
     enforcement agencies, would be more effective at pursuing 
     individuals who indulge in corrupt practices. It is the third 
     structure set up by Karzai's government to tackle the 
     problem; the first was disbanded after it emerged that the 
     head had been convicted and imprisoned in the U.S. on drug 
     charges.
       ``The main problem . . . is that people have no confidence 
     about the future,'' Ahmadi

[[Page 28168]]

     said. ``That makes them make hay while the sun shines.
       ``We need to persuade the people of Afghanistan that there 
     is no returning to the miseries of the past,'' he said. ``The 
     Taliban is not coming back. The international community is 
     not abandoning Afghanistan, and there is going to be slow but 
     steady improvement.''

  Let me just say, finally, it doesn't take a lot of guts for a Member 
of Congress to stand up and say, Send more troops. And certainly I 
guess some think it is easier, more popular to say, Let's send more 
troops. The more troops we send, we can appear tough on terrorism. All 
of us want to be tough on terrorism, but what we're arguing here is 
that what is happening in Afghanistan is not helping us in the war 
against terror. If it was, if this was a war about holding to account 
those who committed these terrible atrocities on September 11, I 
wouldn't be here questioning what we're doing.
  I think we're getting sucked into a war with no end. This is a 
quagmire. There is no end to this. And if we're going to enlarge our 
military footprint, then I think it is important for the American 
people to know that we're going to be there for a very, very long, long 
time; longer than any of us will be in Congress, longer probably than 
we're going to be on this Earth, that is how difficult it is in 
Afghanistan. I think, as Mr. Jones said, that we owe it to the men and 
women who serve in our Armed Forces to make sure that if we're going to 
send them into harm's way, that we had better be sure that we are doing 
it because the national security interest of this country is at stake.
  I don't like the Taliban. They are a bad group of people, but they 
are not a threat to national security of the United States. We need to 
help the Afghan people because they have been neglected, and they have 
been abused for so long by so many people. We need to figure out a way 
to do that, and I think we will have better luck and we will encourage 
more sustainable development without a large military footprint.
  But I'm going to end by saying that, at a minimum, we need to know 
what the exit strategy is here. When the President, after his 
deliberation, comes up with his policy, he needs to tell us how this 
all comes to an end, because I think that is the responsible thing to 
do. We owe that to our troops. We owe that to the American people. This 
war has already cost us too much in terms of treasure and human life. 
I've been there. I think we need to change our policy dramatically, but 
we need to have this debate. We should not send one more American 
soldier over to Afghanistan without a full and thorough debate on this 
House floor about whether that's the right thing to do. And then every 
Member of this House, Republican and Democrat alike, will have to vote 
on it.
  I am proud of this group that has gathered here today to continue to 
raise this issue. Mr. Kagen, I want to thank you in particular for 
getting us all here tonight. This is an important issue. This is 
probably one of the most important issues that we're going to deal with 
during our service in Congress. I hope we get it right. And to me, 
getting it right is to change our strategy and begin a flexible exit 
strategy.
  I thank the gentleman and yield back.
  Mr. KAGEN. Thank you, Mr. McGovern. There has never been a more 
important time in our Nation's history to get it right, to think it all 
the way through, and to make certain that we carry out our 
constitutional duties here in the House of Representatives.
  Mr. Paul.
  Mr. PAUL. I would like to just make one more comment as we close the 
Special Order.
  I opened my remarks talking about Barbara Tuchman's ``The March of 
Folly.'' We are on the same course. I would say it's time to march 
home. I'm not for sending any more troops. It is very clear in my mind 
that if the job isn't getting done and we don't know what we're there 
for, I would say, you know, it's time to come home, because I fear--and 
it's been brought up. Congressman McGovern has brought it up, and 
everybody's talked about the finances of this because it is known that 
all great nations, when they spread themselves too thinly around the 
world, they go bankrupt. And that is essentially what's happened to the 
Soviet system. They fell apart for economic reasons.
  So there are trillions of dollars spent in this operation. We're 
flat-out broke, a $2 trillion increase in the national debt last year, 
and it just won't continue. So we may not get our debate on the floor. 
We may not be persuasive enough to change this course, but I'll tell 
you what, the course will be changed. Let's hope they accept some of 
our suggestions, because when a Nation crumbles for financial reasons, 
that's much more dangerous than us taking the tough stance and saying, 
It's time to come home.
  Mr. KAGEN. Thank you, Mr. Paul.
  Mr. Jones, go ahead, and I will wrap up afterwards.
  Mr. JONES. I will be brief. I know time is getting limited. I want to 
thank you, Mr. McGovern and Mr. Paul for being here tonight because 
I've seen the pain as you mentioned earlier of PTSD, of TBI. I have 
seen the families when a marine came back and who needed counseling, 
and before it was all said and done, he killed his wife. We do not need 
to put these men and women under this pressure unless we know what we 
are trying to achieve and the end point. We need to have this debate. 
We will figure out some resolution that the four of us and other 
Members of Congress can force this House to come forward and have this 
debate.
  Thank you for letting me be a small part of tonight.
  Mr. KAGEN. I want to thank you, Mr. Jones, Mr. Paul, Mr. McGovern for 
this commencement of a conversation and a real discussion about what 
America's best interests are. I know that when we put our heads 
together, put our minds together, we'll find a more positive way 
forward in beginning to solve this problem. I will finish with a brief 
story.
  In 1979, I was in training, in Milwaukee, at the Medical College of 
Wisconsin, and there training in the specialty of allergy and 
immunology with me was the son of a senator of Pakistan. And that was 
the time when Russia invaded Afghanistan. I came into the laboratory, 
and I said, Nassir, your country is going to be next. And he looked up 
at me, and he said, Oh, Steve, don't worry. It's easy to get into 
Afghanistan. It's very hard to get out, and when the Russians leave in 
5 or 10 years, they'll be shot in the ``blank'' when they leave.
  That same experience is being experienced today by our soldiers, by 
our Nation, by our pocketbook. So every time we hear about someone 
being wounded and injured, whether it's our own soldier or a civilian 
or an enemy, that bomb and that bullet has real echoes economically 
here at home. In the end, the exit strategy may be determined, as Mr. 
Paul said, by our economy. The question is: Will the strategy work? Can 
we afford it? And is it the ethical thing to do?
  At this point in time, I don't believe we can afford to stay on the 
current path we're on in Afghanistan and in Iraq. We have to make 
certain that our soldiers are safe here at home and that we have an 
economy that can support all of the people that we have the honor of 
representing.

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