[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 21]
[House]
[Pages 29023-29024]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   THE WRONG DECISION ON AFGHANISTAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, first I want to commend President Obama 
for thinking long and hard about the course that he believes the United 
States should take in Afghanistan. That kind of deliberation is a 
welcome change from the previous administration. I also want to commend 
him for making it crystal clear that the United States of America 
condemns torture.
  Unfortunately, on the issue of troop levels in Afghanistan, I believe 
the President has reached the wrong conclusion. Sending 30,000 more 
U.S. troops to Afghanistan will make it 30,000 times harder to 
extricate ourselves from this mess. If our fight is truly with al 
Qaeda, then we're in the wrong country. They have moved to Pakistan. 
Indeed, General Jones has told us that there are maybe less than 100 al 
Qaeda members in Afghanistan. With the troop increase announced by the 
President last night, we will have over 100,000 U.S. service men and 
women in Afghanistan. Do we really need 100,000 troops to go after less 
than a hundred al Qaeda?
  President Karzai is corrupt and incompetent. He cheated in the most 
recent election. By most estimates, 30 percent of his votes was rigged. 
I don't want any more American service men or women to risk their lives 
for his corrupt government; and I am a little bit stunned, quite 
frankly, by the quick and inexplicable pivot by the administration from 
rightly denouncing Karzai's behavior to now embracing him as our dear 
friend. I think our support for Karzai actually discredits us with the 
Afghan people. We have seen that it is exceedingly difficult to train 
Afghan troops, many of whom are not only illiterate, but unable to add 
or subtract.
  The cost of this escalation will be enormous, both in terms of blood 
and treasure. We will need to borrow billions and billions of 
additional dollars to pay for this policy.
  Madam Speaker, at a time of great economic crisis here in the United 
States, I would suggest that rather than nation-building in 
Afghanistan, we should do a little more nation-building here at home.
  It is important to note that the so-called timeline outlined by the 
President last night envisions the beginning of drawing down our troops 
in July of 2011--the beginning, not the end. Does anybody really 
believe that we will not be deeply ensnared in Afghanistan well beyond 
2011?
  Madam Speaker, I do not and I never will suggest that we abandon the 
Afghan people. They have suffered greatly over the last several 
decades. We must continue to support meaningful economic development 
and political assistance.

[[Page 29024]]

  But finally, Madam Speaker, there is another important issue here, 
and that is congressional involvement. I know the President last night 
cited the resolution to authorize force in 2001 as providing the 
authority that he needs. I would argue that it was not Congress' intent 
in 2001 to authorize decades of nation-building in Afghanistan. We 
voted to go after the people who committed the horrible atrocities on 
September 11. I would urge that before a single additional troop is 
sent, that the United States Congress have the chance to fully debate 
his proposal and have an up-or-down vote.
  Under the Bush administration, what usually happened is that 
additional troops were deployed and then later, once they were already 
in theater, the administration would submit a supplemental request. 
That is backwards. We should debate and vote on this critical issue 
before we send additional troops.

                              {time}  1800

  And, Madam Speaker, this is a big deal. This is a major escalation 
and Congress has a major role to play. I would urge my colleagues on 
both sides of the aisle to continue to ask the tough questions and to 
continue to play our constitutional role.

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