[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 23]
[House]
[Pages 31915-31916]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      AMERICA'S NATIONAL SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WELCH. Madam Speaker, I want to address the question of 
Afghanistan.
  The President was confronted with a very serious and difficult 
decision. The decision that he made, as America knows, is to increase 
troop strength by 30,000 troops and to also seek the support for an 
additional 10,000 troops from allies. The question which really 
confronts America as well as the President is this:
  What is the best strategy to protect our homeland from another attack 
that would be perpetrated by and inspired by al Qaeda?
  The question is also whether having a military force of occupation of 
now 100,000 troops, or soon to be 100,000 troops, from the United 
States of America in Afghanistan and doing nation-building is a 
sustainable strategy that will be the one that can protect America from 
a future attack. I believe that it is not, and there are a couple of 
reasons.
  First of all, as we know, al Qaeda goes where our military is not. 
There are presently, according to General Jones, 100 al Qaeda in 
Afghanistan and about 500 in Pakistan. Al Qaeda moves to areas of 
opportunity. It is not just there. It's in Yemen. It's in Somalia. It's 
in other parts of the world.
  Also, as we know, the Internet is a tool, and some of the folks who 
have been plotting and planning to do destructive conduct and to hurt 
our American people live in the United States and in other parts of the 
world. It is not a threat that is confined to Afghanistan. It is a 
decentralized threat.
  So where you have a threat which, by definition, is decentralized and 
not from a nation state, does it make sense to deploy the vast majority 
of our troops, 100,000, and the vast majority of our resources, $1 
trillion minimum over the next 10 years, to a single country and to 
then take on the goal of nation-building, of institution building, in 
Afghanistan? I believe it does not. It is not an effective strategy 
that is sustainable militarily. It is not an effective strategy that is 
sustainable financially.
  Secondly, the effect of a decision to nation-build in Afghanistan is 
that, by definition, our military and our government need a functional 
partner no matter what the shortcomings of that partner may be--hence, 
the embrace of the Karzai administration, which is, despite the fact 
that it is losing credibility among its own people, and despite the 
fact that the election was not only deeply flawed but it is documented 
that the Karzai Government stole 1 million votes in order to stay in 
power.
  The more work that we do which requires us to line up, to cooperate, 
to

[[Page 31916]]

conciliate, and to protect a Karzai Government that does not have the 
support of its people--and every day that we do that--it undercuts the 
support and the definition of the mission of the American soldier in 
Afghanistan.
  As is well-known, a major problem is Pakistan. What we have seen is 
that we now have to have a significant alliance with the Pakistani 
military as the only institution that can provide some measure of 
security in Pakistan. Because they control the nuclear weapons, this is 
obviously of great importance to the American people, but the Pakistani 
military is notable for two things:
  Number one, it has been an adversary of democratic development in 
Pakistan, something which is essential to build economic well-being in 
a country that is absolutely destitute, impoverished and getting 
poorer.
  Number two, the Pakistani military, as reported in The New York Times 
as recently as today, made it clear that, however urgent it is for the 
United States to take out the Hakani network, which is in the tribal 
areas and is crossing into Afghanistan on a regular basis to attack our 
troops, the Pakistani military regards the Hakani network as its ally 
in geopolitics in the Afghanistan region. So it will not do what needs 
to be done to protect the American military and American security, and 
that is to attack the Hakani network--the Afghanistan Taliban. In fact, 
it has made it explicit that it sees the Hakani network as its ally to 
keep India at bay.
  So what we have is a strategy that depends on nation-building, which 
has very doubtful prospects of success in an alliance with two 
``friends'' who aren't there to help us.

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