[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 206]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      INVESTING IN SMART SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Madam Speaker, President Obama is certainly doing the 
right thing when it comes to the humanitarian crisis in Haiti. He's 
responded quickly, he's responded effectively, and he's pledged that 
the United States will do all that we can do to alleviate the suffering 
of the Haitian people and to help them rebuild their lives. President 
Obama has shown that America stands for hope, decency, and human 
rights, which is, of course, the kind of moral leadership that the 
President of the United States must always show. But while the 
administration is getting it right in Haiti, we still have a lot of 
work to do in Afghanistan, where the President plans to ask Congress 
for $33 billion in emergency funding to pay for the escalation of the 
war there.
  Madam Speaker, we do need to appropriate more funds for Afghanistan, 
but not for more troops, because there is no military solution to the 
problem there. Sending more troops makes us look like occupiers, which 
will surely help the Taliban recruit more violent extremists, who will 
attack their own Afghani neighbors and the United States. So instead of 
investing in the military in Afghanistan, we need to invest in SMART 
security, which means investing in economic development, health, 
infrastructure, humanitarian aid, better law enforcement, and 
governance. SMART security also includes helping the Afghan people to 
build schools so girls and women can be offered an education as well as 
the boys.
  Madam Speaker, General McChrystal, our commander in Afghanistan, 
recently said that the Taliban looks for young people with no education 
when they are looking for new recruits. That's why I believe that 
investing in books, not bombs, is the way to stop violent extremism in 
Afghanistan and actually in every other part of the world as well. We 
also need to invest in our own economy and our own people right here at 
home, because we can't keep our country safe unless we have a strong 
economy, well educated, and with everybody having jobs that they can 
afford to support their families on.
  So that's why we must invest in jobs. We must invest in housing. We 
must invest in child care and health care. And we must especially be 
concerned about those facing their own humanitarian crisis in our 
communities.
  So just consider some of these facts, Madam Speaker: one in every 50 
Americans is living in a household where food stamps are the only 
source of income. The effective unemployment rate today is really over 
17 percent. And middle class families are now earning less than they 
did a decade ago, adjusted for inflation.
  The economic disaster right here in our own country is unprecedented 
in American history. Unfortunately, the Congress will soon be presented 
with a record Pentagon budget, however, for the next fiscal year. I 
would suggest that instead of increasing the Pentagon budget, we should 
reduce it by cutting out funds for useless cold war weapons, which 
would slash the defense budget by 25 percent. Isn't that amazing? We 
could slash the defense budget by 25 percent if we would just stop 
building useless cold war weapons. We can make those dollars available 
to invest right here at home to put SMART security to work in 
Afghanistan as well.
  Madam Speaker, the best way to keep our country safe is to stick to 
our fundamental American values of peace and compassion for the people 
of the world. We must put these values to work in Haiti, in 
Afghanistan, and right here at home. I urge all of us and our President 
to do just that.

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