[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12048]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       OUR POLICY IN 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, I rise to express my continuing and 
growing concern over our policy in Afghanistan.
  As General Petraeus appears before the Senate and as we are being 
asked to consider tens of billions of dollars in supplemental funding 
for the war, I believe that now is the time for us to ask tough 
questions and to demand straight answers.
  Of all the problems that President Obama inherited from the Bush 
administration, Afghanistan is the one that keeps getting more 
complicated. In just the past few weeks, two brave, young soldiers from 
my congressional district in Fall River, Massachusetts, lost their 
lives in Afghanistan. So this is a big deal, and we need to get it 
right.
  Last December, President Obama told the American people that we would 
begin to withdraw our forces next July. The American people deserve to 
know if that plan is still in place and how we are going to get there.
  Much has been made about General Stanley McChrystal's comments in 
Rolling Stone magazine about the Nation's civilian leadership; but 
frankly, Madam Speaker, this is much bigger than a few ill-considered 
comments. Indeed, there are other parts of the article that I find to 
be much more disturbing.
  For instance, General McChrystal, himself, referred to the biggest 
military operation of the year so far, the offensive in Marja, as a 
``bleeding ulcer.''
  General McChrystal's chief of operations said that Afghanistan ``is 
not going to look like a win, smell like a win or taste like a win. 
This is going to end in an argument.''
  Before the Marja offensive began, General McChrystal personally went 
to President Karzai's palace to get his consent on the operation. 
According to the article, ``Karzai's staff, however, insisted that the 
President was sleeping off a cold, and could not be disturbed. After 
several hours of haggling, McChrystal finally enlisted the aid of 
Afghanistan's defense minister, who persuaded Karzai's people to wake 
the President from his nap.''
  A senior adviser to General McChrystal said, ``If Americans pulled 
back and started paying attention to this war, it would become even 
less popular.''
  A senior military official said this, ``There's a possibility we 
could ask for another surge of U.S. forces next summer if we see 
success here.''
  So the administration has determined General McChrystal's exit 
strategy, but it is the exit strategy for the rest of our brave 
soldiers that I am more worried about it.
  Madam Speaker, I voted in 2001 to go to war in Afghanistan--to hunt 
down al Qaeda and to eliminate their threat, and I would cast that same 
vote today in a heartbeat. Though, what we are doing in Afghanistan 
today is far beyond that original authorization. We are engaged in 
extensive, expensive nation-building in Afghanistan.
  Frankly, given the level of unemployment and the severe economic 
situation we face in the United States, I would rather do a little more 
nation-building here at home. We have borrowed $350 billion--added to 
the debt--for the war in Afghanistan.
  My Republican friends have refused to support extending unemployment 
benefits for our out-of-work Americans because they say we can't afford 
it. We are told we can't afford to help States' avoiding laying off 
teachers. We are told we can't afford to improve our roads and bridges 
or to help more families afford a college education. We are told we 
can't afford to prevent foreclosures or to improve child nutrition. Now 
we are being asked to borrow another $33 billion for nation-building in 
Afghanistan.
  We don't have the money to help American working families, but when 
it comes to supporting a corrupt and incompetent Karzai government, we 
are supposed to be a bottomless pit.
  Not so fast, Madam Speaker.
  Last week a bipartisan group of us sent a letter to the Speaker, 
urging that the House not consider the supplemental before some serious 
questions about our policy in Afghanistan are addressed. Even if we 
move forward this week, I hope that we are given an opportunity to have 
a thorough debate on this issue and to get a clean vote on whether or 
not we should continue our funding at current levels. This is life and 
death. This is about sending our troops into harm's way. This is about 
whether or not we can afford to continue this policy.
  Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to think long and hard this week 
about this critical issue.

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