[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12050]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS FOR AFGHANISTAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Quigley) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. QUIGLEY. I rise today because when it comes to Afghanistan, we 
are asking the wrong questions. And with the wrong questions come the 
wrong answers. Back in December, we asked, Should we send more troops 
to Afghanistan? We should have been asking, Will a greater military 
presence make America safer? Then we asked, How can we get millions of 
pounds of supplies to our troops scattered in remote areas of 
Afghanistan? We should have been asking, Could getting those supplies 
to the troops be fueling the very insurgency we are fighting, and is 
having thousands of U.S. troops stationed throughout Afghanistan making 
America safer? And now we are asking, Can a new commander in 
Afghanistan ensure we win the war there? We should have been asking, Is 
this war winnable, and will it make America safer?
  We have to start asking the right questions. The first of these 
questions is, Where are the terrorists? We have put our blinders on and 
are so focused on the details of Afghanistan that we are missing the 
larger picture. The terrorists that we are fighting are no longer only 
in Afghanistan. They are operating in the ungoverned spaces of 
Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and even right here in 
the United States.
  The Christmas Day bomber was from Nigeria. The Times Square bomber 
was Pakistani American. An increasing number of terror attacks are 
being plotted right here on American soil. Major Nidal Hasan, who 
killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, was born in Virginia. An 
increasing number of extremists from around the world are being 
connected and motivated by ``the virtual Afghanistan'' through the 
Internet.
  We are fighting an enemy without borders, and so we must have a 
strategy without borders. In a world of limited resources, the next 
question we need to ask is this: How can we best spend our precious tax 
dollars to make Americans safest? Unfortunately, right now we are 
allocating most of our resources to Afghanistan, where at most, only 50 
to 100 al Qaeda are operating, according to CIA Director Leon Panetta. 
And every day we read a new report that the billions we are investing 
are simply flowing to drug lords, corrupt local officials, and even the 
Taliban.
  According to a recent eye-opening report by Subcommittee Chairman 
Tierney, we learned that the U.S. military is funding a multibillion-
dollar protection racket. A good portion of a $2.16 billion 
transportation contract is being paid to corrupt public officials, war 
lords, and the Taliban to get needed supplies to our troops. We are 
funding the very insurgency we are fighting. And we recently learned 
that at least $3.18 billion in cash has been transferred out of 
Afghanistan since 2007, mostly to line the pockets of the nation's 
elite. On top of that, it has also been reported that those same Afghan 
elite are being shielded from attempts to investigate these cases of 
corruption.
  We simply cannot afford to continue to send billions to Afghanistan 
only to see it end up in the hands of corrupt officials and the same 
insurgents we are fighting. We have got to start fighting smarter, not 
harder, and that starts with asking the right questions. A reassessment 
of our strategy in Afghanistan is due in December, and one question 
must be answered: Is this the best way to fight terrorism and keep 
Americans safe? I fear that with each report of Afghan corruption and 
each account of terrorism taking root worldwide, the answer to that 
question is becoming increasingly clear: no.

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