[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 13406-13407]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              AFGHANISTAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
North Carolina (Mr. Jones) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. JONES. Mr. Speaker, like all my colleagues, I was home during the 
August break, accepting opportunities to speak at civic clubs, at town 
forums, and I did speak to a couple of military retiree groups.
  Every time that I would make the statement that it is time to bring 
our troops home from Afghanistan--Mr. Speaker, I'm not an excellent 
speaker, I'm not even a good speaker, but I got applause, strong 
applause, from every one of those groups that I just named. They agree 
with me and many of my colleagues, one being on the floor today, Jim 
McGovern from Massachusetts, that it's time to bring an end to our 
involvement in Afghanistan.
  The amount of loss of lives is just astounding. And I have beside me 
a poster that depicts the pain of war. This lady and her little girl 
are accepting a folded flag off the coffin of her husband and the 
little girl's daddy. And the little girl is looking up like ``I don't 
know what's happening.'' The wife is crying.
  How many more families have to cry? How many children have to say, 
``I don't know my daddy; I didn't know my daddy because I was so young 
when he died''?
  The President is asking for a jobs program. I think he's doing the 
right thing. Yet we're spending $10 billion a month in Afghanistan to 
prop up a corrupt leader. It makes no sense. It doesn't make any sense 
to the American people, and it makes no sense to many of us in the 
House, both Republican and Democrat.
  I understand from the newspapers that there's a conversation now 
going on between the United States and Afghanistan which would provide 
so-called ``strategic partnership agreement'' between the two, America 
and Afghanistan, and this means that we could keep approximately 35,000 
to 40,000 troops past 2014, 2015. This does not make any sense. I hope 
that this is not true, but I'm afraid that it is true.
  And something else that bothers me about this conversation is that it 
will not be called a treaty because, if it's called a treaty, it has to 
come to Congress and be approved by Congress. This, again, takes away 
the voice of the American people, especially on this issue of 
Afghanistan, when the American people, in large numbers in all the 
latest polls, are saying get out, get out, get out.
  History has proven that Afghanistan will never be anything more than 
what it is today. Great nations have tried in the past to try to create 
a national government in Afghanistan, and it never happened. Here we 
are going to spend $10 billion a month, $120 billion a year, to rebuild 
Afghanistan, and we don't even have the money to rebuild America.
  I hope that the Congress will join those of us, again, Mr. McGovern 
and myself and many others I could name in the House, that want to 
bring our troops home.
  It brings me back to an article written by Andrew Bacevich. He was a 
Vietnam veteran himself. His son was killed in Iraq. And he wrote an 
article in the American Conservative about 2 years ago called ``To Die 
for a Mystique,'' talking about Afghanistan.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope that we will continue to bring forward on the 
floor of the House the issue of Afghanistan. It's not right to those 
families. It's not right to our military. Many of them have had five, 
six, seven deployments. They're tired. They're worn out. They've done 
their job. Bin Laden is dead. Al Qaeda has been moved out of 
Afghanistan. It is time to bring them home and rebuild America and help 
our veterans find jobs. I want to thank the President for mentioning 
that yesterday. We've got to help our veterans find jobs.
  Mr. Speaker, I'm going to close now as I always do because it comes 
from my heart. I've signed over 10,374 letters since we went into Iraq. 
That was a mistake on my part to give President Bush the authority to 
go into a war that never had to be fought.
  So I ask God to please bless our men and women in uniform. I ask God 
to please bless the families of our men and women in uniform. I ask 
God, in His loving arms, to hold the families who've given a child 
dying for freedom in Afghanistan and Iraq.
  I ask God to please bless the House and Senate that we will do what 
is right in the eyes of God for God's people. I ask God to give wisdom,

[[Page 13407]]

strength, and courage to President Obama, that he will do what is right 
in the eyes of God for God's people.
  And I will say three times, God, please, God, please, God, please 
continue to bless America.

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