[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 14828]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 WHAT DOES THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN MEAN?

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Farr) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FARR. Madam Speaker, I rise to talk about the war in Afghanistan.
  We've been in Afghanistan since 2001. What does that mean? I'll tell 
you what it means.
  It means 3,650 days of violence and suffering. It means 1,695 
American lives lost. It means $454 billion added to our deficit. It 
means that this war has got to end.
  It's time to apply the Republican mantra, ``cut, squeeze and trim'' 
to the Afghanistan war because the cost is simply too high. Also, we 
can't afford to lose another life in this war. We cannot afford to 
spend another dollar on it.
  And if our spending reflects our priorities, then we're totally 
missing the point. Americans don't seek war. Fifty-nine percent of 
likely voters want U.S. troops brought home from Afghanistan.
  But I'll tell you what Americans do want. They want jobs. And if we 
had taken all the money we've spent on the war, we could have created 
almost 1 million education jobs, 780,000 health care jobs, or 364,000 
construction jobs. But we didn't do that.
  We have 9.1 percent unemployment nationwide, and parts of my district 
have over 18 percent unemployment. Almost one in every five persons is 
unemployed. The unemployment rate among our veterans is at least 2 
percent higher than among civilians.
  America can do better than this because America is a country about 
peace and prosperity and opportunity. These ideals don't have a price 
tag, but they do have a value.
  So let's end this war now. Let's restore peace now. And let's show 
what America really believes, what our real values are: peace and 
understanding.

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