[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 18993-18994]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




SMART SECURITY: A BETTER INVESTMENT THAN 10 YEARS OF WAR IN AFGHANISTAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Woolsey) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Madam Speaker, this week, representatives from several 
nations will meet in Bonn, Germany, to

[[Page 18994]]

discuss the future of Afghanistan. The Bonn Conference comes exactly 10 
years after the first Bonn Conference, which established the Karzai 
government. So right now is the perfect moment to assess and reflect on 
where we are and where we're going in Afghanistan.
  By any measure, Madam Speaker, the war we have been waging in 
Afghanistan for the last decade has been a failure. Our hard-earned tax 
dollars have been tragically wasted on a policy that has projected the 
worst image of America to the rest of the world. It has undermined our 
interests and damaged our national security--and let's not forget the 
human cost. More than 1,800 American families will sit at their tables 
over the holiday season--tables with a person missing. If we want to 
eliminate fallen warriors, we must bring them home while they're still 
alive.
  Hopefully, the Bonn Conference will pivot us to the next phase of our 
Afghanistan engagement: from military occupation to constructive 
partnership, from waging war in Afghanistan to helping in the spirit of 
peace and friendship. Ten years after we supposedly liberated them, the 
people of Afghanistan have enormous humanitarian needs. We need to help 
them rebuild their infrastructure, strengthen their democracy, and 
safeguard the rights of their people, all of which can be done for 
pennies on the dollar compared to spending military dollars. In short, 
we need the SMART Security approach that I've been advocating for 
years.
  In Bonn, President Karzai is saying that Afghanistan will require 
foreign economic assistance for at least the next 10 years. The 
estimated cost of $10 billion a year, which sounds like a lot for that 
support, makes you realize, however, that we're spending at least that 
much, probably more, every month in Afghanistan. As a nation, we should 
eagerly embrace the responsibility to make these relatively modest 
investments in nonmilitary aid to Afghanistan. It's the right thing to 
do, and in the long run, we'll discover it's a far greater investment 
than 10 more years of war.
  The past 10 years of war have done little to improve the lives and to 
advance the rights, for example, of Afghan women. Many of us are 
familiar with the story of the Afghan woman who was raped and then 
impregnated by a male relative when she was 19 years old. She was then 
sent to jail for the crime of adultery. Her initial sentence was 3 
years; then, after a second trial, it was increased to 12 years, but a 
judge offered her clemency under one condition--she had to marry the 
man who raped her. At long last, Madam Speaker, after a petition drive 
organized by the woman's lawyer yielded 6,000 signatures, President 
Karzai granted the woman an unconditional pardon--she will be released 
from prison without having to spend her life with her attacker.
  It's a relief that moral decency prevailed in this one case; but the 
fact that this qualifies as a human rights victory in Afghanistan 
reveals just how far we have to go. There are many more Afghan women 
like her who suffer humiliation every single day, who have no control 
over their destinies. The true measure of American leadership is what 
we do to help these women and so many other Afghans who want nothing 
more than to live a decent life of hope, freedom, and relative comfort. 
We won't help by extending a war that has already failed these people 
and has violated our most fundamental values. It's time to bring our 
troops home and to make the transition to SMART Security now.

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