[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 19099]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              AFGHANISTAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Kinzinger) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KINZINGER of Illinois. There has been a lot of talk lately about 
Afghanistan. You hear it every day. You heard it just a little bit ago 
about why are we in Afghanistan? What are we fighting for? Isn't it 
time to go home?
  I've got to tell you the easy thing to do is to stand up and say 
let's just declare victory and let's leave, and then whatever happens 
after we're gone, that's not our fault anymore. It's not our problem. 
That's the easy thing to do.
  You know, the America I grew up in and continue to grow in and live 
in is not the country that always picks the easy thing. The thing about 
the American DNA is, I believe we do typically the right thing.
  Now, let me tell you, I'm still a pilot in the military. I still fly 
for the Air National Guard, and I've had the privilege and honor of 
serving overseas with my fellow men and women in uniform. Although most 
of my experience was in Iraq, I remember in Iraq a time when Members of 
this House stood up and said that the war in Iraq is lost, that there 
is no way to win, and it's time to just come home.
  And we see today that now the American troops are coming home from 
Iraq but under a condition of victory. And while I have concerns about 
that timetable for withdrawal, I think anybody would agree that that's 
better than had we just in 2006 and 2007 folded up and taken the easy 
way.
  So let me ask my fellow Members of Congress and let me ask the 
American people, what is it we're fighting for in Afghanistan?
  I have here a very disturbing but a very appropriate picture of what 
it is that we're fighting for.
  The young girl you see on the top, her name is BiBi. BiBi is 17 years 
old. When BiBi was 12 years old, she was sold to somebody basically as 
a slave as a result of a member of her family committing a crime and 
selling her as reparations for that crime. For 5 years she was beaten 
by her husband until one day she decided to run away to seek freedom.
  Well, she was caught. Her husband caught her, drug her back to his 
house, and the Taliban, as a way to enact justice, forced him, with his 
brother holding her down, forced him to cut off her nose and to cut off 
her ears. She then proceeded to basically crawl to her uncle's house, 
and her uncle ignored her. And somebody finally called the hospital, 
and they said go to an American forward-operating base. They'll take 
care of you.
  You hear the stories of the major who took care of her talking about 
how she showed up and talking about the fright that she had in her 
eyes.
  I took a trip to Afghanistan recently and saw a village where I saw a 
man who was standing on a berm with an AK-47. And I talked to him 
through a translator, and he informed me that not 2 days ago his 
daughter fell into a well and drowned. But yet he still believes that 
his village needs protecting. And he could be sitting at home mourning 
the loss of his daughter, and I'm sure he mourned the loss, but he was 
standing out defending his village because he wants what Americans 
want, what anybody around the world wants. They want security. They 
want to be able to raise their family. BiBi just wants to live her life 
without being beaten and sold into slavery.
  Today, because of the American presence in Afghanistan and that of 
our coalition partners, you see the picture at the bottom of this, the 
best part of this picture, and that is girls in school learning to read 
and write, learning that there is a world out there, learning that 
despite where they were raised and born, they, too, can have some of 
the freedoms and some of the privileges that folks in the rest of the 
world and especially in the United States have.
  So let me say this. It is so easy to stand up and say this is not 
worth it. But I'm going to tell you the second verse of the Star 
Spangled Banner has a line that says ``Oh conquer we must, when our 
cause it is just.''
  Ladies and gentlemen, what we're doing in Afghanistan is not 
extending an empire. It's bringing freedom to millions of people, 
taking out jihadists that would kill people simply because you believe 
differently than them, and we are standing up for freedom around the 
globe. The greatest disinfectant to terrorism is freedom.
  Ladies and gentlemen, the fight in Afghanistan, though difficult, is 
worth it, and I come in today and stand up and say ``God bless you'' to 
those that have gone over there and put on the uniform, and I say 
``thank you'' for your service to your country. The fight is worth it.

                          ____________________