[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 3]
[House]
[Page 4172]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 GENERAL PETRAEUS AND ``THE CHARLIE SHEEN COUNTERINSURGENCY STRATEGY''

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Woolsey) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Madam Speaker, the American people are rapidly losing 
confidence in the Nation's Afghanistan policy. Public opposition has 
reached an all-time high. According to the new ABC News/Washington Post 
poll, nearly two-thirds of Americans, or 64 percent, say this war isn't 
worth fighting. I wonder if any of the programs that my Republican 
colleagues want to cut have sunk to that level of nonsupport. And yet 
this charade goes on.
  The July drawdown, the date we should be leaving Afghanistan, is 
rapidly approaching; and there are precious few signs of preparations 
for a massive military redeployment. In fact, top officials have been 
``walking back'' the July 2011 commitment from almost the moment the 
President made it.
  General Petraeus has returned to Capitol Hill this week to pat us on 
the head and tell us the same things he's told us before. During 
testimony he gave last year, he offered up this--I call it a doozy--
describing the July deadline as ``the point at which a process begins 
to transition security tasks to Afghan forces at a rate to be 
determined by conditions at the time.'' With all due respect to the 
general, Madam Speaker, that's an awful lot of weasel words.
  His testimony in the Senate yesterday didn't inspire much confidence 
either. He continues to offer the same bland and tone-deaf talking 
points--a lot of vague reassurances about progress we've supposedly 
made, while being sure to say that challenges remain so he can continue 
justifying a substantial troop presence. He's over here on the House 
side today. I hope my colleagues on the Armed Services Committee will 
hold his feet to the fire, demanding the clarity and candor that the 
American people deserve.
  With everyone hanging on General Petraeus' every word, even though he 
is the symbol of a discredited and unpopular policy, I thought some of 
us should speak for the overwhelming majority opinion--for that 64 
percent. So yesterday, the Congressional Progressive Caucus Peace and 
Security Task Force held a briefing with a fascinating group of 
panelists. We heard from Robert Pape, the suicide terrorism scholar, 
who posed an interesting analogy--if suicide bombings are the lung 
cancer of terrorism, then foreign occupation is the smoking habit, the 
lethal but preventable addiction that's feeding the illness.
  Matthew Hoh, the former marine captain and State Department official, 
noted that we're laying off police officers here at home while building 
up a corrupt and ineffective police force in Afghanistan. And Rolling 
Stone contributing editor Michael Hastings, who recently broke the 
story about the Army using psyops propaganda on U.S. Senators, was also 
there; and he made this observation. He said General Petraeus is giving 
us ``the Charlie Sheen counterinsurgency strategy, which is to give 
exclusive interviews to every major network and keep saying you're 
winning and hope the public actually agrees with you.''
  Madam Speaker, it was a compelling briefing. I hope all of us in the 
112th Congress will listen to people like Professor Pape, Mr. Hoh, and 
Mr. Hastings. But, most of all, I hope we'll listen to the American 
people, who are angry, disillusioned, and pleading with us to bring our 
troops home. They want us to do that so there will be no more deaths 
like Staff Sergeant Mark Wells, the young man from Congressman Poe's 
district.

                          ____________________