[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 8431-8432]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        AUTHORIZING MORE WARFARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Woolsey) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, last week this body passed the National 
Defense Authorization Act. In doing so, yet again, it put a stamp of 
approval on a more violent, belligerent, and militaristic defense 
policy.
  While my friends in the majority continue to posture about Federal 
spending, they are eager to authorize billions and billions on military 
programs and policies that don't make America safer.
  During last week's debate over the Defense bill, they voted down an 
amendment that would have brought the Department of Defense funding 
levels down to the same 2008 levels they want to impose on domestic 
discretionary spending. Obviously, the Republicans believe in a blank 
check for

[[Page 8432]]

the Pentagon, but austerity for everyone else.
  They rejected my amendment to eliminate the V-22 Osprey, a 
multibillion-dollar aircraft with a performance and safety record so 
shoddy that even Dick Cheney tried to eliminate it when he was 
Secretary of Defense. They also rejected an amendment that would have 
prohibited the use of funds for permanent bases in Iraq and 
Afghanistan, despite the fact that an anonymous officer in Afghanistan 
was quoted in yesterday's Washington Post as saying, ``We've become 
addicted to building.'' That officer added that supplemental 
appropriations, with its billions of dollars for construction, ``have 
been like crack cocaine for the military.''
  It gets worse, Mr. Speaker. The Defense bill includes a radically 
expanded authorization for the use of military force. It completely 
undermines the War Powers Act, empowering the President, whichever 
President, whomever is in that office, to declare war regardless of 
whether an attack against the United States is imminent, regardless of 
whether our national security has been threatened. The language doesn't 
even specify any geographic limitation.

                              {time}  1010

  The Republican majority couldn't even bring themselves to support an 
amendment that called simply for a plan within 60 days to transfer 
responsibility for Afghanistan's security to Afghanistan--a plan--so we 
can begin the process of redevelopment. Just a plan within 60 days. As 
our distinguished Democratic leader said here on the floor last week 
when we were debating this, who could be against that?
  Well, apparently the overwhelming majority of House Republicans could 
be against it and are against it and voted against it. Then they topped 
it off by voting to eliminate the modest public investment in the U.S. 
Institute of Peace, an institute that carries out real, well-respected, 
lifesaving work on peaceful conflict resolution around the world.
  Last night the majority played a game of chicken with the global 
financial credibility of the United States, holding a vote on the debt 
ceiling that was designed to fail.
  I challenge them: You want meaningful spending cuts as a condition 
for a debt ceiling increase? Then stop giving the Pentagon unlimited 
use of the taxpayers' ATM card. Stop putting the full faith and credit 
of the United States on the line in order to wage more war.
  You believe in fiscal discipline, and you think everything should be 
on the table? Then let's talk about saving $10 billion a month by 
ending the war in Afghanistan, and let's bring our troops home from 
Iraq and Afghanistan.

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