[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 9100]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             DRAWING DOWN AMERICAN TROOPS FROM AFGHANISTAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Woolsey) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, it is now mid-June and we are just weeks 
away from the July date the President promised for a drawdown of 
American troops from Afghanistan. But so far, so far, there appears to 
be little movement towards the kind of redeployment that the moment 
actually calls for and that the American people are insisting on.

                              {time}  1010

  In fact, Mr. Speaker, Defense Secretary Gates, on his way out the 
door, endorsed a ``modest'' drawdown, even though the President has 
promised something significant. This is not a moment that calls for 
modesty. This is a moment for boldness and true leadership. This is a 
moment to break out of the war default posture--the posture that we've 
been in for going on 10 years now.
  The longer this war goes on, the bloodier it becomes. We were told 
last year that fatalities would be unusually high in 2010 as the surge 
troops begin penetrating the Taliban strongholds. But it turns out 
there's no sign that casualties are tapering off, and we're on pace for 
an equally deadly 2011. We lost more troops in March, April, and May of 
this year than we did during the same months of 2010.
  And let's not forget--because I don't think it's talked about nearly 
enough--that it's not just uniformed members of the U.S. military being 
put in harm's way by this conflict. The United Nations said over the 
weekend that there were more civilian casualties in May than in any 
single other month of this war. Needless to say, killing innocent 
people is certainly not the way to win the hearts and minds of another 
country.
  The American people's patience is wearing thin, Mr. Speaker; and 
there are many Members of this body--a fair number in the Republican 
majority--who cannot support this Afghanistan policy either. I for one 
am tired of being told that the strategy is working and it just needs 
more time to succeed. How many military families will lose a father or 
a mother or a son or a daughter in the time it takes for this strategy 
to go nowhere? How many troops will be physically and psychologically 
damaged beyond repair?
  Mr. Speaker, I think nearly a decade--longer than any war in American 
history--is more than enough time to admit that the strategy does not 
work. We don't need simply a token drawdown. We need a fundamental 
change in policy and a complete reorientation of our thinking about 
national security. We need to finally end this war and bring our troops 
home.

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