[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 16947-16949]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              AFGHANISTAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
North Carolina (Mr. Jones) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. JONES. Mr. Speaker, in this very chaotic time for the House of 
Representatives and for the American people, we need to remain focused 
on the fact that our young men and women are still dying in 
Afghanistan. Our involvement in Afghanistan has become a confused 
strategy at best.
  Mr. Speaker, I will submit a news article for the Record. The title 
of this article is: Afghan peace plan gives U.S. smaller role. With it, 
Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit 12 names of American servicepeople 
killed recently.
  Mr. Speaker, it is time for Congress to listen to the American people 
and start acting on their wishes. Poll after poll shows that they want 
to get out of Afghanistan now, they want our troops home, they want to 
stop seeing our young men and women dying, and the American people want 
the $10 billion a month being spent in Afghanistan to be spent here in 
America to help all our economic problems. I do not understand why we 
in Congress seem to be without debate about this problem in 
Afghanistan.
  We are currently in the process of a bilateral security agreement 
that will keep our troops in Afghanistan for 10 years after 2014. Where 
is the outrage by Congress? We are financially broke. We complain all 
the time about we can't reach this deal or that deal, we're going over 
the cliff, and yet our troops are dying in Afghanistan and we're 
spending money we don't have.
  Mr. Speaker, the article states:

       The Afghan Government is pursuing a peace initiative in 
     which Pakistan would replace the United States in arranging 
     talks between the warring sides and the Taliban would be 
     granted government posts that effectively could cede to them 
     political control of the southern and the eastern 
     strongholds.

  Mr. Speaker, those areas are where we've lost most of our young men 
and women fighting the war in Afghanistan, and yet we are going to give 
those areas where our young men and women died to the Taliban so they 
can control it? Where is the outrage here in Congress? I do not know.
  Mr. Speaker, in plain English, Afghanistan is allowing Pakistan and 
the Taliban to control half the country. And while the Taliban takes 
back Afghanistan, how does this make any sense? Where is the outrage? 
The American people are outraged, Mr. Speaker, but not Congress.
  Mr. Speaker, I have beside me a poster that tells pain. There is this 
little girl sitting in her mother's arms. The mother is crying. The 
little girl is so young, she doesn't know why this Army officer is 
presenting her mother a flag. She doesn't know that her daddy has been 
killed. She will one day, and she'll ask her mom, What was my daddy 
like? And the mom will say, He was a great man. He would love to see 
you now as you've grown older, but he died in a country known as 
Afghanistan, a country that will never change, no matter how much blood 
or how much money is spent in Afghanistan.
  Mr. Speaker, before closing, I have a Web site that if people would 
join and sign, and the Web site is www.bringthemhome2013.com.
  It is time for this administration and Congress to say enough has 
been done. It is time to bring our young men and women home. If 
Pakistan is going to have more influence in Afghanistan than America, 
then let Pakistan send their soldiers to die in Afghanistan. Let 
Pakistan pay the $10 billion a month that America is paying right

[[Page 16948]]

now--and it is borrowed money from the Chinese.
  Mr. Speaker, with that, I will close by asking God to please bless 
our men and women in uniform, to please bless the families who have 
given a child dying for freedom in Afghanistan and Iraq, God to please 
bless the House and Senate that we will do what's right for the 
American people in the House and the Senate. I ask God to give 
strength, wisdom, and courage to President Obama that he would do what 
is right in the eyes of God, and I'll close by asking three times, God 
please, God please, God please continue to bless America.

          [From the McClatchy Washington Bureau, Dec. 8, 2012]

         Afghanistan Peace Plan Would Increase Pakistan's Role

                        (By Jonathan S. Landay)

       The Afghan government is pursuing an ambitious new peace 
     initiative in which Pakistan would replace the United States 
     in arranging direct talks between the warring sides and the 
     Taliban would be granted government posts that effectively 
     could cede to them political control of their southern and 
     eastern strongholds.
       If implemented, the plan would diminish the role of the 
     United States in the peace process, but would still leave 
     Washington with input on a number of critical issues, 
     including the terms for initiating negotiations. Saudi 
     Arabia, Turkey and Great Britain also would be involved.
       The plan envisions ending the war by 2015 through a 
     ceasefire and negotiations in the second half of next year, 
     most likely in Saudi Arabia. Pakistan would help select the 
     leaders of the Taliban and other rebel groups who would take 
     part in the negotiations with the Afghan government. The 
     effort, the plan says, should be conducted ``through one 
     consistent and coherent channel,'' a measure that would 
     secure a role for Afghan President Hamid Karzai after the end 
     of his term following April 2014 elections.
       Another provision would give the insurgents a voice on 
     ``issues related . . . to the withdrawal'' of the U.S.-led 
     NATO force by the end of 2014.
       The plan foresees the United States working with Kabul and 
     Islamabad in determining which insurgent leaders would 
     participate. The United States also would be critical to 
     approving the removal of the insurgent negotiators from the 
     U.N.'s list of terrorists.
       Entitled ``Peace Process Roadmap to 2015,'' the blueprint 
     represents a decision by Karzai--in close coordination with 
     Pakistan--to assume the lead in peace-making efforts 
     following the collapse earlier this year of an Obama 
     administration bid to persuade the Taliban to participate in 
     direct talks with Kabul.
       The new initiative comes amid persistent distrust between 
     Karzai and the Obama administration and deep insecurity in 
     Kabul over future U.S. support. Those concerns and the U.S. 
     failure to arrange peace talks appear to have pushed Karzai 
     closer to Pakistan, whose army and main intelligence service 
     are widely believed to exercise significant influence over 
     Taliban and other militant leaders based in Pakistan's border 
     areas with Afghanistan.
       The plan also comes as the ongoing U.S. combat troop 
     pullout and cuts in U.S. financial aid to Afghanistan are 
     fueling fears in both countries that violence and instability 
     could worsen, spurring them to take matters into their own 
     hands.
       The blueprint, a copy of which was obtained by McClatchy, 
     officially is the work of Afghanistan's High Peace Council, 
     which is charged with overseeing government peace efforts. 
     But it was drafted by Karzai and his inner circle over the 
     past six months in coordination with Pakistan, according to a 
     person familiar with the document who requested anonymity 
     because of the matter's sensitivity.
       The plan was presented to Pakistan and the United States 
     during visits last month by High Peace Council Chairman 
     Salauddin Rabbani, who Karzai named to the post after 
     Rabbani's father, former Afghan President Burhanuddin 
     Rabbani, was assassinated in September 2011.
       The State Department declined to comment on the plan, 
     refusing even to confirm its existence. However, a State 
     Department official, who requested anonymity because of the 
     issue's sensitivity, was authorized to say that, ``The United 
     States continues to support an Afghan-led peace process and 
     welcomes initiatives through which Afghans sit down with 
     other Afghans in pursuit of that goal.''
       The Afghan embassy did not respond to a request to discuss 
     the plan.
       ``By 2015, Taliban, Hezb-e-Islami and other armed groups 
     will have given up armed opposition, transformed from 
     military entities into political parties, and are actively 
     participating in the country's political and constitutional 
     processes, including national elections,'' says the plan's 
     preamble. ``NATO/ISAF forces will have departed from 
     Afghanistan, leaving the ANSF (Afghan National Security 
     Forces) as the only legitimate armed forces delivering 
     security and protection to the Afghan population.''
       Despite that optimistic forecast, however, the plan may 
     rest on shaky legs. Its far-reaching assumptions not only 
     could doom it to failure, but risk an all-out civil war 
     before the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force, 
     or ISAF, completes its pullout.
       ``This is living in a dream world of wishful thinking,'' 
     said Marvin Weinbaum, a Middle East Institute scholar who 
     served as a State Department intelligence analyst on 
     Afghanistan. ``It is not based on anything that the Taliban 
     has given us reason to expect.''
       A major assumption is that all insurgent leaders and their 
     fighters will participate even though the Taliban have 
     consistently rejected negotiations with Karzai, who they 
     denounce as an American puppet. Moreover, the insurgency is 
     far from being monolithic and many leaders are known to 
     distrust each other and Pakistan.
       Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar and other leaders based 
     in Pakistan could come under pressure from the Pakistani 
     military to take part if they balk. But such pressure could 
     backfire, risking Afghan militants joining Pakistani 
     Islamists fighting to topple their government.
       In an incident underscoring the hurdles, two Taliban 
     factions claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack on 
     Thursday that wounded Asadullah Khalid, the chief of 
     Afghanistan's intelligence service. Karzai on Saturday 
     alleged that the attack was planned in Pakistan, but he 
     denied that the Taliban were responsible.
       The new plan would preserve Afghanistan as a parliamentary 
     democracy, denying the militants the Islamic rule for which 
     they've spent years fighting.
       It also appears to ignore warnings from politicians of the 
     former Northern Alliance against giving the Taliban and their 
     allies power that they hadn't won in elections. The Northern 
     Alliance, dominated by ethnic minorities, battled the 
     Taliban, which is made up primarily of the dominant Pashtun 
     ethnic group, until the 2001 U.S. invasion. Many former 
     alliance members now head Karzai's political opposition and 
     hold key army, police and intelligence posts.
       ``Any Afghanistan reconciliation effort will have to 
     address varied and complex ethnic concerns,'' acknowledged a 
     U.S. official, who requested anonymity in order to discuss 
     the issue.
       Finally, the key role that the plan confers on Pakistan 
     could inflame suspicion among many Afghans that Islamabad 
     plans to exert influence in a post-war Afghanistan--
     especially to block a pro-India tilt--by placing former 
     insurgents in cabinet posts, ministries, provincial 
     governorships and positions like police chiefs and district 
     administrators.
       ``The northerners won't buy this,'' said Weinbaum, 
     referring to former Northern Alliance leaders. ``So what you 
     get then is the beginning of a civil war.''
       Pakistan is widely despised in Afghanistan, particularly by 
     minorities who dominate the country's north, because of its 
     sponsorship of the Taliban's bloody nationwide takeover in 
     the mid-1990s and the support and sanctuary that they and 
     other insurgents allegedly still receive from the Pakistani 
     army and the army-run Inter-Services Intelligence 
     Directorate, or ISI.
       In principles governing the new peace process, the plan 
     reiterates Afghan and U.S. demands that the Taliban and other 
     insurgents cut ties with al Qaida and renounce violence.
       But in a shift that could raise concerns among human rights 
     and women's groups, the plan changes what had been a demand 
     for the insurgents to ``accept'' the Afghan Constitution to 
     one that they ``respect'' it.
       ``Any outcome of the peace process must respect the Afghan 
     Constitution and must not jeopardize the rights and freedoms 
     that the citizens of Afghanistan, both men and women, enjoy 
     under the Constitution,'' the plan says.
       The plan comprises five steps. The first step, which now 
     appears underway, calls for Pakistan to end cross-border 
     shelling of Afghan villages and to free Taliban detainees. 
     Nine were released last month after Rabbani's visit, and 
     Pakistan has agreed to free more.
       In the first half of 2013, Afghan, U.S. and Pakistani 
     officials are to agree on terms for removing Taliban leaders 
     ``willing to engage in peace talks'' from a U.N. terrorism 
     list and giving them safe passage. Pakistan would 
     ``facilitate direct contact'' between Afghan officials ``and 
     identified leaders of the Taliban and other armed opposition 
     groups.''
       Afghan, Pakistani and U.S. officials would ``explore and 
     agree to terms for initiating direct peace talks'' between 
     the sides ``with a focus on Saudi Arabia as the venue.''
       The negotiations would begin in the second half of 2013 
     ``preferably through one consistent and coherent channel, 
     with the aim of securing agreements on priority issues, such 
     as ending violence, allowing space for the provision of basic 
     public services, e.g. education, humanitarian aid, and 
     security in the conduct of the upcoming elections,'' the plan 
     says.
       The sides would agree to a ceasefire and terms for the 
     release of Taliban prisoners by

[[Page 16949]]

     the government ``in return for their agreement to disengage 
     and renounce violence.''
       The sides also would ``reach an understanding on issues 
     related to security and the withdrawal of international 
     forces.'' and agree on rules for the insurgents' 
     participation in 2014 provincial council and 2015 
     parliamentary elections.
       Another provision would confer considerable political power 
     on the insurgents by allowing them to become cabinet members, 
     provincial governors, district administrators, police chiefs 
     and other key officials.
       ``The negotiating parties to agree on modalities for the 
     inclusion of Taliban and other armed opposition leaders in 
     the power structure of the state, to include non-elected 
     positions at different levels with due consideration of legal 
     and governance principles,'' the plan says.
       That provision, combined with one for an agreement 
     ``creating immediate space for education and humanitarian and 
     development aid and public services,'' could effectively cede 
     political control of the Taliban's southern and eastern 
     heartland to the insurgents.
       The agreements would be implemented in the first half of 
     2014, and the final phase, set for the second half of 2014, 
     would be used to build international cooperation on 
     preserving the long-term stability of Afghanistan and the 
     region, the plan says.
       Correction: Paragraph 10 of this version has been revised 
     to provide the correct date for the assassination of former 
     Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani.
                                  ____


                 List of Names To Submit for the Record

       Sgt. 1st Class Darren M. Linde
       Spc. Tyler J. Orgaard
       Lance Cpl. Anthony J. Denier
       Cpl. Christopher M. Monahan, Jr.
       Petty Officer 1st Class Kevin R. Ebbert
       Lance Cpl. Dale W. Means
       Sgt. Channing B. Hicks
       Spc. Joseph A. Richardson
       Staff Sgt. Rayvon Battle, Jr.
       Sgt. Matthew H. Stiltz
       Capt. James D. Nehl
       Kenneth W. Bennett

                          ____________________