[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 3]
[House]
[Page 4123]
[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. Last week, in the Armed Services Committee, we had General 
Allen, who oversees our military effort in Afghanistan. I have the 
utmost respect for General Allen. In fact, General Allen's former boss 
in the Marine Corps had some very kind words to say about General 
Allen, which I read before I got into my questions.

                              {time}  1020

  I would today like to quote the former boss of General Allen, who's 
been my adviser on Afghanistan for 3 years, and I actually read these 
comments to General Allen before I got to my question:

       Attempting to find a true military and political answer to 
     the problems in Afghanistan would take decades, not years, 
     and drain our Nation of precious resources, with the most 
     precious being our sons and daughters. Simply put, the United 
     States cannot solve the Afghan problem, no matter how brave 
     and determined our troops are.

  Mr. Speaker, I keep hearing the term, well, we're going to probably 
be out sometime around 2014. Well, it's kind of like what many of us, 
including myself, are guilty of, and that is putting it down the road, 
putting it down the road, we'll deal with it in some time. But the 
problem is our young men and women are dying, getting killed and 
severely wounded by IEDs. I hope that Congress, when we get into May of 
this year and we start debating the Department of Defense bill, will 
bring up some amendments dealing with Afghanistan.
  History has proven time and time again that no one, no nation will 
ever change Afghanistan. And it was kind of ironic that last week I 
just happened to be on the floor Thursday when Mr. Hoyer was asking Mr. 
Cantor, on our side, what is going to be the schedule this week, 
meaning today. And then Mr. Hoyer said to Mr. Cantor, well, why don't 
we bring up the Senate transportation bill? And I was just taken aback 
by Mr. Cantor's response. He said, ``We're just out of money.'' We're 
just out of money? And we're spending $10 billion a month in 
Afghanistan?
  I don't understand the mathematics around here. We can't bring up a 
transportation bill, a 2-year bill, because we're just out of money. 
But, yet, Mr. Karzai, you can get your $10 billion a month and you can 
negotiate with the Taliban and take the $10 billion that we're 
borrowing from the Chinese to give to Karzai so they can buy weapons to 
kill the American soldiers and marines. It just does not make any 
sense.
  Mr. Speaker, I have put together a resolution that I have asked the 
speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, Thom Tillis, 
who is a great gentleman, to introduce in the May session of the North 
Carolina House asking the Congress to bring our troops home out of 
Afghanistan before the 2014 deadline. And I'm pleased to say that the 
Tea Party in my district, who doesn't agree with me on everything, does 
agree with me on Afghanistan. They have passed this resolution at their 
meeting a month ago. We need to start bringing our troops home now, not 
later.
  Mr. Speaker, I've got beside me today--and I'm going to close in just 
a minute--a reminder of the cost of war--all the families who have 
cried with pain and all the children who have cried because their moms 
or their daddies are not coming home. So I have about 14 of these 
posters when I do these little 5-minute speeches I bring to the floor. 
This is the latest one. I saw it in the newspaper. It's very profound. 
It is time for the American people to say to the United States 
Congress, if you have no money and you can't fix the roads, then you 
have no money to send to Afghanistan to waste on a corrupt leader.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I would like to close the way I normally do:
  God, please bless our men and women in uniform; please bless the 
families of our men and women in uniform; please, God, bless the House 
and Senate that we will do what's right in the eyes of God for His 
people. I ask God to please bless the President of the United States, 
that he will do what is right in the eyes of God for His people. And 
I'll close three times by asking, God, please, God, please, God, please 
continue to bless America.

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