[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 6148-6149]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    HOW ABOUT WE STOP BEING STUPID?

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Woolsey) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States traveled 
to Afghanistan last week to sign the Strategic Partnership Agreement 
with President Karzai, and while this agreement is intended to signal 
the beginning of the end of the Afghanistan war, instead it actually 
looks like it could lock the United States into a military commitment 
for years to come.
  The agreement calls for our Armed Forces to be involved beyond 2014 
in the ``training, equipping, advising, and sustaining'' of Afghan 
security forces so that Afghanistan can combat terrorism and ``secure 
and defend itself against internal and external threats.''
  The irony in that statement, Mr. Speaker, is rich. When are we going 
to realize that the internal threats facing Afghanistan gather more 
strength with every day that American boots are on the ground? 
Insurgents are energized and animated. They bolster their recruitment 
and increase their numbers because of their resentment over a U.S. 
military occupation that is now in its 11th year--11th year. We will 
not bring stability to Afghanistan until we fundamentally alter our 
bilateral relationship to emphasize peaceful, civil engagement over 
military engagement. The good thing about this Strategic Partnership 
Agreement, however, is that it does include provisions relating to 
democracy promotion, economic development, and assisting in the 
reforming of the Afghans' governing institutions. These programs need 
to be the centerpiece of our Afghan strategy, along with major 
investments in development aid across the board.
  The war won't truly wind down until the White House commits--I mean

[[Page 6149]]

commits--to spending more on diplomacy and more on development and 
reconstruction than they're spending on the military occupation. We 
need a dramatic shift in resources--more to rebuild Afghan 
infrastructure, more to fight poverty, more to reduce infant and 
maternal mortality, more to send children, especially girls, to school. 
As long as we maintain a military presence in Afghanistan, as long as 
fighting is the focal point of our relationship, we will be preventing 
and undermining the important humanitarian work that needs to be done.
  Mr. Speaker, investing in the Afghan people is not just the right 
thing to do because of our common humanity, it is the smart thing to do 
from the standpoint of our national security objectives. That's why I 
call my plan SMART Security. It needs to be implemented not just in 
Afghanistan, but in other unstable parts of the world where terrorism 
poses a grave threat.
  Thomas Friedman of The New York Times is on board with the principles 
behind SMART Security. In a column last week, he talked about how a $13 
million scholarship program for Lebanese students is doing a lot more 
to advance our values in that country than $1.3 billion in military aid 
to Egypt. He quotes a schoolteacher in Jordan who talks about how the 
former is for ``making people'' and how the latter is for ``killing 
people.''
  What is the point of our engagement, Mr. Speaker, with the rest of 
the world--to make people or to kill people? That's a very important 
question for us to answer. As Friedman puts it:

       So how about we stop being stupid? How about we stop 
     sending planes and tanks to a country where half the women 
     and a quarter of the men can't read, and start sending 
     scholarships instead?

  How about we stop being stupid, Mr. Speaker? How about we make the 
shift to a SMART Security approach? How about we make that shift now 
and begin that shift with bringing our troops home?

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