[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 6]
[House]
[Page 8301]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      FAILED POLICY IN AFGHANISTAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
North Carolina (Mr. Jones) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. JONES. Mr. Speaker, thank you very much.
  Last week I was home, and on Saturday I had the pleasure to speak to 
about 50 citizens in the Third District of North Carolina which I 
represent. I carry this poster with me, Mr. Speaker, and I also have a 
one-page flier. The purpose of this is to continue to wake up the 
American people that we are in Afghanistan; and unless you have a loved 
one there, you probably don't think about it. That's human nature. It's 
not a criticism. But I take this and then I give the flier, and it's 
got the cartoon.
  Mr. Speaker, the cartoon has Karzai with a little debit card, and 
he's standing at an ATM machine. At the top it says, ``CIA ATM.'' 
Karzai says, ``I'm just making a quick withdrawal.'' He's got bags of 
cash at his feet. Sadly, there's a soldier in the background that says, 
``I'd like to make a quick withdrawal from here.''
  Last week we had two American soldiers killed and one civilian, and 
the war keeps going on and on. We in Congress act like it's not 
happening. I don't understand it. The President has signed a bilateral 
strategic agreement with the Afghans that will keep us there from 2014 
to 2024. We're spending $8 billion a month in Afghanistan. The CIA 
admitted in a New York Times article that they have been giving tens of 
millions of dollars for 10 years to Karzai. He's got to be one of the 
richest men in the world. We keep borrowing the money from the Chinese 
to give him money. I do not understand it, and I would like to read 
just a couple of points from The New York Times CIA article:

       The CIA money, Mr. Karzai told reporters, was an easy 
     source of petty cash, and some of it was used to pay off the 
     political elite, a group dominated by warlords. Mr. Karzai 
     said that when he met with the CIA station chief, ``I told 
     him because of all these rumors in the media, please do not 
     cut all this money, because we really need it.''

  Well, Mr. Karzai, so do the American people. Here we are in Congress 
cutting programs for children and senior citizens, and the Congress has 
a deaf ear to Afghanistan. The bill coming up this week from the Armed 
Services Committee, which I serve on, will have $85 billion additional 
money going to Afghanistan.
  Mr. Speaker, it is time for the American people to show outrage to 
those of us in Congress and say it's time to bring our troops home. 
It's time to stop wasting lives and limbs and getting money from 
foreign countries, like China, that we have to borrow to pay Karzai.
  I do not understand it, Mr. Speaker, and I'm pleased to say that the 
people of the Third District of North Carolina, the home of Camp 
Lejeune Marine Base--the Wright brothers took the first flight from my 
district--they're tired of this war. They are fed up with it, and they 
see no end to it.
  We in Congress are not meeting our constitutional responsibility for 
oversight. When you see the kind of money that I just made reference to 
going to this crook in Afghanistan named Karzai, there should have been 
hearings held on that money going to Afghanistan. I understand Benghazi 
and I understand the IRS hearings and these other hearings that we're 
having, but there are no hearings on the waste, fraud, and abuse in 
Afghanistan.
  Mr. Speaker, before I yield back, I want to first ask God to please 
bless our men and women in uniform. I ask God to please bless the 
families of our men and women in uniform. The families who've given a 
child dying for freedom, God hold them in your arms. And God, I ask you 
to please bless the House and Senate that we will do what is right in 
the eyes of God for God's people. I will ask God to bless the President 
of the United States that he will do what is right in the eyes of God 
for God's people. And three times I will say from the bottom of my 
heart, God please, God please, God please continue to bless America.

                          ____________________