Taliban

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, in the fall of 2001--it seems like forever ago--Trae Young, the great OU point guard and now Atlanta Hawks phenom, was just 3 years old. Darius Bazley, a player for the Thunder right now, one of the young guys, he was just barely 1 year old in the fall of 2001.

At that same time period now, almost 20 years ago, there was a man named Osama bin Laden working with a small group of people in a country called Afghanistan that most Americans could not even find on a map at the time. He was meeting privately with them to organize an attack on Americans that we could have never imagined. He was training individuals and sneaking individuals into the United States, training them further to be pilots and preparing them for an attack that happened September 11, 2001.

There is not a soul who was alive during that time period who doesn't remember where they were and what was happening on September 11, 2001. All of us, we were locked to our TVs watching an airplane fly into a side of a building and kill thousands of our friends and neighbors.

On September 14, the U.S. Congress passed an authorization for the use of military force for those individuals who carried out this attack, 3 days after that attack. By October 7, the first troops had landed in Afghanistan. They were organizing an effort to find Osama bin Laden and to eliminate the threat of them carrying that out again.

The very clear mandate at the time was to work with the government at that time in Afghanistan, the Taliban, who were a ruthless dictatorship. They had spread their hatred across Afghanistan, but they had also made a deal with al-Qaida to hide them inside of Afghanistan. And the Taliban, who willingly allowed Osama bin Laden and the terrorist group they knew was a terrorist group to remain there, became the spark for us to go to the Taliban and say: Either turn Osama bin Laden over to the United States for trial and those who were with him in al-Qaida or we will come get them. And the Taliban's choice was to say: Come and get him, which we did.

Over the years, 775,000 American troops have deployed to Afghanistan at least once--775,000. There were 40 different nations that participated with us in Operation Enduring Freedom to remove the threat from that region of al-Qaida attacking us. Our twofold purpose was: Remove Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida's leadership organization and their ability to attack the United States and our allies, and No. 2, remove the Taliban from leadership in Afghanistan because they allowed al- Qaida to function and to operate in their country, and they would willingly do it again, so they could not be allowed to remain in Afghanistan as leaders. Those were our two agendas going into Afghanistan.

I am proud to say that the United States has won this war with Afghanistan. Al-Qaida has been decimated. We hunted down Osama bin Laden until, in 2011, we found him and took him and his core leadership out at his facility in Pakistan. We continue to drive al-Qaida into chaos and oblivion. We continue to hunt down the Taliban and their leadership, pushing them out of any semblance of leadership in Afghanistan and isolating them in every area we can. They have sanctions from all over the world against them, and their name has become synonymous with those who allow terrorism.

Since the time period that we moved in and we won this war, four Presidential elections have happened in Afghanistan. As they have seen the peaceful transition of power, as messy as it is in many other parts of the world--including us--they have seen four elections happen there. Previously, under the Taliban's ruthless thumb, women could not work or attend school. Now, 36 percent of the country's workforce is female, 40 percent of elementary students are female, and 33 percent of university students are female. There has been a tremendous transition in what is happening in Afghanistan.

They are still a Third World country and still struggling in many areas. We have seen Afghanistan begin to start to get some traction there. Their military training has partnered with American leadership-- generals all the way down to the infantry level--to meet with Americans and learn how to have a professional fighting force there.

Now, are there issues that still remain in Afghanistan? Absolutely. Afghanistan has a long history of being a tribal region, with tribal leaders in multiple areas, and a difficulty in uniting a very large country. But after four Presidential elections and through multiple areas of peaceful growth, it is time to bring this war to an end.

To answer the question: Why did we go to Afghanistan in the first place and has that been accomplished, the answer is, we went to remove the Taliban from the leadership there so they would not allow al-Qaida to thrive. Al-Qaida is decimated; Osama bin Laden is dead; and the Taliban have been removed from power.

Now, is everything perfect in Afghanistan? Far from it. The goal was not peace and daisies when we left. The goal was to accomplish what we chose to accomplish, to establish a functioning government so they would not have to go back to the Taliban, and then to leave.

The President's team has been negotiating an agreement with the leadership of the Taliban and with the leadership of Afghanistan to determine: Can we begin the process of a peaceful transition out? That conversation has gone on for 2 years. Obviously, the Afghan leadership likes our forces to be there. It is a stabilizing force for their country, but we have no intention to remain in Afghanistan forever. Our intention is to accomplish what we need to accomplish and then to withdraw.

Now, I think it entirely likely that we will have a long-term agreement with Afghanistan and to have troops remain in the region, much like we do in Honduras right now. We are not fighting a war in Honduras, but we do have a base in Honduras so when there are disasters in that area or in order to fight drug trafficking that comes through that area, we have a base of operations.

I am one of those who believes long term we should have a base of operations in Afghanistan. It would be wise to do that. What is called ISIS-K or ISIS in the Khorasan--they are thriving in that region, and it would be wise for us to keep our eyes on other terrorist organizations that may try to rise.

We have no intention to stay long term and forever or to control, manage, or be the security forces for the Afghan Government. We are the United States of America. We have issues we want to take care of at home, and we want our sons and daughters to live life with their sons and daughters.

Now, in the last 48 hours, since this peace treaty, this organization, this reduction of hostilities--whatever you want to call it--since this has kicked into place in the last 40 hours, we found out just how fragile things are. The Taliban reached out and conducted several attacks at some security checkpoints in Helmand--not against our forces but against some Afghan forces.

They actually reached out just yesterday and brought a defensive attack against the Taliban in that region. It is the first violence we have had in 11 days. We fully expect there will be moments like that, and there is no expectation that everything is going to be perfect when we leave Afghanistan.

Quite frankly, the United States does not operate in every location and expects there to be peace and harmony in every location across the world. That is not our standard. Right now, in Venezuela, that government is in great chaos, but we don't have troops on the ground trying to manage that situation. We are diplomatically working to engage and bring a peaceful resolution to what is happening in Venezuela. We are putting aggressive economic sanctions in that place to do what we can to help.

We will continue to stay engaged with Afghanistan. We have many friends there. We have people whom we worked with for a very long time, side by side. We will stay engaged with Afghanistan, but it is not our intent to stay and remain forever. Our sons and daughters need the ability to come home and live their lives.

There are folks like Terry Hill--Terry Hill, from Kellyville, OK. He enlisted in the Army in 2003, right in the heat of the war with Afghanistan. He served as an engineer and then later became an officer and a pilot of a helicopter. He flew 750 combat missions in Afghanistan--750. After 13 years of serving in the Army and after some very hard landings, including one final hard landing for him, Terry came back home. He is back home in Oklahoma, where he runs the Rapid Application Group. It is a 3D printing company. It is a really remarkable place. It started at his house and has now grown into a thriving company, and that 3D printing company does some really remarkable work for a lot of great customers. He hires a lot of veterans. He loves to hire other veterans, in fact, and knows the unique needs and issues there.

Every Friday, Terry and a whole bunch of others across the area and all the folks there all will wear shirts--what they call RAGFriday. It is to recognize and bring awareness to veteran suicide because he has way too many friends he wishes he had back.

Terry is one of the 775,000 people who served in Afghanistan from the United States. We are glad to have Terry home. We are proud of his company and what he is doing and the leadership they have. We are proud of his continued engagement in the veterans community, continuing to make a difference.

We want all of these folks to be able to come home and to be our neighbors again and for us to hang out with them. So in the days ahead, I look forward to a peaceful resolution and, after winning this war in Afghanistan, to be able to come home, to have continued diplomatic engagement with them, with a small military footprint, just to be able to help them in the region when needed.

I am grateful that we are directing our Nation and directing our military toward home. I could not be more grateful for folks like Terry and the 775,000 others who have done everything their country has asked them to do--to push back on al-Qaida and their ruthless attacks on the United States and to make sure that that does not happen again. I am proud of them for what they did.

Our family lives in safety and freedom, and millions of Americans live in gratitude because of those 775,000 folks who went there to keep the war from coming here again.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source