The Wrong Decision On Afghanistan

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, first I want to commend President Obama for thinking long and hard about the course that he believes the United States should take in Afghanistan. That kind of deliberation is a welcome change from the previous administration. I also want to commend him for making it crystal clear that the United States of America condemns torture.

Unfortunately, on the issue of troop levels in Afghanistan, I believe the President has reached the wrong conclusion. Sending 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan will make it 30,000 times harder to extricate ourselves from this mess. If our fight is truly with al Qaeda, then we're in the wrong country. They have moved to Pakistan. Indeed, General Jones has told us that there are maybe less than 100 al Qaeda members in Afghanistan. With the troop increase announced by the President last night, we will have over 100,000 U.S. service men and women in Afghanistan. Do we really need 100,000 troops to go after less than a hundred al Qaeda?

President Karzai is corrupt and incompetent. He cheated in the most recent election. By most estimates, 30 percent of his votes was rigged. I don't want any more American service men or women to risk their lives for his corrupt government; and I am a little bit stunned, quite frankly, by the quick and inexplicable pivot by the administration from rightly denouncing Karzai's behavior to now embracing him as our dear friend. I think our support for Karzai actually discredits us with the Afghan people. We have seen that it is exceedingly difficult to train Afghan troops, many of whom are not only illiterate, but unable to add or subtract.

The cost of this escalation will be enormous, both in terms of blood and treasure. We will need to borrow billions and billions of additional dollars to pay for this policy.

Madam Speaker, at a time of great economic crisis here in the United States, I would suggest that rather than nation-building in Afghanistan, we should do a little more nation-building here at home.

It is important to note that the so-called timeline outlined by the President last night envisions the beginning of drawing down our troops in July of 2011--the beginning, not the end. Does anybody really believe that we will not be deeply ensnared in Afghanistan well beyond 2011?

Madam Speaker, I do not and I never will suggest that we abandon the Afghan people. They have suffered greatly over the last several decades. We must continue to support meaningful economic development and political assistance.

But finally, Madam Speaker, there is another important issue here, and that is congressional involvement. I know the President last night cited the resolution to authorize force in 2001 as providing the authority that he needs. I would argue that it was not Congress' intent in 2001 to authorize decades of nation-building in Afghanistan. We voted to go after the people who committed the horrible atrocities on September 11. I would urge that before a single additional troop is sent, that the United States Congress have the chance to fully debate his proposal and have an up-or-down vote.

Under the Bush administration, what usually happened is that additional troops were deployed and then later, once they were already in theater, the administration would submit a supplemental request. That is backwards. We should debate and vote on this critical issue before we send additional troops.

And, Madam Speaker, this is a big deal. This is a major escalation and Congress has a major role to play. I would urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to continue to ask the tough questions and to continue to play our constitutional role.

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