Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2010

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Mr. NADLER of New York. Mr. Speaker, every dollar we spend in Afghanistan, every life we sacrifice there is a tragic waste that does not enhance the security of the United States.

We were attacked on 9/11 by al Qaeda. Al Qaeda had bases in Afghanistan. It made sense to go in and destroy those bases, and we did. But those bases are no longer there. They are in Pakistan and Yemen and Somalia, and we are not invading those countries. Why do we undertake to invent the corrupt government and try to impose it on the country?

Afghanistan is in the middle of a 35-year civil war. We have no business intervening in that civil war. We have no ability and no necessity to win it for one side or the other.

This whole idea of counterinsurgency, that we are going to persuade the people left alive after our firepower is applied to love the government that we like, is absurd. At this point we must recognize that rebuilding Afghanistan is both beyond our ability and irrelevant to our purpose of preventing terrorist attacks on the United States.

We should support this amendment. We should support our troops. We should bring them home now.

Every dollar we spend in Afghanistan, every life we sacrifice there, is a tragic waste that does not enhance the security of the United States. We were attacked on 9/11 by Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda had bases in Afghanistan; it made sense to go in and destroy those bases, and we did. But the CIA tells us that there are fewer than one hundred Al Qaeda personnel now in all of Afghanistan--their bases are in Pakistan, but we are not invading Pakistan. They have bases in Somalia and Yemen, but we are not invading Somalia and Yemen.

An intelligent policy might be to attack the bases from which mayhem is being plotted against us, wherever they are--not to try to remake a country that nobody since Genghis Khan has managed to conquer. What makes us think, what arrogance gives us the right to assume, that we can succeed where the Moguls, the British, the Soviets, failed. No government in Afghanistan, no government in Kabul, has ever been able to make its writ run and rule the country.

Why have we undertaken to invent a government that is not supported by the majority of the people, that is corrupt, and try to impose it on the country? Afghanistan is in the middle of what is, at this point, a 53-year-civil war. We have no business intervening in that civil war, we have no ability and no necessity to win it for one side or the other. This whole idea of counter-insurgency, that we are going to persuade the people left alive after our firepower is applied, to love the government that we like is absurd.

It will take tens of years, hundred of billions of dollars, tens of thousands of American lives, if it can be done at all, and we don't need to do it. It's their country. If they want to have a civil war, we can't stop them. We can't choose the rulers that they have, we don't have to like the rulers that they have, we don't have to like their choices. It's not up to us.

Aside from assuring that specific bases are not being used against us--we should not spend a nickel, we should not waste a life, in pursuit of an unintelligent, unthought-through, unachievable, and unnecessary goal.

At this point, we must recognize that rebuilding Afghanistan is both beyond our ability, and irrelevant to our purpose of preventing terrorist attacks on the United States.

We should support this amendment.

We should support our troops.

We should bring them home.

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