Flashback 2011: It's Time To Get Out of Afghanistan
American politicians have figured out that they can promise peace and never deliver. The American people have wanted out of Afghanistan for a very long time. Will President Trump deliver?
American politicians have figured out that they can promise peace and never deliver. The American people have wanted out of Afghanistan for a very long time. Will President Trump deliver?
American politicians have figured out that they can promise peace and never deliver. The American people have wanted out of Afghanistan for a very long time. Will President Trump deliver?
The question we're facing today is: should we leave Afghanistan?
I think the answer is very clear and it's not complicated.
Of course, we should, as soon as we can.
This suggests that we can leave by the end of the year.
If we don't, we'll be there for another decade, would be my prediction.
The American people are now with us.
A group of us here in the Congress, bipartisan group, for nearly a decade have been talking about this, arguing not to expand the war, not to be over there, not to be in nation building.
And the American people didn't pay much attention.
Now they are.
The large majority of the American people now say it's time to get out of Afghanistan.
It's a fruitless venture.
Too much has been lost.
The chance of winning, since we don't even know what we're going to win, doesn't exist.
So they are tired of it.
Financially, there's a good reason to come home as well.
Some argue we have to be there because if we leave under these circumstances, we'll lose face.
It will look embarrassing to leave.
So how many more men and women have to die?
How many more dollars have to be spent to save face?
That is one of the worst arguments possible.
We're not there under legal conditions.
This is a war.
Who says it isn't a war?
Everybody talks about the Afghan war.
Was the war declared?
Of course not.
It wasn't declared.
There was a resolution passed that said that the president at that time, under the emergency of 9-11, could go and deal with al-Qaeda, those who dealt and brought upon the 9-11 bombings.
But Al-Qaeda is not there anymore.
So we're fighting the Taliban.
The Taliban used to be our allies at one time when the Soviets were there.
Taliban wants, their main goal is to keep foreign occupationers out.
They want foreigners out of their country.
They're not al-Qaeda.
Yet most Americans, maybe less so now, but the arguments here on the floor is we've got to go after Al-Qaeda.
This is not a war against al-Qaeda.
If anything, it gives the incentive for al-Qaeda to grow in numbers rather than dealing with them.
You know, the money issue.
We're talking about a lot of money.
How much do we spend in the year?
Probably about $130 billion, up to a trillion dollars now in this past decade.
Later on in the day, we're going to have two votes.
We're going to have a vote on doing something sensible, making sense out of our foreign policy, bringing our troops home, and saving hundreds of billions of dollars.
And then we also will have a vote against NPR to cut the funding of NPR.
There is a serious question about whether that will even cut one penny, but at least the fiscal conservatives are going to be overwhelmingly in support of slashing NPR, go home and brag about how they're some great fiscal conservatives, and the very most they might save is $10 million.
And that's their claim to fame for slashing the budget.
At the same time, they won't consider for a minute cutting a real significant amount of money.
All empires end for fiscal reasons because they spread themselves too far around the world, and that's what we're facing.
We're in the midst of a military conflict that's contributing to this inevitable crisis, and it's financial.
And you'd think there'd be a message in the fact of where, how did the Soviets come down?
Military Conflict's Financial Crisis00:02:12
By doing the very same thing that we're doing, perpetual occupation of a country.
We don't need to be occupying Afghanistan or any other country.
We don't even need to be considered going into Libya and where else.
Fortunately, I guess for those of us who would like to see less of this killing, we will have to quit because we won't be able to afford it.
The process that we're going through is following the war powers resolution.
This is a proper procedure.
It's call attention to how we slip into these wars.
I have always claimed that it's the way we get into the wars that are the problem.
If we would be precise and only go to war with a declaration of war, with the people behind us, knowing who the enemy is and fight, win, and get it over with, that would be more legitimate.
They don't do it now because the American people wouldn't support it.
Nobody's going to declare war against Afghanistan or Iraq or Libya.
So we now have been so careless for the past 50 or 60 years that we have, as a Congress and especially a House, we have renewed on our responsibilities.
We have avoided our prerogatives of saying that we have the control.
We have the control of the purse.
We have control of when we're supposed to go to war.
And yet the wars continue.
They never stop, and yet we are going to be completely brought down to our knees.
We can't change Afghanistan.
People who are bragging about these changes, you know, even if you could, you're not supposed to.
You don't have the moral authority.
You don't have the constitutional authority.
So I would say the sooner, the sooner.
Give him 30 more seconds.
Gentlemen is recognized for 30 more seconds.
I would say the sooner the better.
We can come home.
This process says come home.
Under the law, it says you should start bringing troops home within 30 days.
This allows up to the end of the year after this would be passed.
But this needs to be done.
And a message needs to be sent.
And someday we have to wake up and say, if you are a fiscal conservative, you ought to look at the waste.
This is military Keynesianism to believe that we should do this forever.