Afghanistan War Powers Resolution

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. KUCINICH. I yield myself 2 minutes.

In the next 2 hours, we are going to demonstrate that the American people oppose this war by a margin of two to one. I will enter into the Record this Washington Post poll that was published on March 15 which says that nearly two-thirds of Americans say the war isn't worth fighting.

In the next 2 hours, we are going to demonstrate that we are spending $100 billion per year on this war. There are those who are saying the war could last at least another 10 years. Are we willing to spend another $1 trillion on a war that doesn't have any exit plan, for which there is no timeframe to get out, no endgame, where we haven't defined our mission? The question is not whether we can afford to leave. The question is, can we afford to stay? And I submit we cannot afford to stay.

In the next 2 hours, we are going to demonstrate that the counterintelligence strategy of General Petraeus is an abysmal failure, and it needs to be called as such. So I want to conclude this part of my presentation with an article by Thomas Friedman in The New York Times, which says, ``What are we doing spending $110 billion this year supporting corrupt and unpopular regimes in Afghanistan and Pakistan that are almost identical to the governments we are applauding the Arab people for overthrowing?''

[From The Washington Post, Mar. 15, 2011]

Poll: Nearly Two-Thirds of Americans Say Afghan War Isn't Worth Fighting
(By Scott Wilson and Jon Cohen)

Nearly two-thirds of Americans now say the war in Afghanistan is no longer worth fighting, the highest proportion yet opposed to the conflict, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The finding signals a growing challenge for President Obama as he decides how quickly to pull U.S. forces from the country beginning this summer. After nearly a decade of conflict, political opposition to the battle breaks sharply along partisan lines, with only 19 percent of Democratic respondents and half of Republicans surveyed saying the war continues to be worth fighting.

Nearly three-quarters of Americans say Obama should withdraw a ``substantial number'' of combat troops from Afghanistan this summer, the deadline he set to begin pulling out some forces. Only 39 percent of respondents, however, say they expect him to withdraw large numbers.

The Post-ABC News poll results come as Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, prepares to testify before Congress on Tuesday about the course of the war. He is expected to face tough questioning about a conflict that is increasingly unpopular among a broad cross section of Americans.

Petraeus will tell Congress that ``things are progressing very well,'' Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Monday. But because of battlefield gains made by U.S. and coalition forces since last year, Morrell told MSNBC, ``it's going to be heavy and intensive in terms of fighting'' once the winter cold passes.

The poll began asking only in 2007 whether the Afghan war is worth fighting, but support has almost certainly never been as low as it is in the most recent survey.

The growing opposition presents Obama with a difficult political challenge ahead of his 2012 reelection effort, especially in his pursuit of independent voters.

Since Democrats took a beating in last year's midterm elections, Obama has appealed to independents with a middle-of-the-road approach to George W. Bush-era tax cuts and budget negotiations with Republican leaders on Capitol Hil1. He called a news conference last week to express concern about rising gasoline prices, an economically pressing issue for many independent voters.

But his approach to the Afghan war has not won over the independents or liberal Democrats who propelled his campaign two years ago, and the most recent Post-ABC News poll reinforces the importance of Republicans as the chief constituency supporting his strategy. The results suggest that the war will be an awkward issue for the president as he looks for ways to end it. Nearly 1,500 U.S. troops have died since the fighting began in 2001.

During his 2008 campaign, Obama promised to withdraw American forces from the Iraq war, which he opposed, and devote more resources to the flagging effort in Afghanistan, which he has called an essential front in combating Islamist terrorism targeting the United States.

After a months-long strategy review in the fall of 2009, he announced the deployment of an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan--taking the total to more than 100,000--and a July 2011 deadline for the start of their withdrawal.

The number of respondents to the Post-ABC News poll who say the war is not worth fighting has risen from 44 percent in late 2009 to 64 percent in the survey conducted last week.

Two-thirds of independents hold that position, according to the poll, and nearly 80 percent said Obama should withdraw a ``substantial number'' of troops from Afghanistan this summer. Barely more than a quarter of independents say the war is worth its costs, and for the first time a majority feel ``strongly'' that it is not.

Obama, who met with Petraeus on Monday at the White House, has said he will determine the pace of the withdrawal by assessing conditions on the ground.

At the same time, U.S. and NATO forces have come under sharp criticism from the Afghan government. Over the weekend, after a NATO bombing killed nine children, Afghan President Hamid Karzai demanded that international troops ``stop their operations in our land,'' a more pointed call than previous ones he has made following such deadly NATO mistakes.

The telephone poll was conducted March 10 to 13 among a random national sample of 1,005 adults. Results from the full poll have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

The survey also asked respondents to assess Obama's performance in managing the political changes sweeping across the Middle East and North Africa. Overall, 45 percent of respondents approve of his handling of the situation, and 44 percent disapprove.

In Libya, where Moammar Gaddafi is battling a rebel force seeking to end his 41-year rule, Obama is under increasing pressure to implement a no-fly zone over the country to prevent the Libyan leader from taking back lost territory and to protect civilians from government reprisals.

Nearly six in 10 Americans say they would support U.S. participation in a no-fly zone over Libya, the poll found, despite recent warnings from Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates that doing so would be a ``major operation.''

But the survey found that American support dips under 50 percent when it comes to unilateral U.S. action, as Democrats and independents peel away.

When told that such a mission would entail U.S. warplanes bombing Libyan antiaircraft positions and ``continuous patrols,'' about a quarter of those initially advocating U.S. participation turn into opponents.

After a meeting Monday with Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen, Obama said, ``We will be continuing to coordinate closely both through NATO as well as the United Nations and other international fora to look at every single option that's available to us in bringing about a better outcome for the Libyan people.''

In general, Americans do not think that the changes in the Middle East and North Africa will prove beneficial to U.S. economic and security interests.

More than seven in 10 respondents said demonstrators are interested in building new governments, although not necessarily democratic ones. Almost half of those surveyed view the turmoil as undermining the United States' ability to fight terrorist groups in the region.

--

[From the New York Times, March 6, 2011]

The $110 Billion Question
(By Thomas L. Friedman)

When one looks across the Arab world today at the stunning spontaneous democracy uprisings, it is impossible to not ask: What are we doing spending $110 billion this year supporting corrupt and unpopular regimes in Afghanistan and Pakistan that are almost identical to the governments we're applauding the Arab people for overthrowing?

Ever since 9/11, the West has hoped for a war of ideas within the Muslim world that would feature an internal challenge to the violent radical Islamic ideology of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. That contest, though, never really materialized because the regimes we counted on to promote it found violent Muslim extremism a convenient foil, so they allowed it to persist. Moreover, these corrupt, crony capitalist Arab regimes were hardly the ideal carriers for an alternative to bin Ladenism. To the contrary, it was their abusive behavior and vicious suffocation of any kind of independent moderate centrist parties that fueled the extremism even more.

Now the people themselves have taken down those regimes in Egypt and Tunisia, and they're rattling the ones in Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Oman and Iran. They are not doing it for us, or to answer bin Laden. They are doing it by themselves for themselves--because they want their freedom and to control their own destinies. But in doing so they have created a hugely powerful, modernizing challenge to bin Ladenism, which is why Al Qaeda today is tongue-tied. It's a beautiful thing to watch.

Al Qaeda's answer to modern-day autocracy was its version of the seventh-century Caliphate. But the people--from Tunisia to Yemen--have come up with their own answer to violent extremism and the abusive regimes we've been propping up. It's called democracy. They have a long way to go to lock it in. It may yet be hijacked by religious forces. But, for now, it is clear that the majority wants to build a future in the 21st century, not the seventh.

In other words, the Arab peoples have done for free, on their own and for their own reasons, everything that we were paying their regimes to do in the ``war on terrorism'' but they never did.

And that brings me back to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Last October, Transparency International rated the regime of President Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan as the second most corrupt in the world after Somalia's. That is the Afghan regime we will spend more than $110 billion in 2011 to support.

And tell me that Pakistan's intelligence service, ISI, which dominates Pakistani politics, isn't the twin of Hosni Mubarak's security service. Pakistan's military leaders play the same game Mubarak played with us for years. First, they whisper in our ears: ``Psst, without us, the radical Islamists will rule. So we may not be perfect, but we're the only thing standing in the way of the devil.'' In reality, though, they are nurturing the devil. The ISI is long alleged to have been fostering anti-Indian radical Muslim groups and masterminding the Afghan Taliban.

Apart from radical Islam, the other pretext the Pakistani military uses for its inordinate grip on power is the external enemy. Just as Arab regimes used the conflict with Israel for years to keep their people distracted and to justify huge military budgets, Pakistan's ISI tells itself, the Pakistani people and us that it can't stop sponsoring proxies in Afghanistan because of the ``threat'' from India.

Here's a secret: India is not going to invade Pakistan. It is an utterly bogus argument. India wants to focus on its own development, not owning Pakistan's problems. India has the second-largest Muslim population on the planet, more even than Pakistan. And while Indian Muslims are not without their economic and political grievances, they are, on the whole, integrated into India's democracy because it is a democracy. There are no Indian Muslims in Guantanamo Bay.

Finally, you did not need to dig very far in Egypt or Jordan to hear that one reason for the rebellion in Egypt and protests in Jordan was the in-your-face corruption and crony capitalism that everyone in the public knew about.

That same kind of pillaging of assets--natural resources, development aid, the meager savings of a million Kabul Bank depositors and crony contracts--has fueled a similar anger against the regime in Afghanistan and undermined our nation-building efforts there.

The truth is we can't do much to consolidate the democracy movements in Egypt and Tunisia. They'll have to make it work themselves. But we could do what we can, which is divert some of the $110 billion we're lavishing on the Afghan regime and the Pakistani Army and use it for debt relief, schools and scholarships to U.S. universities for young Egyptians and Tunisians who had the courage to take down the very kind of regimes we're still holding up in Kabul and Islamabad.

I know we can't just walk out of Afghanistan and Pakistan; there are good people, too, in both places. But our involvement in these two countries--150,000 troops to confront Al Qaeda--is totally out of proportion today with our interests and out of all sync with our values.

I reserve the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. KUCINICH. I would like to insert into the Record a report from the United Nations that says that 2010 was the worst year for civilian casualties in Afghanistan with nearly 3,000 civilians killed.

Afghanistan--Annual Report on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict 2010
Kabul, Afghanistan, March 2011

Executive Summary

The human cost of the armed conflict in Afghanistan grew in 2010. The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and UNAMA Human Rights recorded 2,777 civilian deaths in 2010, an increase of 15 per cent compared to 2009. Over the past four years, 8,832 civilians have been killed in the conflict, with civilian deaths increasing each year. The worsening human impact of the conflict reinforces the urgent need for parties to the conflict to do more to protect Afghan civilians, who, in 2010, were killed and injured in their homes and communities in even greater numbers. UNAMA Human Rights and the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission urge the Anti-Government Elements and Pro-Government Forces to strengthen civilian protection and fully comply legal obligations to minimize civilian casualties.

CIVILIAN DEATHS

Of the total number of 2,777 civilians killed in 2010, 2,080 deaths (75 per cent of total civilian deaths) were attributed to Anti-Government Elements, up 28 per cent from 2009. Suicide attacks and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) caused the most civilian deaths, totaling 1,141 deaths (55 per cent of civilian deaths attributed to Anti-Government Elements). The most alarming trend in 2010 was the huge number of civilians assassinated by Anti-Government Elements. Four hundred and sixty two civilians were assassinated representing an increase of more than 105 per cent compared to 2009. Half of all civilian assassinations occurred in southern Afghanistan. Helmand province saw a 588 per cent increase in the number of civilians assassinated by Anti-Government Elements and Kandahar province experienced a 248 per cent increase compared to 2009.

Afghan national security and international military forces (Pro-Government Forces) were linked to 440 deaths or 16 per cent of total civilian deaths, a reduction of 26 per cent from 2009. Aerial attacks claimed the largest percentage of civilian deaths caused by Pro-Government Forces in 2010, causing 171 deaths (39 per cent of the total number of civilian deaths attributed to Pro-Government Forces). Notably, there was a 52 per cent decline in civilian deaths from air attacks compared to 2009. Nine per cent of civilian deaths in 2010 could not be attributed to any party to the conflict.

I would like to put into the Record a report from the Afghanistan Rights Monitor relating to the number of civilians killed and wounded and displaced.

ARM Annual Report

Civilian Casualties of War

January--December 2010
Kabul, Afghanistan, February 2011

Executive Summary

Over nine years after the internationally-celebrated demise of the repressive Taliban regime in Afghanistan, civilian Afghans increasingly suffer from the armed violence and rights violations committed by various internal and external armed actors. More ordinary Afghans were killed and injured in 2010 than a year before. And while US officials dubbed Afghanistan as their longest foreign war, Afghans suffered it for 32 years relentlessly.

Almost everything related to the war surged in 2010: the combined numbers of Afghan and foreign forces surpassed 350,000; security incidents mounted to over 100 per week; more fighters from all warring side were killed; and the number of civilian people killed, wounded and displaced hit record levels.

Collecting information about every security incident and verifying the often conflicting reports about their impacts on civilian people were extremely difficult and risky. The war was as heatedly fought through propaganda and misinformation as it was in the battlefields thus making independent and impartial war reporting tricky and complex.

Despite all the challenges, we spared no efforts in gathering genuine information, facts and figures about the impacts of war on civilian communities. Our resources were limited and we lacked the luxury of strategic/political support from one or another side of the conflict because we stood by our professional integrity. We, however, managed to use our indigenous knowledge and delved into a wealth of local information available in the conflict-affected villages in order to seek more reliable facts about the war.

From 1 January to 31 December 2010, at least 2,421 civilian Afghans were killed and over 3,270 were injured in conflict-related security incidents across Afghanistan. This means everyday 6-7 noncombatants were killed and 8-9 were wounded in the war.

ARM does not claim that these numbers--although collected and verified to the best of our efforts--are comprehensive and perfect. Actual numbers of the civilian victims of war in 2010 could be higher than what we gathered and present in this report.

Unsurprisingly, about 63 percent of the reported civilian deaths and 70 percent of the injuries were attributed to the Armed Opposition Groups (AOGs) (Taliban, Hezb-e-Islami and the Haqqani Group); 21 percent of deaths (512 individuals) and 22 percent of injuries (655) were attributed to US/NATO forces; and 12 percent of deaths (278 individuals) and 7 percent (239) injuries were caused by pro-government Afghan troops and their allied local militia forces.

In addition to civilian casualties, hundreds of thousands of people were affected in various ways by the intensified armed violence in Afghanistan in 2010. Tens of thousands of people were forced out of their homes or deprived of healthcare and education services and livelihood opportunities due to the continuation of war in their home areas.

In November 2010, ARM was the first organization to voice concerns about the destruction of hundreds of houses, pomegranate trees and orchards in several districts in Kandahar Province by US-led forces as part of their counterinsurgency operations. In January 2011, an Afghan Government delegation reported the damage costs at over US$100 million. In compensation, US/NATO forces have doled out less than $2 million.

Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) are widely considered as the most lethal tools which killed over 690 civilians in 2010. However, as you will read in this report, there is virtually no information about the use of cluster munitions by US/NATO forces. Despite Afghanistan's accession to the international Anti-Cluster Bomb Treaty in 2008, the US military has allegedly maintained stockpiles of cluster munitions in Afghanistan.

A second key issue highlighted in this report is the emergence of the irregular armed groups in parts of Afghanistan which are backed by the Afghan Government and its foreign allies. These groups have been deplored as criminal and predatory by many Afghans and have already been accused of severe human rights violations such as child recruitment and sexual abuse.

I would like to put into the Record a report from the Congressional Research Service that the war in Afghanistan has cost over $454 billion to date.

INTRODUCTION: WAR FUNDING TO DATE

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States has initiated three military operations: Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) covering primarily Afghanistan and other small Global War on Terror (GWOT) operations ranging from the Philippines to Djibouti that began immediately after the 9/11 attacks and continues; Operation Noble Eagle (ONE) providing enhanced security for U.S. military bases and other homeland security that was launched in response to the attacks and continues at a modest level; and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) that began in the fall of 2002 with the buildup of troops for the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, continued with counter-insurgency and stability operations, and is slated to be renamed Operation New Dawn as U.S. troops focus on an advisory and assistance role.

In the ninth year of operations since the 9/11 attacks while troops are being withdrawn in Iraq and increased in Afghanistan, the cost of war continues to be a major issue including the total amount appropriated, the amount for each operation, average monthly spending rates, and the scope and duration of future costs. Information on costs is useful to Congress to assess the FY2010 Supplemental for war costs for the Department of Defense (DOD) and State/USAID, FY2011 war requests, conduct oversight of past war costs, and consider the longer-term costs implications of the buildup of troops in Afghanistan and potential problems in the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. This report analyzes war funding for the Defense Department and tracks funding for USAID and VA Medical funding.

TOTAL WAR FUNDING BY OPERATION

Based on DOD estimates and budget submissions, the cumulative total for funds appropriated from the 9/11 attacks through the FY2010 Supplemental Appropriations Acts for DOD, State/USAID and VA for medical costs for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and enhanced security is $1,121 billion including: $751 billion for Iraq; $336 billion for Afghanistan; $29 billion for enhanced security; and $6 billion unallocated.

Of this total, 67% is for Iraq, 30% for Afghanistan, 3% for enhanced security and 1/2% unallocated. Almost all of the funding for Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) is for Afghanistan.

This total includes funding provided in H.R. 4899/P.L. 111-212, the FY2010 Supplemental Appropriations Act enacted July 29, 2010.

Some 94% of this funding goes to the Department of Defense (DOD) to cover primarily incremental war-related costs, that is, costs that are in addition to DOD's normal peacetime activities. These costs include: military personnel funds to provide special pay for deployed personnel such as hostile fire or separation pay and to cover the additional cost of activating reservists, as well pay for expanding the Army and Marine Corps to reduce stress on troops; Operation and Maintenance (O&M) funds to transport troops and their equipment to Iraq and Afghanistan, conduct military operations, provide in-country support at bases, and repairing war-worn equipment; Procurement funding to cover buying new weapons systems to replace war losses, and upgrade equipment, pay modernization costs associated with expanding and changing the structure of the size of the Army and Marine Corps; Research, Development, Test & Evaluation costs to develop more effective ways to combat war threats such as roadside bombs; Working Capital Funds to cover expanding the size of inventories of spare parts and fuel to provide wartime support; and Military construction primarily to construct facilities in bases in Iraq or Afghanistan or neighboring countries.

In addition, the Administration initiated several programs specifically targeted at problems that developed in the Afghan and Iraq wars: Coalition support to cover the logistical costs of allies, primarily Pakistan, conducting counter-terror operations in support of U.S. efforts; Commanders Emergency Response Program (CERP) providing funds to individual commanders for small reconstruction projects and to pay local militias in Iraq and Afghanistan to counter insurgent or Taliban groups; Afghan Security Forces Fund and the Iraq Security Forces Fund to pay the cost of training, equipping and expanding the size of the Afghan and Iraqi armies and police forces; and Joint Improvised Explosive Device (IEDs) Defeat Fund to develop, buy, and deploy new devices to improve force protection for soldiers against roadside bombs or IEDs.

I would like to put into the RECORD an article by Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes in the Washington Post that says there is no question the Iraq war added substantially to the Federal debt.
[From the Times, Feb. 23, 2008]

The Three Trillion Dollar War--The Cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan Conflicts Have Grown to Staggering Proportions
(By Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes)

The Bush Administration was wrong about the benefits of the war and it was wrong about the costs of the war. The president and his advisers expected a quick, inexpensive conflict. Instead, we have a war that is costing more than anyone could have imagined.

The cost of direct US military operations--not even including long-term costs such as taking care of wounded veterans--already exceeds the cost of the 12-year war in Vietnam and is more than double the cost of the Korean War.

And, even in the best case scenario, these costs are projected to be almost ten times the cost of the first Gulf War, almost a third more than the cost of the Vietnam War, and twice that of the First World War. The only war in our history which cost more was the Second World War, when 16.3 million U.S. troops fought in a campaign lasting four years, at a total cost (in 2007 dollars, after adjusting for inflation) of about $5 trillion (that's $5 million million, or Ë2.5 million million). With virtually the entire armed forces committed to fighting the Germans and Japanese, the cost per troop (in today's dollars) was less than $100,000 in 2007 dollars. By contrast, the Iraq war is costing upward of $400,000 per troop.

Most Americans have yet to feel these costs. The price in blood has been paid by our voluntary military and by hired contractors. The price in treasure has, in a sense, been financed entirely by borrowing. Taxes have not been raised to pay for it--in fact, taxes on the rich have actually fallen. Deficit spending gives the illusion that the laws of economics can be repealed, that we can have both guns and butter. But of course the laws are not repealed. The costs of the war are real even if they have been deferred, possibly to another generation.

Background

American voters must choose: more benefits or more defence; $3 trillion budget leaves little for Bush to bank on; MoD forced to cut budget by Ë1.5bn; they're running our tanks on empty.

On the eve of war, there were discussions of the likely costs. Larry Lindsey, President Bush's economic adviser and head of the National Economic Council, suggested that they might reach $200 billion. But this estimate was dismissed as ``baloney'' by the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. His deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, suggested that postwar reconstruction could pay for itself through increased oil revenues. Mitch Daniels, the Office of Management and Budget director, and Secretary Rumsfeld estimated the costs in the range of $50 to $60 billion, a portion of which they believed would be financed by other countries. (Adjusting for inflation, in 2007 dollars, they were projecting costs of between $57 and $69 billion.) The tone of the entire administration was cavalier, as if the sums involved were minimal.

Even Lindsey, after noting that the war could cost $200 billion, went on to say: ``The successful prosecution of the war would be good for the economy.'' In retrospect, Lindsey grossly underestimated both the costs of the war itself and the costs to the economy. Assuming that Congress approves the rest of the $200 billion war supplemental requested for fiscal year 2008, as this book goes to press Congress will have appropriated a total of over $845 billion for military operations, reconstruction, embassy costs, enhanced security at US bases, and foreign aid programmes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As the fifth year of the war draws to a close, operating costs (spending on the war itself, what you might call ``running expenses'') for 2008 are projected to exceed $12.5 billion a month for Iraq alone, up from $4.4 billion in 2003, and with Afghanistan the total is $16 billion a month. Sixteen billion dollars is equal to the annual budget of the United Nations, or of all but 13 of the US states. Even so, it does not include the $500 billion we already spend per year on the regular expenses of the Defence Department. Nor does it include other hidden expenditures, such as intelligence gathering, or funds mixed in with the budgets of other departments.

Because there are so many costs that the Administration does not count, the total cost of the war is higher than the official number. For example, government officials frequently talk about the lives of our soldiers as priceless. But from a cost perspective, these ``priceless'' lives show up on the Pentagon ledger simply as $500,000--the amount paid out to survivors in death benefits and life insurance. After the war began, these were increased from $12,240 to $100,000 (death benefit) and from $250,000 to $400,000 (life insurance). Even these increased amounts are a fraction of what the survivors might have received had these individuals lost their lives in a senseless automobile accident. In areas such as health and safety regulation, the US Government values a life of a young man at the peak of his future earnings capacity in excess of $7 million--far greater than the amount that the military pays in death benefits. Using this figure, the cost of the nearly 4,000 American troops killed in Iraq adds up to some $28 billion.

The costs to society are obviously far larger than the numbers that show up on the government's budget. Another example of hidden costs is the understating of U.S. military casualties. The Defense Department's casualty statistics focus on casualties that result from hostile (combat) action--as determined by the military. Yet if a soldier is injured or dies in a night-time vehicle accident, this is officially dubbed ``noncombat related''--even though it may be too unsafe for soldiers to travel during daytime.

In fact, the Pentagon keeps two sets of books. The first is the official casualty list posted on the DOD Web site. The second, hard-to-find, set of data is available only on a different website and can be obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. This data shows that the total number of soldiers who have been wounded, injured, or suffered from disease is double the number wounded in combat. Some will argue that a percentage of these noncombat injuries might have happened even if the soldiers were not in Iraq. Our new research shows that the majority of these injuries and illnesses can be tied directly to service in the war.

From the unhealthy brew of emergency funding, multiple sets of books, and chronic underestimates of the resources required to prosecute the war, we have attempted to identify how much we have been spending--and how much we will, in the end, likely have to spend. The figure we arrive at is more than $3 trillion. Our calculations are based on conservative assumptions. They are conceptually simple, even if occasionally technically complicated. A $3 trillion figure for the total cost strikes us as judicious, and probably errs on the low side. Needless to say, this number represents the cost only to the United States. It does not reflect the enormous cost to the rest of the world, or to Iraq.

From the beginning, the United Kingdom has played a pivotal role--strategic, military, and political--in the Iraq conflict. Militarily, the UK contributed 46,000 troops, 10 per cent of the total. Unsurprisingly, then, the British experience in Iraq has paralleled that of America: rising casualties, increasing operating costs, poor transparency over where the money is going, overstretched military resources, and scandals over the squalid conditions and inadequate medical care for some severely wounded veterans.

Before the war, Gordon Brown set aside u 1 billion for war spending. As of late 2007, the UK had spent an estimated u 7 billion in direct operating expenditures in Iraq and Afghanistan (76 per cent of it in Iraq). This includes money from a supplemental ``special reserve'', plus additional spending from the Ministry of Defense.

The special reserve comes on top of the UK's regular defense budget. The British system is particularly opaque: funds from the special reserve are ``drawn down'' by the Ministry of Defense when required, without specific approval by Parliament. As a result, British citizens have little clarity about how much is actually being spent.

In addition, the social costs in the UK are similar to those in the U.S.--families who leave jobs to care for wounded soldiers, and diminished quality of life for those thousands left with disabilities.

By the same token, there are macroeconomic costs to the UK as there have been to America, though the long-term costs may be less, for two reasons. First, Britain did not have the same policy of fiscal profligacy; and second, until 2005, the United Kingdom was a net oil exporter.

We have assumed that British forces in Iraq are reduced to 2,500 this year and remain at that level until 2010. We expect that British forces in Afghanistan will increase slightly, from 7,000 to 8,000 in 2008, and remain stable for three years. The House of Commons Defense Committee has recently found that despite the cut in troop levels, Iraq war costs will increase by 2 per cent this year and personnel costs will decrease by only 5 per cent. Meanwhile, the cost of military operations in Afghanistan is due to rise by 39 per cent. The estimates in our model may be significantly too low if these patterns continue.

Based on assumptions set out in our book, the budgetary cost to the UK of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through 2010 will total more than u 18 billion. If we include the social costs, the total impact on the UK will exceed u 20 billion.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Barney Frank.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record a report from the Afghanistan Study Group that says that the current U.S. military effort is helping to fuel the very insurgency we are attempting to defeat.

SUMMARY

At nine years and counting, the U.S. war in Afghanistan is the longest in our history, surpassing even the Vietnam War, and it will shortly surpass the Soviet Union's own extended military campaign there. With the surge, it will cost the U.S. taxpayers nearly $100 billion per year, a sum roughly seven times larger than Afghanistan's annual gross national product (GNP) of $14 billion and greater than the total annual cost of the new U.S. health insurance program. Thousands of American and allied personnel have been killed or gravely wounded.

The U.S. interests at stake in Afghanistan do not warrant this level of sacrifice. President Obama justified expanding our commitment by saying the goal was eradicating Al Qaeda. Yet Al Qaeda is no longer a significant presence in Afghanistan, and there are only some 400 hard-core Al Qaeda members remaining in the entire Af/Pak theater, most of them hiding in Pakistan's northwest provinces.

America's armed forces have fought bravely and well, and their dedication is unquestioned. But we should not ask them to make sacrifices unnecessary to our core national interests, particularly when doing so threatens long-term needs and priorities both at home and abroad.

Instead of toppling terrorists, America's Afghan war has become an ambitious and fruitless effort at ``nation-building.'' We are mired in a civil war in Afghanistan and are struggling to establish an effective central government in a country that has long been fragmented and decentralized.

No matter how desirable this objective might be in the abstract, it is not essential to U.S. security and it is not a goal for which the U.S. military is well suited. There is no clear definition of what would comprise ``success'' in this endeavor. Creating a unified Afghan state would require committing many more American lives and hundreds of billions of additional U.S. dollars for many years to come.

As the WikiLeaks war diary comprised of more than 91,000 secret reports on the Afghanistan War makes clear, any sense of American and allied progress in the conflict has been undermined by revelations that many more civilian deaths have occurred than have been officially acknowledged as the result of U.S. and allied strike accidents. The Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence continued to provide logistics and financial support to the Afghan Taliban even as U.S. soldiers were fighting these units. It is clear that Karzai government affiliates and appointees in rural Afghanistan have often proven to be more corrupt and ruthless than the Taliban.

Prospects for success are dim. As former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger recently warned, ``Afghanistan has never been pacified by foreign forces.'' The 2010 spring offensive in Marjah was inconclusive, and a supposedly ``decisive'' summer offensive in Kandahar has been delayed and the expectations downgraded. U.S. and allied casualties reached an all-time high in July, and several NATO allies have announced plans to withdraw their own forces.

The conflict in Afghanistan is commonly perceived as a struggle between the Karzai government and an insurgent Taliban movement, allied with international terrorists, that is seeking to overthrow that government. In fact, the conflict is a civil war about power-sharing with lines of contention that are 1) partly ethnic, chiefly, but not exclusively, between Pashtuns who dominate the south and other ethnicities such as Tajiks and Uzbeks who are more prevalent in the north, 2) partly rural vs. urban, particularly within the Pashtun community, and 3) partly sectarian.

The Afghanistan conflict also includes the influence of surrounding nations with a desire to advance their own interests--including India, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and others. And with the U.S. intervention in force, the conflict includes resistance to what is seen as foreign military occupation.

Resolving the conflict in Afghanistan has primarily to do with resolving the distribution of power among these factions and between the central government and the provinces, and with appropriately decentralizing authority.

Negotiated resolution of these conflicts will reduce the influence of extremists more readily than military action will. The Taliban itself is not a unified movement but instead a label that is applied to many armed groups and individuals that are only loosely aligned and do not necessarily have a fondness for the fundamentalist ideology of the most prominent Taliban leaders.

The Study Group believes the war in Afghanistan has reached a critical crossroads. Our current path promises to have limited impact on the civil war while taking more American lives and contributing to skyrocketing taxpayer debt. We conclude that a fundamentally new direction is needed, one that recognizes the United States' legitimate interests in Central Asia and is fashioned to advance them. Far from admitting ``defeat,'' the new way forward acknowledges the manifold limitations of a military solution in a region where our interests lie in political stability. Our recommended policy shifts our resources to focus on U.S. foreign policy strengths in concert with the international community to promote reconciliation among the warring parties, advance economic development, and encourage region-wide diplomatic engagement.

We base these conclusions on the following key points raised in the Study Group's research and discussions:

The United States has only two vital interests in the Af/Pak region: 1) preventing Afghanistan from being a ``safe haven'' from which Al Qaeda or other extremists can organize more effective attacks on the U.S. homeland; and 2) ensuring that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal does not fall into hostile hands.

Protecting our interests does not require a U.S. military victory over the Taliban. A Taliban takeover is unlikely even if the United States reduces its military commitment. The Taliban is a rural insurgency rooted primarily in Afghanistan's Pashtun population, and succeeded due in some part to the disenfranchisement of rural Pashtuns. The Taliban's seizure of power in the 1990s was due to an unusual set of circumstances that no longer exist and are unlikely to be repeated.

There is no significant Al Qaeda presence in Afghanistan today, and the risk of a new ``safe haven'' there under more ``friendly'' Taliban rule is overstated. Should an Al Qaeda cell regroup in Afghanistan, the U.S. would have residual military capability in the region sufficient to track and destroy it.

Al Qaeda sympathizers are now present in many locations globally, and defeating the Taliban will have little effect on Al Qaeda's global reach. The ongoing threat from Al Qaeda is better met via specific counter-terrorism measures, a reduced U.S. military ``footprint'' in the Islamic world, and diplomatic efforts to improve America's overall image and undermine international support for militant extremism.

Given our present economic circumstances, reducing the staggering costs of the Afghan war is an urgent priority. Maintaining the long-term health of the U.S. economy is just as important to American strength and security as protecting U.S. soil from enemy (including terrorist) attacks.

The continuation of an ambitious U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan will likely work against U.S. interests. A large U.S. presence fosters local (especially Pashtun) resentment and aids Taliban recruiting. It also fosters dependence on the part of our Afghan partners and encourages closer cooperation among a disparate array of extremist groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan alike.

Past efforts to centralize power in Afghanistan have provoked the same sort of local resistance that is convulsing Afghanistan today. There is ample evidence that this effort will join others in a long line of failed incursions.

Although the United States should support democratic rule, human rights and economic development, its capacity to mold other societies is inherently limited. The costs of trying should be weighed against our need to counter global terrorist threats directly, reduce America's $1.4 trillion budget deficit, repair eroding U.S. infrastructure, and other critical national purposes. Our support of these issues will be better achieved as part of a coordinated international group with which expenses and burdens can be shared.

The bottom line is clear: Our vital interests in Afghanistan are limited and military victory is not the key to achieving them.

On the contrary, waging a lengthy counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan may well do more to aid Taliban recruiting than to dismantle the group, help spread conflict further into Pakistan, unify radical groups that might otherwise be quarreling amongst themselves, threaten the long-term health of the U.S. economy, and prevent the U.S. government from turning its full attention to other pressing problems.

The more promising path for the U.S. in the Af/Pak region would reverse the recent escalation and move away from a counterinsurgency effort that is neither necessary nor likely to succeed. Instead, the U.S. should:

1. Emphasize power-sharing and political inclusion. The U.S. should fast-track a peace process designed to decentralize power within Afghanistan and encourage a power-sharing balance among the principal parties.

2. Downsize and eventually end military operations in southern Afghanistan, and reduce the U.S. military footprint. The U.S. should draw down its military presence, which radicalizes many Pashtuns and is an important aid to Taliban recruitment.

3. Focus security efforts on Al Qaeda and Domestic Security. Special forces, intelligence assets, and other U.S. capabilities should continue to seek out and target known Al Qaeda cells in the region. They can be ready to go after Al Qaeda should they attempt to relocate elsewhere or build new training facilities. In addition, part of the savings from our drawdown should be reallocated to bolster U.S. domestic security efforts and to track nuclear weapons globally.

4. Encourage economic development. Because destitute states can become incubators for terrorism, drug and human trafficking, and other illicit activities, efforts at reconciliation should be paired with an internationally-led effort to develop Afghanistan's economy.

5. Engage regional and global stakeholders in a diplomatic effort designed to guarantee Afghan neutrality and foster regional stability. Despite their considerable differences, neighboring states such as India, Pakistan, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia share a common interest in preventing Afghanistan from being dominated by any single power or being a permanently failed state that exports instability to others.

We believe this strategy will best serve the interests of women in Afghanistan as well. The worst thing for women is for Afghanistan to remain paralyzed in a civil war in which there evolves no organically rooted support for their social advancement.

The remainder of this report elaborates the logic behind these recommendations. It begins by summarizing U.S. vital interests, including our limited interests in Afghanistan itself and in the region more broadly. It then considers why the current strategy is failing and why the situation is unlikely to improve even under a new commander. The final section outlines ``A New Way Forward'' and explains how a radically different approach can achieve core U.S. goals at an acceptable cost.

AMERICA'S INTERESTS

The central goal of U.S. foreign and defense policy is to ensure the safety and prosperity of the American people. In practical terms, this means deterring or thwarting direct attacks on the U.S. homeland, while at the same time maintaining the long-term health of the U.S. economy. A sound economy is the foundation of all national power, and it is critical to our ability to shape the global order and preserve our core values and independence over the long-term. The United States must therefore avoid an open-ended commitment in Afghanistan, especially when the costs of military engagement exceed the likely benefits.

What Is at Stake in Afghanistan?

The United States has only two vital strategic interests in Afghanistan. Its first strategic interest is to reduce the threat of successful terrorist attacks against the United States. In operational terms, the goal is to prevent Afghanistan from again becoming a ``safe haven'' that could significantly enhance Al Qaeda's ability to organize and conduct attacks on the United States.

The United States drove Al Qaeda out of Afghanistan in 2002, and Al Qaeda's presence in Afghanistan is now negligible. Al Qaeda's remaining founders are believed to be in hiding in northwest Pakistan, though affiliated cells are now active in Somalia, Yemen, and several other countries. These developments suggest that even a successful counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan would have only a limited effect on Al Qaeda's ability to conduct terrorist attacks against the United States and its allies. To the extent that our presence facilitates jihadi recruitment and draws resources away from focused counter-terror efforts, it may even be counterproductive.

The second vital U.S. interest is to keep the conflict in Afghanistan from sowing instability elsewhere in Central Asia. Such discord might one day threaten the stability of the Pakistani state and the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. If the Pakistani government were to fall to radical extremists, or if terrorists were able to steal or seize either a weapon or sufficient nuclear material, then the danger of a nuclear terrorist incident would increase significantly. It is therefore important that our strategy in Afghanistan avoids making the situation in Pakistan worse.

Fortunately, the danger of a radical takeover of the Pakistani government is small. Islamist extremism in Pakistan is concentrated within the tribal areas in its northwest frontier, and largely confined to its Pashtun minority (which comprises about 15 percent of the population). The Pakistani army is primarily Punjabi (roughly 44 percent of the population) and remains loyal. At present, therefore, this second strategic interest is not seriously threatened.

Beyond these vital strategic interests, the United States also favors democratic rule, human rights, and economic development. These goals are consistent with traditional U.S. values and reflect a longstanding belief that democracy and the rule of law are preferable to authoritarianism. The U.S. believes that stable and prosperous democracies are less likely to threaten their neighbors or to challenge core U.S. interests. Helping the Afghan people rebuild after decades of war is also appealing on purely moral grounds.

Yet these latter goals, however worthy in themselves, do not justify a costly and open-ended commitment to war in Afghanistan. Afghanistan remains one of the poorest countries in the world and is of little intrinsic strategic value to the United States. (Recent reports of sizeable mineral resources do not alter this basic reality.) Afghan society is divided into several distinct ethnic groups with a long history of conflict, it lacks strong democratic traditions, and there is a deeply rooted suspicion of foreign interference.

It follows that a strategy for Afghanistan must rest on a clear-eyed assessment of U.S. interests and a realistic appraisal of what outside help can and cannot accomplish. It must also take care to ensure that specific policy actions do not undermine the vital interests identified above. The current U.S. strategy has lost sight of these considerations, which is why our war effort there is faltering.

Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record an article by Amanda Terkel of the Huffington Post that says that military commanders expect the United States to have a significant presence in Afghanistan for another 8 to 10 years, this according to a Member of Congress who was there.
[From huffingtonpost.com, Mar. 10, 2011]

Commanders Expect a `Significant' U.S. Presence in Afghanistan for 8 to 10 More Years: Dem Rep

(By Amanda Terkel)

WASHINGTON.--Military commanders expect the United States to have a ``significant presence'' in Afghanistan for another eight to 10 years, according to a member of Congress who just returned from a trip to the region and has introduced legislation calling for a full accounting of the costs of the war.

Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Iowa) spent his congressional four-day weekend on a fact-finding trip to Afghanistan, meeting with Gen. David Petraeus, Amb. Karl Eikenberry and members of the Iowa National Guard. In an interview with The Huffington Post on Wednesday, Braley said that while there has clearly been some significant progress, challenges will remain even after 2014, when combat operations are supposed to end.

``It was very clear that under the best-case scenario, there will be some significant U.S. presence, according to them, for the next eight to 10 years,'' Braley said, adding that he expected that presence to include both military and civilian personnel. ``That includes a very clear commitment that the drawdown will begin on schedule in July, and that the targeted date of being out with most combat forces by 2014 will be met. They continue to maintain that they are on pace to maintain those objectives.''

The key transition benchmark, Braley said, will be the readiness of local law enforcement to assume principal responsibility of what are now largely U.S. security operations. ``I think that the whole point is to transition the burden of maintaining security to the Afghan army and Afghan police, but there would be an obviously advisory role, they anticipate, for the U.S. military for the foreseeable future,'' he said. ``The big question right now is when they start drawing down in July, where they're going to do that and the size of the redeployment.''

Pentagon spokespersons told The Huffington Post that the Defense Department is not ready to discuss specific timelines at this point, and so far, no U.S. military or NATO official has publicly cited the time frame mentioned by Braley.

On Monday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was also in Afghanistan to meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, said that both countries agree U.S. involvement should continue beyond 2014, although he didn't specify at what levels or for how long.

``I would say that if the Afghan people and the Afghan government are interested in an ongoing security relationship and some sort of an ongoing security presence--with the permission of the Afghan government--the United States, I think, is open to the possibility of having some presence here in terms of training and assistance, perhaps making use of facilities made available to us by the Afghan government for those purposes,'' said Gates. ``We have no interest in permanent bases, but if the Afghans want us here, we are certainly prepared to contemplate that,''

While in Afghanistan, Gates also said that there were unlikely to be U.S. withdrawals in July from the hard-fought areas of the south--Helmand and Kandahar provinces. But he added, ``While no decisions on numbers have been made, in my view, we will be well-positioned to begin drawing down some U.S. and coalition forces this July, even as we redeploy others to different areas of the country.''

Braley said that one of the most profound comments made by Petraeus during their meeting was that there wasn't the ``right combination at play'' in Afghanistan until the fall of last year, which accounts for the slow pace of progress. Incidentally, Petraeus took command in Afghanistan from ousted Gen. Stanley McChrystal in June.

``One of the significant challenges that you face is dealing with a sovereign state that was sovereign in name only, which was a comment that Ambassador Eikenberry made,'' said Braley. ``You've got a country with a high illiteracy rate, so that when Afghan army and police are trained, they are also being taught to read and basic math skills. It's a very long-term project to get Afghanistan to the point where it can sustain itself economically. That doesn't even take into account the activities that are going on in Pakistan, which have enormous implications in Afghanistan.''

On Wednesday, Braley, a member of the House Committee on Veterans. Affairs, introduced the True Cost of War Act, which would require the president and pertinent cabinet members to submit a written report to Congress on the long-term human and financial costs of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan through 2020.

Braley said this legislation has been a priority of his since he came to Congress in 2006, in large part because of the toll the Iraq war was taking on the country.

``The whole point of my legislation is that the American people--especially at a time when Republicans have been pushing all these budget cuts--are entitled to know what the true costs are, because the young men and women coming back with these injuries certainly have a clear understanding of what they are,'' he said.

Braley added that on his trip, he brought up this issue at nearly every single briefing he attended, recounting the experiences he had just before his trip visiting wounded soldiers and their families who had been treated at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. and the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in D.C.

``I wanted them to realize that in a single congressional district in Iowa, the implications of this war were enormous,'' said Braley. ``I have to tell you that I was very impressed by how moved the people I shared those experiences with were. They tend to get caught up in talking policies, numbers and long-term objectives, and I think they appreciated the fact that I brought it down to a very real, human level.''

On Monday, Rasmussen released a poll finding that for the first time, a majority of Americans want U.S. troops withdrawn from Afghanistan within one year.

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Mr. KUCINICH. I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, Members of this House are talking about cutting $100 billion from the budget. Well, we can trim the Federal budget of more than $100 billion in out-of-control spending.

Members have been very concerned about out-of-control spending. They are calling for a reduction in the Federal budget. Cutting spending on the war in Afghanistan would solve their concerns. Spending on the war is greater than the minimum amount of Federal spending certain Members believe must be cut from the budget for fiscal responsibility.

In the fiscal year 2012 budget request, the President has requested $113.4 billion to continue the war. In fact, congressional appropriations of over $100 billion for the Afghanistan war has been the rule in recent years; and as we've seen, there is talk of extending this war for another 10 years. $1 trillion, perhaps?

Spending on the Afghanistan war has increased much faster than overall government spending in recent years. Consider a comparison of the average annual rates of growth of government spending versus the Afghanistan war spending from 2008 through 2011.

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Mr. KUCINICH. I yield myself 10 more seconds.

Overall government spending has increased 9 percent from 2008 through 2011, but Afghanistan war spending has increased 25 percent. If you want to save $100 billion, then vote for this resolution.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Filner).

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. KUCINICH. I would like to include in the Record an article on AlterNet by Tom Engelhardt which discusses the open-ended nature of the Afghanistan war.

How To Schedule a War: The Incredible Shrinking Withdrawal Date
(By Tom Engelhardt)

Going, going, gone! You can almost hear the announcer's voice throbbing with excitement, only we're not talking about home runs here, but about the disappearing date on which, for the United States and its military, the Afghan War will officially end.

Practically speaking, the answer to when it will be over is: just this side of never. If you take the word of our Afghan War commander, the secretary of defense, and top officials of the Obama administration and NATO, we're not leaving any time soon. As with any clever time traveler, every date that's set always contains a verbal escape hatch into the future.

In my 1950s childhood, there was a cheesy (if thrilling) sci-fi flick, The Incredible Shrinking Man, about a fellow who passed through a radioactive cloud in the Pacific Ocean and soon noticed that his suits were too big for him. Next thing you knew, he was living in a doll house, holding off his pet cat, and fighting an ordinary spider transformed into a monster. Finally, he disappeared entirely leaving behind only a sonorous voice to tell us that he had entered a universe where ``the unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet, like the closing of a gigantic circle.''

In recent weeks, without a radioactive cloud in sight, the date for serious drawdowns of American troops in Afghanistan has followed a similar path toward the vanishing point and is now threatening to disappear ``over the horizon'' (a place where, we are regularly told, American troops will lurk once they have finally handed their duties over to the Afghan forces they are training).

If you remember, back in December 2009 President Obama spoke of July 2011 as a firm date to ``begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan,'' the moment assumedly when the beginning of the end of the war would come into sight. In July of this year, Afghan President Hamid Karzai spoke of 2014 as the date when Afghan security forces ``will be responsible for all military and law enforcement operations throughout our country.''

Administration officials, anxious about the effect that 2011 date was having on an American public grown weary of an unpopular war and on an enemy waiting for us to depart, grabbed Karzai's date and ran with it (leaving many of his caveats about the war the Americans were fighting, particularly his desire to reduce the American presence, in the dust). Now, 2014 is hyped as the new 2011.

It has, in fact, been widely reported that Obama officials have been working in concert to ``play down'' the president's 2011 date, while refocusing attention on 2014. In recent weeks, top administration officials have been little short of voluble on the subject. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (``We're not getting out. We're talking about probably a years-long process.''), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mike Mullen, attending a security conference in Australia, all ``cited 2014 ..... as the key date for handing over the defense of Afghanistan to the Afghans themselves.'' The New York Times headlined its report on the suddenly prominent change in timing this way: ``U.S. Tweaks Message on Troops in Afghanistan.''

Quite a tweak. Added Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller: ``The message shift is effectively a victory for the military, which has long said the July 2011 deadline undermined its mission by making Afghans reluctant to work with troops perceived to be leaving shortly.''

INFLECTION POINTS AND ASPIRATIONAL GOALS

Barely had 2014 risen into the headlines, however, before that date, too, began to be chipped away. As a start, it turned out that American planners weren't talking about just any old day in 2014, but its last one. As Lieutenant General William Caldwell, head of the NATO training program for Afghan security forces, put it while holding a Q&A with a group of bloggers, ``They're talking about December 31st, 2014. It's the end of December in 2014 ..... that [Afghan] President Karzai has said they want Afghan security forces in the lead.''

Nor, officials rushed to say, was anyone talking about 2014 as a date for all American troops to head for the exits, just ``combat troops''--and maybe not even all of them. Possibly tens of thousands of trainers and other so-called non-combat forces would stay on to help with the ``transition process.'' This follows the Iraq pattern where 50,000 American troops remain after the departure of U.S. ``combat'' forces to great media fanfare. Richard Holbrooke, Obama's Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, was typical in calling for ``the substantial combat forces [to] be phased out at the end of 2014, four years from now.'' (Note the usual verbal escape hatch, in this case ``substantial,'' lurking in his statement.)

Last Saturday, behind ``closed doors'' at a NATO summit in Lisbon, Portugal, Afghan War commander General David Petraeus presented European leaders with a ``phased four-year plan'' to ``wind down American and allied fighting in Afghanistan.'' Not surprisingly, it had the end of 2014 in its sights and the president quickly confirmed that ``transition'' date, even while opening plenty of post-2014 wiggle room. By then, as he described it, ``our footprint'' would only be ``significantly reduced.'' (He also claimed that, post-2014, the U.S. would be maintaining a ``counterterrorism capability'' in Afghanistan--and Iraq--for which ``platforms to ..... execute ..... counterterrorism operations,'' assumedly bases, would be needed.)

Meanwhile, unnamed ``senior U.S. officials'' in Lisbon were clearly buttonholing reporters to ``cast doubt on whether the United States, the dominant power in the 28-nation alliance, would end its own combat mission before 2015.'' As always, the usual qualifying phrases were profusely in evidence.

Throughout these weeks, the ``tweaking''--that is, the further chipping away at 2014 as a hard and fast date for anything--only continued. Mark Sedwill, NATO's civilian counterpart to U.S. commander General David Petraeus, insisted that 2014 was nothing more than ``an inflection point'' in an ever more drawn-out drawdown process. That process, he insisted, would likely extend to ``2015 and beyond,'' which, of course, put 2016 officially into play. And keep in mind that this is only for combat troops, not those assigned to ``train and support'' or keep ``a strategic over watch'' on Afghan forces.

On the eve of NATO's Lisbon meeting, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell, waxing near poetic, declared 2014 nothing more than an ``aspirational goal,'' rather than an actual deadline. As the conference began, NATO's Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen insisted that the alliance would be committed in Afghanistan ``as long as it takes.'' And new British Chief of the Defense Staff General Sir David Richards suggested that, given the difficulty of ever defeating the Taliban (or al-Qaeda) militarily, NATO should be preparing plans to maintain a role for its troops for the next 30 to 40 years.

WAR EXTENDER

Here, then, is a brief history of American time in Afghanistan. After all, this isn't our first Afghan War, but our second. The first, the CIA's anti-Soviet jihad (in which the Agency funded a number of the fundamentalist extremists we're now fighting in the second), lasted a decade, from 1980 until 1989 when the Soviets withdrew in defeat.

In October 2001, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration launched America's second Afghan War, taking Kabul that November as the Taliban dissolved. The power of the American military to achieve quick and total victory seemed undeniable, even after Osama bin Laden slipped out of Tora Bora that December and escaped into Pakistan's tribal borderlands.

However, it evidently never crossed the minds of President Bush's top officials to simply declare victory and get out. Instead, as the U.S. would do in Iraq after the invasion of 2003, the Pentagon started building a new infrastructure of military bases (in this case, on the ruins of the old Soviet base infrastructure). At the same time, the former Cold Warriors in Washington let their dreams about pushing the former commies of the former Soviet Union out of the former soviet socialist republics of Central Asia, places where, everyone knew, you could just about swim in black gold and run geopolitically wild.

Then, when the invasion of Iraq was launched in March 2003, Afghanistan, still a ``war'' (if barely) was forgotten, while the Taliban returned to the field, built up their strength, and launched an insurgency that has only gained momentum to this moment. In 2008, before leaving office, George W. Bush bumped his favorite general, Iraq surge commander Petraeus, upstairs to become the head of the Central Command which oversees America's war zones in the Greater Middle East, including Afghanistan.

Already the guru of counterinsurgency (known familiarly as COIN), Petraeus had, in 2006, overseen the production of the military's new war-fighting bible, a how-to manual dusted off from the Vietnam era's failed version of COIN and made new and magical again. In June 2010, eight and a half years into our Second Afghan War, at President Obama's request, Petraeus took over as Afghan War commander. It was clear then that time was short--with an administration review of Afghan war strategy coming up at year's end and results needed quickly. The American war was also in terrible shape.

In the new COIN-ish U.S. Army, however, it is a dogma of almost biblical faith that counterinsurgencies don't produce quick results; that, to be successful, they must be pursued for years on end. As Petraeus put it back in 2007 when talking about Iraq, ``[T]ypically, I think historically, counterinsurgency operations have gone at least nine or 10 years.'' Recently, in an interview with Martha Raddatz of ABC News, he made a nod toward exactly the same timeframe for Afghanistan, one accepted as bedrock knowledge in the world of the COINistas.

What this meant was that, whether as CENTCOM commander or Afghan War commander, Petraeus was looking for two potentially contradictory results at the same time. Somehow, he needed to wrest those nine to 10 years of war-fighting from a president looking for a tighter schedule and, in a war going terribly sour, he needed almost instant evidence of ``progress'' that would fit the president's coming December ``review'' of the war and might pacify unhappy publics in the U.S. and Europe.

Now let's do the math. At the moment, depending on how you care to count, we are in the 10th year of our second Afghan War or the 20th year of war interruptus. Since June 2009, Petraeus and various helpers have stretched the schedule to 2014 for (most) American combat troops and at least 2015 or 2016 for the rest. If you were to start counting from the president's December surge address, that's potentially seven more years. In other words, we're now talking about either a 15-year war or an on-and-off again quarter-century one. All evidence shows that the Pentagon's war planners would like to extend those already vague dates even further into the future.

ON TICKING CLOCKS IN WASHINGTON AND KABUL

Up to now, only one of General Petraeus's two campaigns has been under discussion here: the other one, fought out these last years not in Afghanistan, but in Washington and NATO capitals, over how to schedule a war. Think of it as the war for a free hand in determining how long the Afghan War is to be fought.

It has been run from General Petraeus's headquarters in Kabul, the giant five-sided military headquarters on the Potomac presided over by Secretary of Defense Gates, and various think-tanks filled with America's militarized intelligentsia scattered around Washington--and it has proven a classically successful ``clear, hold, build'' counterinsurgency operation. Pacification in Washington and a number of European capitals has occurred with remarkably few casualties. (Former Afghan war commander General Stanley McChrystal, axed by the president for insubordination, has been the exception, not the rule.)

Slowly but decisively, Petraeus and company constricted President Obama's war-planning choices to two options: more and yet more. In late 2009, the president agreed to that second surge of troops (the first had been announced that March), not to speak of CIA agents, drones, private contractors, and State Department and other civilian government employees. In his December ``surge'' address at West Point (for the nation but visibly to the military), Obama had the temerity as commander-in-chief to name a specific, soon-to-arrive date--July 2011--for beginning a serious troop drawdown. It was then that the COIN campaign in Washington ramped up into high gear with the goal of driving the prospective end of the war back by years.

It took bare hours after the president's address for administration officials to begin leaking to media sources that his drawdown would be ``conditions based''--a phrase guaranteed to suck the meaning out of any deadline. (The president had indeed acknowledged in his address that his administration would take into account ``conditions on the ground.'') Soon, the Secretary of Defense and others took to the airwaves in a months-long campaign emphasizing that drawdown in Afghanistan didn't really mean drawdown, that leaving by no means meant leaving, and that the future was endlessly open to interpretation.

With the ratification in Lisbon of that 2014 date ``and beyond,'' the political clocks--an image General Petraeus loves--in Washington, European capitals, and American Kabul are now ticking more or less in unison.

Two other ``clocks'' are, however, ticking more like bombs. If counterinsurgency is a hearts and minds campaign, then the other target of General Petraeus's first COIN campaign has been the restive hearts and minds of the American and European publics. Last year a Dutch government fell over popular opposition to Afghanistan and, even as NATO met last weekend, thousands of antiwar protestors marched in London and Lisbon. Europeans generally want out and their governments know it, but (as has been true since 1945) the continent's leaders have no idea how to say ``no'' to Washington. In the U.S., too, the Afghan war grows ever more unpopular, and while it was forgotten during the election season, no politician should count on that phenomenon lasting forever.

And then, of course, there's the literal ticking bomb, the actual war in Afghanistan. In that campaign, despite a drumbeat of American/NATO publicity about ``progress,'' the news has been grim indeed. American and NATO casualties have been higher this year than at any other moment in the war; the Taliban seems if anything more entrenched in more parts of the country; the Afghan public, ever more puzzled and less happy with foreign troops and contractors traipsing across the land; and Hamid Karzai, the president of the country, sensing a situation gone truly sour, has been regularly challenging the way General Petraeus is fighting the war in his country. (The nerve!)

No less unsettling, General Petraeus himself has seemed unnerved. He was declared ``irked'' by Karzai's comments and was said to have warned Afghan officials that their president's criticism might be making his ``own position `untenable,' '' which was taken as a resignation threat. Meanwhile, the COIN-meister was in the process of imposing a new battle plan on Afghanistan that leaves counterinsurgency (at least as usually described) in a roadside ditch. No more is the byword ``protect the people,'' or ``clear, hold, build''; now, it's smash, kill, destroy. The war commander has loosed American firepower in a major way in the Taliban strongholds of southern Afghanistan.

Early this year, then-commander McChrystal had significantly cut back on U.S. air strikes as a COIN-ish measure meant to lessen civilian casualties. No longer. In a striking reversal, air power has been called in--and in a big way. In October, U.S. planes launched missiles or bombs on 1,000 separate Afghan missions, numbers seldom seen since the 2001 invasion. The Army has similarly loosed its massively powerful High Mobility Artillery Rocket System in the area around the southern city of Kandahar. Civilian deaths are rising rapidly.

Mr. KUCINICH. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

We keep coming back to 9/11. We're near the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11, and which was predicated on a lie, no weapons of mass destruction. The war in Afghanistan is based on a misreading of history. The Soviet Union understood that at hard cost. The occupation is fueling an insurgency.

Now, Jeremy Scahill in the Nation points out that Taliban leaders have said they've seen a swelling in Taliban ranks since 9/11 in part attributed to the widely held perception that the Karzai government is corrupt and illegitimate, and that Afghans, primarily ethnic Pashtuns, want foreign occupation forces out. They're only fighting to make foreigners leave Afghanistan. Occupation fuels insurgency. That is an ironclad fact.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

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Mr. KUCINICH. I want to point out that for those Members who are concerned about the finances of this government, U.S. debt soared from $6.4 trillion in March 2003 to $10 trillion.

Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winner economist, and his associate, Linda Bilmes, pointed out that at least a quarter of that increase is directly attributable to the war in Iraq. As a result of two costly wars, funded by debt, our fiscal house was in abysmal shape even before the financial crisis, and those fiscal woes compounded the downturn. The global financial crisis was due at least in part--this is a quote--to the war.

Now they continue. The Iraq war didn't just contribute to the severity of the fiscal crisis, though it kept us from responding to it effectively. So, my friends, finance is a national security issue. If we are broke, we can't defend ourselves.

I yield 1 1/2 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).

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Mr. KUCINICH. I would like to insert into the Record a recent report from The Washington Post that says that we've seen the steepest increase in lost limbs among soldiers and marines occurring in the last 4 months.
[From the Washington Post, Mar. 9, 2011]

Report Reveals Steep Increase in War Amputations Last Fall
(By David Brown)

The majority of American soldiers undergoing amputation for war wounds last fall lost more than one limb, according to data presented Tuesday to the Defense Health Board, a committee of experts that advises the Defense Department on medical matters.

Military officials had previously released data showing that amputations, and especially multiple-limb losses, increased last year. The information presented to the 20-member board is the first evidence that the steepest increase occurred over the last four months of the year.

In September 2010, about two-thirds of all war-theater amputation operations involved a single limb (usually a leg) and one-third two or more limbs. The split was roughly 50-50 in October and November. In December, only one-quarter of amputation surgery involved only one limb; three-quarters involved the loss of two or more limbs.

The Marines, who make up 20 percent of the forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, were especially hard hit. Of the 66 wounded severely enough to be evacuated overseas in October, one-third lost a limb.

In the first seven years of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, about 6 percent of seriously wounded soldiers underwent amputation.

Wounds to the genitals and lower urinary tract--known as genitourinary injuries--accounted for 11 percent of wounds over the last seven months of 2010, up from 4 percent in the previous 17 months, according to data presented by John B. Holcomb, a trauma surgeon and retired Army colonel.

The constellation of leg-and-genital wounds are in large part the consequence of stepping on improvised explosive devices--homemade mines--and are known as ``dismounted IED injuries.''

The data were assembled by Holcomb and two physicians at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where all seriously injured soldiers are taken on their way back to the United States.

The steep increase in both the rate and number of amputations clearly disturbed both Holcomb and members of the board, which met at a Hilton hotel near Dulles International Airport.

Holcomb, who spent two weeks at Landstuhl in December and is a former head of the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research, said he had heard of ``unwritten pacts among young Marines that if they get their legs and genitals blown off they won't put tourniquets on but will let each other die on the battlefield.''

Richard H. Carmona, who was U.S. surgeon general from 2002 to 2006 and is now on the board, said the information was ``very disturbing.''

He said it has made him ask: ``What is the endgame here? Is the sacrifice we are asking of our young men and women worth the potential return? I have questions about that now.''

Carmona, 61, served as an Army medic in Vietnam before going to college and medical school. He has a son who is an Army sergeant and is serving in Iraq.

Jay A. Johannigman, an Air Force colonel who has served multiple deployments as a trauma surgeon, said his stint at the military hospital at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan last fall ``was different'' both personally and medically.

``We see the enormous price our young men and women are paying. It should not be for naught,'' he said. He didn't want to elaborate.

Why amputation-requiring injuries increased so much in recent months isn't entirely understood. It is partly a function of tactics that emphasize more foot patrols in rural areas. Some people have speculated the mines may be constructed specifically to cause the devastating wounds.

``Do the Marines know? Probably,'' said Frank Butler, a doctor and retired Navy captain who has spearheaded improvements in battlefield first aid over the last decade. ``But they're not releasing a thing. And they shouldn't.''

I would also like to insert into the Record a report from the ``American Conservative'' which says that late last year IED deaths among our own soldiers were up, not down.
[From The American Conservative, Mar. 10, 2011]

How's That Population-Centric COIN Going?
(Posted by Kelley Vlahos)

If the success or failure of the Afghan military ``surge'' rests on whether the U.S. can bring down the level of violence and protect the civilian population from the Taliban--a metric that the now fading COINdinistas had once insisted could be achieved with the right strategy--then two new statistics to emerge this week don't bode well for the prospects of the nearly 2-year-old counterinsurgency operation in Afghanistan.

First, more of our soldiers today are coming home this year with amputations than in the previous year, according reports coming out of the Defense Health Board this week. According to The Washington Post, which was apparently the only mainstream news outlet to cover the board's meeting in Northern Virginia on Tuesday, the steepest increase in lost limbs among soldiers and Marines occurred in the last four months.

The Marines, who make up 20 percent of the forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, were especially hard hit. Of the 66 wounded severely enough to be evacuated overseas in October, one-third lost a limb.

In the first seven years of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, about 6 percent of seriously wounded soldiers underwent amputation.

Wounds to the genitals and lower urinary tract--known as genitourinary injuries--accounted for 11 percent of wounds over the last seven months of 2010, up from 4 percent in the previous 17 months, according to data presented by John B. Holcomb, a trauma surgeon and retired Army colonel.

The constellation of leg-and-genital wounds are in large part the consequence of stepping on improvised explosive devices--homemade mines--and are known as ``dismounted IED injuries.''

The data regarding the increased amputations were already reported in Friday's WaPo, but apparently the fact they spiked in the last few months only came out in the meeting. Who knows if that point would've ever seen the light of day if a reporter hadn't been there. A source close to the board told me that media rarely show up to cover the DHB, which is a pity, because its members, which include both civilian and retired military doctors and scientists, probably know more about the ``big picture'' regarding the health and welfare of our troops in the battlefield than anyone else and tend to talk candidly among themselves about conditions there.

The data was presented Tuesday by John B. Holcomb, a trauma surgeon and retired Army colonel. As a former head of the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research, he said he had heard of ``unwritten pacts among young Marines that if they get their legs and genitals blown off they won't put tourniquets on but will let each other die on the battlefield.''

New DHB member Richard Carmona, a former U.S. Surgeon General under Bush, apparently didn't get the memo about keeping his emotional responses in check. The Vietnam veteran called the new statistics ``very disturbing,'' and then asked, ``What is the endgame here? Is the sacrifice we are asking of our young men and women worth the potential return? I have questions about that now.''

He should definitely have questions, considering that Gen. David Petraeus, Lt. Gen. William ``svengali'' Caldwell and others have been all over the press in recent weeks talking about how promising it looks in Afghanistan the Taliban's ``halted momentum,'' and all that.

Meanwhile, the other big news today is that civilian deaths in Afghanistan are up, too.

According to a new U.N. report, civilian deaths as a result of war violence rose 15 percent from the year before in Afghanistan (some of the highest levels since the war began in 2001). More than two-thirds of those deaths--2,777--were caused by insurgents (up 28 percent) and 440 were caused by Afghan Army/NATO forces (down 25 percent*). While the Taliban is responsible for most civilian deaths, the U.S. has made ``protecting the population'' a major strategic goal for winning over the Afghan people, legitimizing the Karzai government and draining the Taliban of its authority. Instead, it's been publicly blamed and repudiated by Afghans for a number of civilian bombing deaths, the most recent being nine Afghan boys killed ``by accident'' in a U.S. air strike in Kunar province.

This week, President Karzai, rejected an apology from Petraeus for the killings, and later accepted another attempt at apology from Sec. Def. Bob Gates. It didn't help that Petraeus' apology came a week after he suggested that the young victims of another NATO attack in Kunar had gotten their burn marks not from the strike, but from their parents, who might have hurt the kids themselves in disciplinary actions. It didn't go over so well, especially since Afghan authorities say 65 people were killed, many of them women and children. NATO has now admitted that some civilians may have been hurt, but insists the operation had targeted insurgents.

Again, my mind goes back to the COINdinistas, many of whom remain delusional about the direction of the war, and others who might be furiously back-peddling or remolding themselves as we speak. In June 2009, Triage: The Next Twelve Months in Afghanistan and Pakistan, was published by the pro-COIN Center for a New American Security (CNAS). In it, fellow Andrew Exum, CNAS CEO Nathaniel Fick, David Kilcullen and Ahmed Humayun wrote this (emphasis mine):

``To be sure, violence will rise in Afghanistan over the next year--no matter what the United States and its allies do. What matters, though, is who is dying. And here a particular lesson may be directly imported from the U.S. experience in Iraq. In 2007, during the Baghdad security operations commonly referred to as ``the surge,'' U.S. casualties actually increased sharply. What U.S. planners were looking for, however, was not a drop in U.S. casualties--or even a drop in Iraqi security force casualties but a drop in Iraqi civilian casualties. In the same way, U.S. and allied operations in Afghanistan must be focused on protecting the population even at the expense of allied casualties.''.

Afghan civilian casualties, whether at the hands of the coalition, the Taliban, or the Afghan government, will be the most telling measure of progress.

Well, violence is up, and deaths among NATO and its allies are up. And so are civilian casualties.

Meanwhile, while the CNAS team said in June 2009 that NATO/Afghan soldier deaths were expected to rise, they also claimed that another metric of success would be an eventual flattening of IED (Improvised Explosive Devices) incidents.

Another indicator of cooperation (with local Afghans) is the number of roadside bombs (improvised explosive devices, or IEDs) that are found and cleared versus exploded. IED numbers have risen sharply in Afghanistan since 2006 (though numbers are still low, and IEDs still unsophisticated, compared to Iraq). The coalition should expect an increase in numbers again this year. However, a rise in the proportion of IEDs being found and defused (especially when discovered thanks to tips from the local population) indicates that locals have a good working relationship with local military units a sign of progress.

Despite all his spin to the contrary, Petraeus cannot hide the fact that late last year, IED deaths among our own soldiers were up, not down. A chart issued within its own November progress report to Congress last November shows that, and it shows that the found and cleared IEDs had not risen above the attacks in most areas of the country.

Plus, metric or no metric, the recent data indicating serious injuries of U.S. soldiers this late in the game--while every other assessment outside the military bubble says the Taliban are making more gains not less--should leave any thinking person at this point to question, ``is it really worth it?''

Not sure what it will take before the COINdinistas admit events on the ground are falling short of their own metrics. Sounds like a good follow-up to ``Triage,'' but will anyone there have the guts to write it?

I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas, Representative Jackson Lee.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. KUCINICH. I would like to put into the Record an article from the National Interest which states that many U.S. and western troops cannot leave their bases without encountering IEDs or more coordinated attacks from insurgents.
[From The National Interest, Mar. 9, 2011]

Pulling a Fast One in Afghanistan
(By Christopher A. Preble)

I have just returned from a discussion of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan hosted by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. The meeting of 25 or so journalists, think tankers, and current and former government officials featured introductory remarks by Gilles Dorronsoro, visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment, and FDD's Bill Roggio. FDD President, Cliff May, moderated the session. The meeting was officially on the record, but I'm relying solely on my hand-written notes, so I won't quote the other attendees directly.

I would characterize the general mood as grim. A few attendees pointed to the killing of a number of Taliban figures in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and reports of progress in Marja and the rest of Helmand province as evidence of progress. These gains, one speaker maintained, were sustainable and would not necessarily slip in the event that U.S. forces are directed where elsewhere.

Dorronsoro disputed these assertions. He judged that the situation today is worse than it was a year ago, before the surge of 30,000 additional troops. The killing of individual Taliban leaders, or foot-soldiers, was also accompanied by the inadvertent killing of innocent bystanders, including most recent nine children. So there is always the danger that even targeted strikes based on timely, credible intelligence, will over the long term replace one dead Talib with two or four or eight of his sons, brothers, cousins, and tribesman. How many people have said ``We can't kill our way to victory''?

For Dorronsoro, the crucial metric is security, no number of bad guys and suspected bad guys killed. And, given that he can't drive to places that he freely visited two or three years ago, he judges that security in the country has gotten worse, not better. Many U.S. and Western troops cannot leave their bases without encountering IEDs or more coordinated attacks from insurgents. U.S. and NATO forces don't control territory, and there is little reason to think that they can. Effective counterinsurgencies (COIN) are waged by a credible local partner, a government that commands the respect and authority of its citizens. That obviously doesn't exist in Afghanistan. The Afghan militia, supposedly the key to long-term success, is completely ineffective.

Secretary Gates asserted on Monday that the draw down of U.S. troops would begin as scheduled this July, although, as the Washington Post's Greg Jaffe writes, ``he cautioned that any reductions in U.S. forces would likely be small and that a significant U.S. force will remain in combat for the rest of 2011.'' NATO remains committed to 2014 as the date to hand over security to the Afghan government. Whether the United States retains a long-term presence in the country is the subject of much speculation.

For the people from FDD, it shouldn't be. Roggio stressed that the problem with U.S. strategy is that Americans were looking for an exit, when we should be making a long-term commitment to Afghanistan. May concurred. When I asked them to clarify how long term, both demurred (Roggio said ``a decade or more'' but didn't elaborate). I also inquired about the resources that would be required to constitute ``commitment''. Given that we have over 100,000 troops on the ground, and that we will spend over $100 billion in Afghanistan in this year alone, how much more of a commitment would they find acceptable? Again, no definitive answer.

Roggio did claim, however, that a long-term commitment would increase the prospect of turning the Pakistanis. This is the crucial other piece in the puzzle. Nearly everyone in the meeting agreed that the unwillingness of the Pakistanis to cooperate with the United States had allowed a safe haven to be created in North Waziristan and elsewhere along the AfPak border. Most in the meeting admitted that Pakistan's interests in Afghanistan did not always align with our own. None had an answer for decisively changing this calculus, but some agreed with Roggio that evidence of progress in Afghanistan--combined with a credible commitment on the part of the U.S. to remain for the long-haul--would convince the Pakistanis to side with the Americans.

If you're reading carefully, you can see a circular logic here, brilliantly encapsulated by Dorronsoro. I paraphrase: We cannot win Afghanistan without turning Pakistan, but we cannot turn the Pakistanis without warning in Afghanistan. It is no wonder that one attendee declared herself growing increasingly depressed as the meeting wore on.

I would like to insert into the Record an article from Cato-at-Liberty's Web site entitled America's Aimless Absurdity in Afghanistan.

America's `Aimless Absurdity' In Afghanistan
(Posted By Malou Innocent On March 7, 2011)

Rasmussen reports that 52% of Americans want U.S. troops home from Afghanistan within a year, up from 43% last fall. Of course, polls are ephemeral snapshots of public opinion that can fluctuate with the prevailing political winds; nonetheless, it does appear that more Americans are slowly coming to realize the ``aimless absurdity'' of our nation-building project in Central Asia.

Earlier today, former Republican senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire said on MSNBC's ``Morning Joe'': ``I don't think we can afford Afghanistan much longer.'' He continued: ``The simple fact is that it's costing us. Good people are losing their lives there, and we're losing huge amounts of resources there....... So I think we should have a timeframe for getting out of Afghanistan, and it should be shorter rather than longer.''

Gregg is absolutely right. It is well past time to bring this long war to a swift end. Yet Gregg's comments also reflect a growing bipartisan realization that prolonging our land war in Asia is weakening our country militarily and economically.

To politicians of any stripe, the costs on paper of staying in Afghanistan are jarring. Pentagon officials told the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee that it costs an average of $400 per gallon of fuel for the aircraft and combat vehicles operating in land-locked Afghanistan. The U.S. Agency for International Development has spent more than $7.8 billion on Afghanistan reconstruction since 2001, including building and refurbishing 680 schools and training thousands of civil servants. Walter Pincus, of The Washington Post, reported that the Army Corps of Engineers spent $4 billion last year on 720 miles of roads to transport troops in and around the war-ravaged country. It will spend another $4 to $6 billion this year, for 250 more miles.

War should no longer be a left-right issue. It's a question of scarce resources and limiting the power of government. Opposition to the war in Afghanistan can no longer be swept under the carpet or dismissed as an issue owned by peaceniks and pacifists, especially when our men and women in uniform are being deployed to prop up a regime Washington doesn't trust, for goals our president can't define.

I would like to put into the Record an article from Truthdig posted on AlterNet entitled Afghanistan: Obscenely Well-Funded but Largely Unsuccessful War Rages on Out of Sight of the American Public.
[From AlterNet, Nov. 18, 2010]

Afghanistan: Obscenely Well-Funded, But Largely Unsuccessful War Rages on Out of Sight of the American Public
(By Juan Cole)

Not only is it unclear that the U.S. and NATO are winning their war in Afghanistan, the lack of support for their effort by the Afghanistan president himself has driven the American commander to the brink of resignation. In response to complaints from his constituents, Afghanistan's mercurial President Hamid Karzai called Sunday for American troops to scale back their military operations. The supposed ally of the U.S., who only last spring petulantly threatened to join the Taliban, astonished Washington with this new outburst, which prompted a warning from Gen. David Petraeus that the president was making Petraeus' position ``untenable,'' which some speculated might be a threat to resign.

During the past two months, the U.S. military has fought a major campaign in the environs of the southern Pashtun city of Kandahar, launching night raids and attempting to push insurgents out of the orchards and farms to the east of the metropolis. Many local farmers were displaced, losing their crops in the midst of the violence, and forced to become day laborers in the slums of Kandahar. Presumably these Pashtun clans who found themselves in the crossfire between the Taliban and the U.S. put pressure on Karzai to call a halt to the operation.

That there has been heavy fighting in Afghanistan this fall would come as a surprise to most Americans, who have seen little news on their televisions about the war. Various websites noted that 10 NATO troops were killed this past Saturday and Sunday alone, five of them in a single battle, but it was hardly front page news, and got little or no television coverage.

The midterm campaign circus took the focus off of foreign affairs in favor of witches in Newark and eyes of Newt in Georgia. Distant Kandahar was reduced to an invisible battle in an unseen war, largely unreported in America's mass media, as though it were irrelevant to the big campaign issues--of deficits and spending, of taxes and public welfare. Since it was President Obama's offensive, Democrats could not run against it. Since it is billed as key to U.S. security, Republicans were not interested in running against it. Kandahar, city of pomegranates and car bombs, of poppies and government cartels, lacked a partisan implication, and so no one spoke of it.

In fact, the war is costing on the order of $7 billion a month, a sum that is still being borrowed and adding nearly $100 billion a year to the already-burgeoning national debt. Yet in all the talk in all the campaigns in the hustings about the dangers of the federal budget deficit, hardly any candidates fingered the war as economically unsustainable.

The American public cannot have a debate on the war if it is not even mentioned in public. The extreme invisibility of the Afghanistan war is apparent from a Lexis Nexis search I did for ``Kandahar'' (again, the site of a major military campaign) for the period from Oct. 15 to Nov. 15. I got only a few dozen hits, from all American news sources (National Public Radio was among the few media outlets that devoted substantial airtime to the campaign).

The campaign in the outskirts of Kandahar had been modeled on last winter's attack on the farming area of Marjah in Helmand Province. Marjah was a demonstration project, intended to show that the U.S., NATO and Afghanistan security forces could ``take, clear, hold and build.''

Petraeus' counterinsurgency doctrine depends on taking territory away from the insurgents, clearing it of guerrillas, holding it for the medium term to keep the Taliban from returning and to reassure local leaders that they need not fear reprisals for ``collaborating,'' and then building up services and security for the long term to ensure that the insurgents can never again return and dominate the area. But all these months later, the insurgents still have not been cleared from Marjah, which is a site of frequent gun fights between over-stretched Marines and Taliban.

There is no early prospect of Afghan army troops holding the area, or of building effective institutions in the face of constant sniping and bombing. Marjah is only 18 square miles. Afghanistan is more than 251,000 square miles. If Marjah is the model for the campaign in the outskirts of Kandahar, then the latter will be a long, hard slog. Kandahar is even more complicated, since the labyrinthine alleyways of the city and its hundreds of thousands of inhabitants offer insurgents new sorts of cover when they are displaced there from the countryside.

Counterinsurgency requires an Afghan partner, but all along the spectrum of Afghan institutions, the U.S. and NATO are seeking in vain for the ``government in a box'' once promised by Gen. Stanley McChrystal. The people in the key provinces of Helmand and Kandahar are largely hostile to U.S. and NATO troops, seeing them as disrespecting their traditions and as offering no protection from violence. They see cooperating with the U.S. as collaboration and want Mullah Omar of the Taliban to join the government.

Although the U.S. and NATO have spent $27 billion on training Afghan troops, only 12 percent of them can operate independently. Karzai and his circle are extremely corrupt, taking millions in cash payments from Iran and looting a major bank for unsecured loans, allowing the purchase of opulent villas in fashionable Dubai. It is no wonder that Petraeus is at the end of his rope. The only question is why the Obama administration is not, and how long it will hold to the myth of counterinsurgency.

I would like to put into the Record an article published on AlterNet titled Totally Occupied: 700 Military Bases Spread Across Afghanistan, by Nick Turse at TomDispatch.com.
[From AlterNet, Posted on February 10, 2010, Printed on March 17, 2011]

Totally Occupied: 700 Military Bases Spread Across Afghanistan
(By Nick Turse, Tomdispatch.com)

In the nineteenth century, it was a fort used by British forces. In the twentieth century, Soviet troops moved into the crumbling facilities. In December 2009, at this site in the Shinwar district of Afghanistan's Nangarhar Province, U.S. troops joined members of the Afghan National Army in preparing the way for the next round of foreign occupation. On its grounds, a new military base is expected to rise, one of hundreds of camps and outposts scattered across the country.

Nearly a decade after the Bush administration launched its invasion of Afghanistan, TomDispatch offers the first actual count of American, NATO, and other coalition bases there, as well as facilities used by the Afghan security forces. Such bases range from relatively small sites like Shinwar to mega-bases that resemble small American towns. Today, according to official sources, approximately 700 bases of every size dot the Afghan countryside, and more, like the one in Shinwar, are under construction or soon will be as part of a base-building boom that began last year.

Existing in the shadows, rarely reported on and little talked about, this base-building program is nonetheless staggering in size and scope, and heavily dependent on supplies imported from abroad, which means that it is also extraordinarily expensive. It has added significantly to the already long secret list of Pentagon property overseas and raises questions about just how long, after the planned beginning of a drawdown of American forces in 2011, the U.S. will still be garrisoning Afghanistan.

400 FOREIGN BASES IN AFGHANISTAN

Colonel Wayne Shanks, a spokesman for the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), tells TomDispatch that there are, at present, nearly 400 U.S. and coalition bases in Afghanistan, including camps, forward operating bases, and combat outposts. In addition, there are at least 300 Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) bases, most of them built, maintained, or supported by the U.S. A small number of the coalition sites are mega-bases like Kandahar Airfield, which boasts one of the busiest runways in the world, and Bagram Air Base, a former Soviet facility that received a makeover, complete with Burger King and Popeyes outlets, and now serves more than 20,000 U.S. troops, in addition to thousands of coalition forces and civilian contractors.

In fact, Kandahar, which housed 9,000 coalition troops as recently as 2007, is expected to have a population of as many as 35,000 troops by the time President Obama's surge is complete, according to Colonel Kevin Wilson who oversees building efforts in the southern half of Afghanistan for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. On the other hand, the Shinwar site, according to Sgt. Tracy J. Smith of the U.S. 48th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, will be a small forward operating base (FOB) that will host both Afghan troops and foreign forces.

Last fall, it was reported that more than $200 million in construction projects--from barracks to cargo storage facilities--were planned for or in-progress at Bagram. Substantial construction funds have also been set aside by the U.S. Air Force to upgrade its air power capacity at Kandahar. For example, $65 million has been allocated to build additional apron space (where aircraft can be parked, serviced, and loaded or unloaded) to accommodate more close-air support for soldiers in the field and a greater intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capability. Another $61 million has also been earmarked for the construction of a cargo helicopter apron and a tactical airlift apron there.

Kandahar is just one of many sites currently being upgraded. Exact figures on the number of facilities being enlarged, improved, or hardened are unavailable but, according a spokesman for ISAF, the military plans to expand several more bases to accommodate the increase of troops as part of Afghan War commander Stanley McChrystal's surge strategy. In addition, at least 12 more bases are slated to be built to help handle the 30,000 extra American troops and thousands of NATO forces beginning to arrive in the country.

``Currently we have over $3 billion worth of work going on in Afghanistan,'' says Colonel Wilson, ``and probably by the summer, when the dust settles from all the uplift, we'll have about $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion worth of that [in the South].'' By comparison, between 2002 and 2008, the Army Corps of Engineers spent more than $4.5 billion on construction projects, most of it base-building, in Afghanistan.

At the site of the future FOB in Shinwar, more than 135 private construction contractors attended what was termed an ``Afghan-Coalition contractors rodeo.'' According to Lieutenant Fernando Roach, a contracting officer with the U.S. Army's Task Force Mountain Warrior, the event was designed ``to give potential contractors a walkthrough of the area so they'll have a solid overview of the scope of work.'' The construction firms then bid on three separate projects: the renovation of the more than 30-year old Soviet facilities, the building of new living quarters for Afghan and coalition forces, and the construction of a two-kilometer wall for the base.

In the weeks since the ``rodeo,'' the U.S. Army has announced additional plans to upgrade facilities at other forward operating bases. At FOB Airborne, located near Kane-Ezzat in Wardak Province, for instance, the Army intends to put in reinforced concrete bunkers and blast protection barriers as well as lay concrete foundations for Re-Locatable Buildings (prefabricated, trailer-like structures used for living and working quarters). Similar work is also scheduled for FOB Altimur, an Army camp in Logar Province.

THE AFGHAN BASE BOOM

Recently, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Afghanistan District-Kabul, announced that it would be seeking bids on ``site assessments'' for Afghan National Security Forces District Headquarters Facilities nationwide. The precise number of Afghan bases scattered throughout the country is unclear.

When asked by TomDispatch, Colonel Radmanish of the Afghan Ministry of Defense would state only that major bases were located in Kabul, Pakteya, Kandahar, Herat, and Mazar-e-Sharif, and that ANA units operate all across Afghanistan. Recent U.S. Army contracts for maintenance services provided to Afghan army and police bases, however, suggest that there are no fewer than 300 such facilities that are, according to an ISAF spokesman, not counted among the coalition base inventory.

As opposed to America's fast-food-franchise-filled bases, Afghan ones are often decidedly more rustic affairs. The police headquarters in Khost Farang District, Baghlan Province, is a good example. According to a detailed site assessment conducted by a local contractor for the Army Corps of Engineers and the Afghan government, the district headquarters consists of mud and stone buildings surrounded by a mud wall. The site even lacks a deep well for water. A trench fed by a nearby spring is the only convenient water source.

The U.S. bases that most resemble austere Afghan facilities are combat outposts, also known as COPs. Environmental Specialist Michael Bell of the Army Corps of Engineers, Afghanistan Engineer District-South's Real Estate Division, recently described the facilities and life on such a base as he and his co-worker, Realty Specialist Damian Salazar, saw it in late 2009:

``COP Sangar ..... is a compound surrounded by mud and straw walls. Tents with cots supplied the sleeping quarters ..... A medical, pharmacy and command post tent occupied the center of the COP, complete with a few computers with internet access and three primitive operating tables. Showers had just been installed with hot [water] ..... only available from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. .....

``An MWR [Morale, Welfare and Recreation] tent was erected on Thanksgiving Day with an operating television; however, the tent was rarely used due to the cold. Most of the troops used a tent with gym equipment for recreation ..... A cook trailer provided a hot simple breakfast and supper. Lunch was MREs [meals ready to eat]. Nights were pitch black with no outside lighting from the base or the city.''

WHAT MAKES A BASE?

According to an official site assessment, future construction at the Khost Farang District police headquarters will make use of sand, gravel, and stone, all available on the spot. Additionally, cement, steel, bricks, lime, and gypsum have been located for purchase in Pol-e Khomri City, about 85 miles away.

Constructing a base for American troops, however, is another matter. For the far less modest American needs of American troops, builders rely heavily on goods imported over extremely long, difficult to traverse, and sometimes embattled supply lines, all of which adds up to an extraordinarily costly affair. ``Our business runs on materials,'' Lieutenant General Robert Van Antwerp, commander of the Army Corps of Engineers, told an audience at a town hall meeting in Afghanistan in December 2009. ``You have to bring in the lumber, you have to bring in the steel, you have to bring in the containers and all that. Transport isn't easy in this country--number one, the roads themselves, number two, coming through other countries to get here--there are just huge challenges in getting the materials here.''

To facilitate U.S. base construction projects, a new ``virtual storefront''--an online shopping portal--has been launched by the Pentagon's Defense Logistics Agency (DLA). The Maintenance, Repair and Operations Uzbekistan Virtual Storefront website and a defense contractor-owned and operated brick-and-mortar warehouse facility that supports it aim to provide regionally-produced construction materials to speed surge-accelerated building efforts.

From a facility located in Termez, Uzbekistan, cement, concrete, fencing, roofing, rope, sand, steel, gutters, pipe, and other construction material manufactured in countries like Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan can be rushed to nearby Afghanistan to accelerate base-building efforts. ``Having the products closer to the fight will make it easier for warfighters by reducing logistics response and delivery time,'' says Chet Evanitsky, the DLA's construction and equipment supply chain division chief.

AMERICA'S SHADOWY BASE WORLD

The Pentagon's most recent inventory of bases lists a total of 716 overseas sites. These include facilities owned and leased all across the Middle East as well as a significant presence in Europe and Asia, especially Japan and South Korea. Perhaps even more notable than the Pentagon's impressive public foreign property portfolio are the many sites left off the official inventory. While bases in the Persian Gulf countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates are all listed, one conspicuously absent site is Al-Udeid Air Base, a billion-dollar facility in nearby Qatar, where the U.S. Air Force secretly oversees its on-going unmanned drone wars.

The count also does not include any sites in Iraq where, as of August 2009, there were still nearly 300 American bases and outposts. Similarly, U.S. bases in Afghanistan--a significant percentage of the 400 foreign sites scattered across the country--are noticeably absent from the Pentagon inventory.

Counting the remaining bases in Iraq--as many as 50 are slated to be operating after President Barack Obama's August 31, 2010, deadline to remove all U.S. ``combat troops'' from the country--and those in Afghanistan, as well as black sites like Al-Udeid, the total number of U.S. bases overseas now must significantly exceed 1,000. Just exactly how many U.S. military bases (and allied facilities used by U.S. forces) are scattered across the globe may never be publicly known. What we do know--from the experience of bases in Germany, Italy, Japan, and South Korea--is that, once built, they have a tendency toward permanency that a cessation of hostilities, or even outright peace, has a way of not altering.

After nearly a decade of war, close to 700 U.S., allied, and Afghan military bases dot Afghanistan. Until now, however, they have existed as black sites known to few Americans outside the Pentagon. It remains to be seen, a decade into the future, how many of these sites will still be occupied by U.S. and allied troops and whose flag will be planted on the ever-shifting British-Soviet-U.S./Afghan site at Shinwar.

General Petraeus and others in the administration continue their PR campaign. Overwhelming evidence is proving their upbeat assessments of our strategy is false. A recent article by the Los Angeles Times cited a report released by the Foreign Affairs Committee and the British Parliament that concluded that ``despite the optimistic appraisals we heard from some military and official sources, the security situation across Afghanistan as a whole is deteriorating. Counterinsurgency efforts in the south and east have allowed the Taliban to expand its presence and control in other previously relatively stable areas in Afghanistan.''

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York, Mr. Charles Rangel.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, spending on the Afghanistan war is rising at an accelerating rate. Over just 3 years, in a period of 3 years--2010, 2011, and 2012--we will spend 45 percent more on the war in Afghanistan than we did in the preceding 8 years, $336.9 billion versus $231.2 billion. This is an example of out-of-control Federal spending.

If Congress is serious about being fiscally responsible and about cutting the Federal budget by three figures, then cutting spending on the out-of-control $100 billion-a-year war in Afghanistan must be a serious consideration. This legislation, House Concurrent Resolution 28, gives those who are concerned about the costs of this war an opportunity finally to have a choice.

I reserve the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. KUCINICH. The 2001 authorization of military force and the justification for our continued military presence in Afghanistan is that the Taliban in the past provided a safe haven for al Qaeda or could do so again in the future. General Petraeus has already admitted that al Qaeda has little or no presence in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda is an international organization, and, yes, they are a threat to America. The Taliban is only a threat to us as long as we continue our military occupation in Afghanistan.

After more than 9 years of military occupation of Afghanistan, can we really continue to claim to be acting in self-defense? The premise that the presence of our troops on the ground keeps us safer at home has been repudiated by recent terrorist attacks on the United States, all done by people other than Afghans outraged at continuing U.S. military occupation of predominantly Muslim countries. That is not to justify what they do, but it is to clarify the condition that we have in Afghanistan.

For how long are we going to continue to dedicate hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives before we realize we can't win Afghanistan militarily?

At the end of the year, the administration and U.S. military leaders were touting peace talks to end the war with high-level Taliban leaders. These Taliban leaders turned out to be fake.

A November 2010 article in The New York Times detailed joint U.S. and Afghan negotiations with Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, a man the U.S. claimed was one of the most senior commanders in the Taliban. According to the New York Times, ``the episode underscores the uncertain and even bizarre nature of the atmosphere in which Afghan and American leaders search for ways to bring the American-led war to an end. The leaders of the Taliban are believed to be hiding in Pakistan, possibly with assistance of the Pakistani government, which receives billions of dollars in U.S. aid.''

How can we claim that a cornerstone of our counterinsurgency strategy is to take out Taliban strongholds across the country while at the same time conducting negotiations with the Taliban in an effort to end the war?

This episode further underlies the significant weakness in our strategy. We think we can separate the Taliban from the rest the Afghan population. Our counterinsurgency strategy fails to recognize a basic principle: Occupations fuel insurgencies. Occupations fuel insurgencies. Occupations fuel insurgencies.

The Taliban is a local resistance movement that is part and parcel of the indigenous population.

We lost the Vietnam war because we failed to win the hearts and minds of the local population. Without providing them with a competent government that provided them with basic security and a decent living, we're committing the same mistake in Afghanistan.

News reports indicate the Taliban is regaining momentum. The increase in civilian casualties due to higher levels of violence by insurgents further undermines the assurances of progress. As we send more troops into the country and kill innocent civilians with errant air strikes, the Taliban gains more support as resistors of foreign occupation. If we accept the premise that we can never leave Afghanistan until the Taliban is eradicated, we'll be there forever.

I would like to insert into the Record an article from The Nation, ``America's Failed War in Afghanistan--No Policy Change Is Going to Affect the Outcome.'' That's by Jeremy Scahill.
[From The Nation, Mar. 17, 2011]

America's Failed War in Afghanistan--No Policy Change Is Going To Affect the Outcome
(By Jeremy Scahill)

At the end of the NATO summit in Lisbon, Portugal this weekend, the leadership of the Afghan Taliban issued a statement characterizing the alliance's adoption of a loose timeline for a 2014 end to combat operations as ``good news'' for Afghans and ``a sign of failure for the American government.'' At the summit, President Barack Obama said that 2011 will begin ``a transition to full Afghan lead'' in security operations, while the Taliban declared: ``In the past nine years, the invaders could not establish any system of governance in Kabul and they will never be able to do so in future.''

While Obama claimed that the U.S. and its allies are ``breaking the Taliban's momentum,'' the reality on the ground tells a different story. Despite increased Special Operations Forces raids and, under Gen. David Petraeus, a return to regular U.S.-led airstrikes, the insurgency in Afghanistan is spreading and growing stronger. ``By killing Taliban leaders the war will not come to an end,'' said the Taliban's former foreign minister, Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, in an interview at his home in Kabul. ``On the contrary, things get worse which will give birth to more leaders.''

Former and current Taliban leaders say that they have seen a swelling in the Taliban ranks since 9-11. In part, they say, this can be attributed to a widely held perception that the Karzai government is corrupt and illegitimate and that Afghans--primarily ethnic Pashtuns--want foreign occupation forces out. ``We are only fighting to make foreigners leave Afghanistan,'' a new Taliban commander in Kunduz told me during my recent trip to the country. ``We don't want to fight after the withdrawal of foreigners, but as long as there are foreigners, we won't talk to Karzai.''

``The Americans have very sophisticated technology, but the problem here in Afghanistan is they are confronting ideology. I think ideology is stronger than technology,'' says Abdul Salam Zaeef, a former senior member of Mullah Mohammed Omar's government. ``If I am a Taliban and I'm killed, I'm martyred, then I'm successful. There are no regrets for the Taliban. It's very difficult to defeat this kind of idea.''

But it is not simply a matter of ideology versus technology. The Taliban is not one unified body. The Afghan insurgency is fueled by fighters with a wide variety of motivations. Some are the dedicated jihadists of which Zaeef speaks, but others are fighting to defend their land or are seeking revenge for the killing of family members by NATO or Afghan forces. While al Qaeda has been almost entirely expelled from Afghanistan, the insurgency still counts a small number of non-Afghans among its ranks. Bolstering the Taliban's recruitment efforts is the perception in Afghanistan that the Taliban pays better than NATO or the Afghan army or police.

The hard reality U.S. officials don't want to discuss is this: the cultural and religious values of much of the Pashtun population--which comprises 25-40 percent of the country--more closely align with those of the Taliban than they do with Afghan government or U.S./NATO forces. The Taliban operate a shadow government in large swaths of the Pashtun areas of the country, complete with governors and a court system. In rural areas, land and property disputes are resolved through the Taliban system rather than the Afghan government, which is widely distrusted. ``The objectives and goal of the American troops in Afghanistan are not clear to the people and therefore Afghans call the Americans `invaders,' '' says Muttawakil. ``Democracy is a very new phenomenon in Afghanistan and most people don't know the meaning of democracy. And now corruption, thieves and fakes have defamed democracy. Democracy can't be imposed because people will never adopt any value by force.''

The U.S. strategy of attempting to force the Taliban to surrender or engage in negotiations rests almost exclusively on attempts to decapitate the Taliban leadership. While Taliban leaders acknowledge that commanders are regularly killed, they say the targeted killings are producing more radical leaders who are far less likely to negotiate than the older school Taliban leaders who served in the government of Mullah Mohammed Omar. ``If today Mullah Omar was captured or killed, the fighting will go on,'' says Zaeef, adding: ``It will be worse for everyone if the [current] Taliban leadership disappears.''

In October, there were a flurry of media reports that senior Taliban leaders were negotiating with the Karzai government and that U.S. forces were helping to insure safe passage for the Taliban leaders to come to Kabul. The Taliban passionately refuted those reports, saying they were propaganda aimed at dividing the insurgency. Last week the Taliban appeared vindicated on this point as Karzai spoke in markedly modest terms on the issue. He told The Washington Post that three months ago he had met with one or two ``very high'' level Taliban leaders. He characterized the meeting as ``the exchange of desires for peace,'' saying the Taliban ``feel the same as we do here--that too many people are suffering for no reason.''

Update: [On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that NATO and the Afghan government have held a series of ``secret'' peace negotiations with a man who posed as a senior Taliban leader, Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour. A Western diplomat involved in the discussions told the Times, ``[W]e gave him a lot of money.'' It is unclear who, if anyone, the impostor was working for, though the Times speculated that he could have been deployed by Pakistan's ISI spy agency or by the Taliban itself. ``The Taliban are cleverer than the Americans and our own intelligence service,'' said a senior Afghan official who is familiar with the case. ``They are playing games.'' Last month, the White House asked the Times to withhold Mansour's name ``from an article about the peace talks, expressing concern that the talks would be jeopardized--and Mr. Mansour's life put at risk--if his involvement were publicized. The Times agreed to withhold Mr. Mansour's name,'' according to the paper.

This incident is significant on a number of levels. If true, it underscores the ineffective and inaccurate nature of U.S., NATO and Afghan government intelligence. It also confirms what Taliban leaders have stated publicly and to The Nation, namely that it has not negotiated with the Afghan government or NATO and that it will not negotiate unless foreign troops leave Afghanistan. The fake Mullah Mansour, according to the Times, ``did not demand, as the Taliban have in the past, a withdrawal of foreign forces or a Taliban share of the government.''

In October, a U.S. official said that reports in U.S. media outlets of senior Taliban negotiating are propaganda aimed at sowing dissent among the Taliban leadership. ``This is a psychological operation, plain and simple,'' the official with firsthand knowledge of the Afghan government's strategies told the McClatchy news service. ``Exaggerating the significance of it is an effort to sow distrust within the insurgency.''

Today on MSNBC, Pentagon spokesperson Geoff Morrell continued to insist that U.S. and NATO forces have facilitated safe passage for Taliban leaders for reconciliation meetings in Kabul. The Taliban maintain there have been no meetings.

The Taliban impostor incident also calls into question scores of deadly night raids that have resulted in the deaths of innocent Afghans. Several survivors of night raids recently told The Nation that they believed they were victims of bad intelligence provided by other Afghans for money or to settle personal grudges.

Contrary to the rhetoric emanating from NATO and Washington, the Taliban are not on the ropes and, from their perspective, would gain nothing from negotiating with the U.S. or NATO. As far as they are concerned, time is on their side. ``The bottom line for [NATO and the U.S.] is to immediately implement what they would ultimately have to implement ..... after colossal casualties,'' stated the Taliban declaration after the recent NATO summit. ``They should not postpone withdrawal of their forces.''

Depending on who you ask, the fact that Gen. Petraeus has brought back the use of heavy U.S. airstrikes and is increasing night raids and other direct actions by Special Operations Forces could be seen as a sign of either fierce determination to wipe out ``the enemy'' or of desperation to prove the U.S. and its allies are ``winning.'' Over the past three months, NATO claims that Special Operations Forces' night raids have resulted in more than 360 ``insurgent leaders'' being killed or captured along with 960 ``lower-level'' leaders and the capture of more than 2400 ``lower-level'' fighters. In July, Special Operations Forces averaged 5 raids a night. Now, according to NATO, they are conducting an average of 17. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the raids ``intelligence-driven precision operations against high value insurgents and their networks,'' adding, ``There is no question that they are having a significant impact on the insurgent leadership.''

The raids undoubtedly have produced scores of successful kill or capture operations, but serious questions abound over the NATO definitions of Taliban commanders, sub-commanders and foot soldiers. Most significantly, the raids consistently result in the killing of innocent civilians, a fact that is problematic for NATO and the Karzai government. ``A lot of times, yeah, the right guys would get targeted and the right guys would get killed,'' says Matthew Hoh a former senior State Department official in Afghanistan who resigned in 2009 in protest of U.S. war strategy. ``Plenty of other times, the wrong people would get killed.

Sometimes it would be innocent families.'' Hoh, who was the senior U.S. civilian in Zabul province, a Taliban stronghold, describes night raids as ``a really risky, really violent operation,'' saying that when Special Operations Forces conduct them, ``We might get that one guy we're looking for or we might kill a bunch of innocent people and now make ten more Taliban out of them.''

Hoh describes the current use of U.S. Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan as a ``tremendous waste of resources,'' saying, ``They are the best strike forces the world's ever known. They're very well trained, very well equipped, have a tremendous amount of support, and we've got them in Afghanistan chasing after mid-level Taliban leaders who are not threatening the United States, who are only fighting us really because we're in their valley.''

In an interview with The Washington Post in mid-November, President Karzai called for an end to the night raids. ``I don't like it in any manner and the Afghan people don't like these raids in any manner,'' Karzai said. ``We don't like raids in our homes. This is a problem between us and I hope this ends as soon as possible. ..... Terrorism is not invading Afghan homes and fighting terrorism is not being intrusive in the daily Afghan life.''

Karzai's comments angered the Obama administration. At the NATO summit, President Obama acknowledged that civilian deaths have sparked ``real tensions'' with the Karzai government, but reserved the right to continue US raids. ``[Karzai's] got to understand that I've got a bunch of young men and women ..... who are in a foreign country being shot at and having to traverse terrain filled with IEDs, and they need to protect themselves,'' Obama said. ``So if we're setting things up where they're just sitting ducks for the Taliban, that's not an acceptable answer either.'' Republican Senator Lindsey Graham blasted Karzai's statement calling for an end to night raids, saying, ``it would be a disaster for the Petraeus strategy.''

Along with Afghan government corruption, including a cabal of war lords, drug dealers and war criminals in key positions, the so-called Petraeus strategy of ratcheting up air strikes and expanding night raids is itself delivering substantial blows to the stated U.S. counterinsurgency strategy and the much-discussed battle for hearts and minds. The raids and airstrikes are premiere recruiting points for the Taliban and, unlike Sen. Graham and the Obama administration, Karzai seems to get that. In the bigger picture, the U.S. appears to be trying to kill its way to a passable definition of a success or even victory. This strategy puts a premium on the number of kills and captures of anyone who can loosely be defined as an insurgent and completely sidelines the blowback these operations cause. ``We found ourselves in this Special Operations form of attrition warfare,'' says Hoh, ``which is kind of like an oxymoron, because Special Operations are not supposed to be in attrition warfare. But we've found ourselves in that in Afghanistan''

I would like to put into the Record an article from Aljazeera.net, which points out that for all practical purposes, Washington has given up on its counterinsurgency strategy.
[From Aljazeera.net, Mar. 7, 2011]

Failing in Afghanistan Successfully--Despite Hundreds of Billions of Dollars and Thousands of Troops, the U.S. Is Unable To Conclude Its Longest War
(By Marwan Bishara)

While we have been fixated on successive Arab breakthroughs and victories against tyranny and extremism, Washington is failing miserably but discreetly in Afghanistan.

The American media's one-obsession-at-a-time coverage of global affairs might have put the spotlight on President Obama's slow and poor reaction to the breathtaking developments starting in Tunisia and Egypt. But they spared him embarrassing questions about continued escalation and deaths in Afghanistan.

In spite of its international coalition, multiple strategies, hundreds of billions of dollars, and a surge of tens of thousands of troops, the U.S. is unable to conclude its longest war yet or at least reverse its trend.

Recent ``reports'' from the war front have been of two kinds. Some official or analytical in nature and heavily circulated in Washington portray a war going terribly well. On the other hand, hard news from the ground tell a story of U.S. fatigue, backtracking and tactical withdrawals or redeployments which do not bode well for defeating the Taliban or forcing them to the negotiations' table.

For example, while the U.S. military's decision to withdraw from the Pech valley was justified on tactical need to redeploy troops for the task of ``protecting the population'', keen observers saw it as a humiliating retreat from what the Pentagon previously called a very strategic position and sacrificed some hundred soldiers defending it.

Likewise, strategic analysts close to the administration speak triumphantly of U.S. surge and hi-tech firepower inflicting terrible cost on the Taliban, killing many insurgents and driving many more from their sanctuaries.

But news from the war front show the Taliban unrelenting, mounting counterattacks and escalating the war especially in areas where the U.S. has ``surged'' its troops. And while the majority of the 400 Afghan districts are ``calmer'', they remain mostly out of Kabul's control.

What success?

Those with relatively long memories recall the then defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld's claims that most of Afghanistan was secure in early 2003 and that American forces had changed their strategy from major combat operations to stabilisation and reconstruction project.

But the Taliban continued to carry daily attacks on government buildings, U.S. positions and international organisations. Two years later, the U.S. was to suffer the worst and deadliest year since the war began.

Today's war pundits are in the same state of denial. For all practical purpose, Washington has given up on its counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy devised under McChrystal and Petreaus.

Instead, it is pursuing a heavy handed and terribly destructive crackdown that includes special operations, assassinations, mass demolitions, air and night raids etc. that have led to anything but winning the country, let alone its hearts and minds.

The killing of nine Afghan children last week--all under the age of 12--by U.S. attack helicopters has once again put the spotlight on the U.S. military's new aggressive methods.

The results are so devastating for the conduct of the war and to Washington's clients, that President Karzai not only distanced himself from the U.S. methods, but also publicly rejected Washington's apology for the killings.

Nor is the recruitment and training of the Afghan forces going well. Indeed, many seem to give up on the idea that Afghan security forces could take matters into their hands if the U.S. withdraws in the foreseeable future.

Worse, U.S. strategic co-operation with Pakistan--the central pillar of Obama's PakAf strategy--has cooled after the arrest of a CIA contractor for the killing of two Pakistanis even though he presumably enjoys diplomatic immunity.

Reportedly, it has also led to a ``breakdown'' in co-ordination between the two countries intelligence agencies, the CIA and the ISI.

But the incident is merely a symptom of a bigger problem between the two countries. A reluctant partner, the Pakistani establishment and its military are unhappy with U.S. strategy which they reckon could destabilise their country and strengthen Afghanistan and India at their expense.

That has not deterred Washington from offering ideas and money to repair the damage. However, it has become clear that unlike in recent years, future improvement in their bilateral relations will most probably come as a result of the U.S. edging closer to Pakistan's position, not the opposite.

All of which makes one wonder why certain Washington circles are rushing to advance the ``success story''.

Running out of options

The Afghan government's incapability to take on the tasks of governing or securing the country beyond the capital, and the incapacity of the Obama administration to break the Taliban's momentum does not bode well for an early conclusion of the war.

To their credit some of Obama's war and surge supporters realise that there is no military solution for Afghanistan. Clearly, their claims of battlefield successes help justify the rush to talk to the Taliban.

But it is not yet clear whether the presumably ongoing exploratory secret negotiations with the Taliban are serious at all, or will lead to comprehensive negotiations and eventually a lasting deal. The last ``Taliban commander'' Washington dialogued with in the fall turned out to be an impostor--a shopkeeper from Quetta!

If the Taliban does eventually accept to sit down with Obama or Karzai envoys, the U.S. needs to explain why it fought for 10 years only to help the group back to power.

Secretary of state Hillary Clinton has begun the humiliating backtracking last month: ``Now, I know that reconciling with an adversary that can be as brutal as the Taliban sounds distasteful, even unimaginable. And diplomacy would be easy if we only had to talk to our friends. But that is not how one makes peace.''

Facing up to the reality

The mere fact that the world's mightiest superpower cannot win over the poorly armed Taliban after a long decade of fighting, means it has already failed strategically, regardless of the final outcome.

The escalation of violence and wasting billions more cannot change that. It is history. The quicker the Obama administration recognises its misfortunes, minimises its losses and convenes a regional conference over the future of Afghanistan under UN auspices, the easier it will be to evacuate without humiliation.

Whether the U.S. eventually loses the war and declares victory; negotiates a settlement and withdraw its troops, remains to be seen. What is incontestable is that when you fight the week for too long, you also become weak.

All of which explains the rather blunt comments made in a speech at the end of February, by U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates when he said ``..... any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should `have his head examined,' as General MacArthur so delicately put it.''

Amen.

I would like to insert into the Record, from AlterNet, an article by Derrick Crowe and Robert Greenwald posted on February 6, 2011, titled Damning New Report Shows U.S. Strategy is Blocking Chance for Peace in Afghanistan.
[From AlterNet, Feb. 6, 2011]

Damning New Report Shows U.S. Strategy Is Blocking Chance for Peace in Afghanistan
(By Derrick Crowe and Robert Greenwald)

See: http://www.alternet.org/story/149815/

The new report from NYU's Center for International Cooperation is a damning description of the U.S. policies in Afghanistan since 2001, and a warning that the escalated military strategy blocks the road to peace while making the Taliban more dangerous.

Separating the Taliban from al-Qaeda: The Core of Success in Afghanistan is the latest in a continuous string of statements from Afghanistan experts that the U.S. war policies that were launched a year ago aren't making us safer and aren't worth the substantial costs: $1 million per U.S. troop in Afghanistan per year, for a total of more than $375.5 billion wasted so far. The report is written by Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn, Kandahar-based researchers who've spent more than four years researching the Taliban and the recent history of southern Afghanistan.

I would like to place into the Record an article from ABC News titled Afghan Security the Worst in a Decade, according to the U.N.

ABC News--Afghan Security the Worst in a Decade: UN

The security situation in Afghanistan has worsened to its lowest point since the toppling of the Taliban a decade ago and attacks on aid workers are at unprecedented levels, a United Nations envoy said.

Robert Watkins, the outgoing UN deputy special representative of the Secretary General for Afghanistan, says from a humanitarian perspective, security ``is on everyone's minds''.

``It is fair to say that security in the country is at its lowest point since the departure of the Talibans,'' he said.

Mr Watkins says before last year's surge in NATO military forces, the insurgency was centred in the south and south-east of the country.

``Since the surge of NATO forces last year, we have seen the insurgency move to parts of the country where we've never seen before,'' he said.

``We've now confronted with security problems that we'd never dream that we'd have.

``While NATO is claiming that it has turned the corner ..... we still see these very difficult security problems.''

UN relief agencies now have regular access to just 30 per cent of the country. Access is mixed for another 30 per cent while there is hardly any access to the remaining 40 per cent.

Mr Watkins says a key issue is the ``conflation of political, military, developmental and humanitarian aid''.

``Because of the way aid is dispersed in Afghanistan ..... it has contributed to perception in parts of the Afghan population that somehow humanitarian work is lumped into this political and military effort,'' he said.

``We have to emphasise that we recognise that there has to be separation and we have to be very careful to try to address this perception.''

But he pointed out that a positive development was that the international and Afghan military have publicly acknowledged that some kind of negotiated settlement was necessary to end the instability.

``[This year] can be a crucial year if there is a breakthrough in finding some kind of reconciliation efforts,'' he said.

The Taliban, a hardline Islamist movement, was forced from power in late 2001 after a US invasion launched in the wake of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

I would like to place into the Record an article from The New York Times discussing the counterintelligence strategy titled U.S. Pulling Back in Afghan Valley it Called Vital to War.
[From The New York Times, Feb. 24, 2011]

U.S. Pulling Back in Afghan Valley It Called Vital to War
(By C. J. Chivers, Alissa J. Rubin and Wesley Morgan)

Kabul, Afghanistan.--After years of fighting for control of a prominent valley in the rugged mountains of eastern Afghanistan, the United States military has begun to pull back most of its forces from ground it once insisted was central to the campaign against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

The withdrawal from the Pech Valley, a remote region in Kunar Province, formally began on Feb. 15. The military projects that it will last about two months, part of a shift of Western forces to the province's more populated areas. Afghan units will remain in the valley, a test of their military readiness.

While American officials say the withdrawal matches the latest counterinsurgency doctrine's emphasis on protecting Afghan civilians, Afghan officials worry that the shift of troops amounts to an abandonment of territory where multiple insurgent groups are well established, an area that Afghans fear they may not be ready to defend on their own.

And it is an emotional issue for American troops, who fear that their service and sacrifices could be squandered. At least 103 American soldiers have died in or near the valley's maze of steep gullies and soaring peaks, according to a count by The New York Times, and many times more have been wounded, often severely.

Military officials say they are sensitive to those perceptions. ``People say, `You are coming out of the Pech'; I prefer to look at it as realigning to provide better security for the Afghan people,'' said Maj. Gen. John F. Campbell, the commander for eastern Afghanistan. ``I don't want the impression we're abandoning the Pech.''

The reorganization, which follows the complete Afghan and American withdrawals from isolated outposts in nearby Nuristan Province and the Korangal Valley, runs the risk of providing the Taliban with an opportunity to claim success and raises questions about the latest strategy guiding the war.

American officials say their logic is simple and compelling: the valley consumed resources disproportionate with its importance; those forces could be deployed in other areas; and there are not enough troops to win decisively in the Pech Valley in any case.

``If you continue to stay with the status quo, where will you be a year from now?'' General Campbell said. ``I would tell you that there are places where we'll continue to build up security and it leads to development and better governance, but there are some areas that are not ready for that, and I've got to use the forces where they can do the most good.''

President Obama's Afghan troop buildup is now fully in place, and the United States military has its largest-ever contingent in Afghanistan. Mr. Obama's reinforced campaign has switched focus to operations in Afghanistan's south, and to building up Afghan security forces.

The previous strategy emphasized denying sanctuaries to insurgents, blocking infiltration routes from Pakistan and trying to fight away from populated areas, where NATO's superior firepower could be massed, in theory, with less risk to civilians. The Pech Valley effort was once a cornerstone of this thinking.

The new plan stands as a clear, if unstated, repudiation of earlier decisions. When Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the former NATO commander, overhauled the Afghan strategy two years ago, his staff designated 80 ``key terrain districts'' to concentrate on. The Pech Valley was not one of them.

Ultimately, the decision to withdraw reflected a stark--and controversial--internal assessment by the military that it would have been better served by not having entered the high valley in the first place.

``What we figured out is that people in the Pech really aren't anti-U.S. or anti-anything; they just want to be left alone,'' said one American military official familiar with the decision. ``Our presence is what's destabilizing this area.''

Gen. Mohammed Zaman Mamozai, a former commander of the region's Afghan Border Police, agreed with some of this assessment. He said that residents of the Pech Valley bristled at the American presence but might tolerate Afghan units. ``Many times they promised us that if we could tell the Americans to pull out of the area, they wouldn't fight the Afghan forces,'' he said.

It is impossible to know whether such pledges will hold. Some veterans worry that the withdrawal will create an ideal sanctuary for insurgent activity--an area under titular government influence where fighters or terrorists will shelter or prepare attacks elsewhere.

While it is possible that the insurgents will concentrate in the mountain valleys, General Campbell said his goal was to arrange forces to keep insurgents from Kabul, the country's capital.

``There are thousands of isolated mountainous valleys throughout Afghanistan, and we cannot be in all of them,'' he said.

The American military plans to withdraw from most of the four principal American positions in the valley. For security reasons, General Campbell declined to discuss which might retain an American presence, and exactly how the Americans would operate with Afghans in the area in the future.

As the pullback begins, the switch in thinking has fueled worries among those who say the United States is ceding some of Afghanistan's most difficult terrain to the insurgency and putting residents who have supported the government at risk of retaliation.

``There is no house in the area that does not have a government employee in it,'' said Col. Gul Rahman, the Afghan police chief in the Manogai District, where the Americans' largest base in the valley, Forward Operating Base Blessing, is located. ``Some work with the Afghan National Army, some work with the Afghan National Police, or they are a teacher or governmental employee. I think it is not wise to ignore and leave behind all these people, with the danger posed to their lives.''

Some Afghan military officials have also expressed pointed misgivings about the prospects for Afghan units left behind.

``According to my experience in the military and knowledge of the area, it's absolutely impractical for the Afghan National Army to protect the area without the Americans,'' said Major Turab, the former second-in-command of an Afghan battalion in the valley, who like many Afghans uses only one name. ``It will be a suicidal mission.''

The pullback has international implications as well. Senior Pakistani commanders have complained since last summer that as American troops withdraw from Kunar Province, fighters and some commanders from the Haqqani network and other militant groups have crossed into Afghanistan from Pakistan to create a ``reverse safe haven'' from which to carry out attacks against Pakistani troops in the tribal areas.

The Taliban and other Afghan insurgent groups are all but certain to label the withdrawal a victory in the Pech Valley, where they could point to the Soviet Army's withdrawal from the same area in 1988. Many Afghans remember that withdrawal as a symbolic moment when the Kremlin's military campaign began to visibly fall apart.

Within six months, the Soviet-backed Afghan Army of the time ceded the territory to mujahedeen groups, according to Afghan military officials.

The unease, both with the historical precedent and with the price paid in American blood in the valley, has ignited a sometimes painful debate among Americans veterans and active-duty troops. The Pech Valley had long been a hub of American military operations in Kunar and Nuristan Provinces.

American forces first came to the valley in force in 2003, following the trail of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of the Hezb-i-Islami group, who, like other prominent insurgent leaders, has been said at different times to hide in Kunar. They did not find him, though Hezb-i-Islami is active in the valley.

Since then, one American infantry battalion after another has fought there, trying to establish security in villages while weathering roadside bombs and often vicious fights.

Along with other slotlike canyons that the United States has already largely abandoned--including the Korangal Valley, the Waygal Valley (where the battle of Wanat was fought in 2008), the Shuryak Valley and the Nuristan River corridor (where Combat Outpost Keating was nearly overrun in 2009)--the Pech Valley was a region rivaled only by Helmand Province as the deadliest Afghan acreage for American troops.

On one operation alone in 2005, 19 service members, including 11 members of the Navy Seals, died.

As the years passed and the toll rose, the area assumed for many soldiers a status as hallowed ground. ``I can think of very few places over the past 10 years with as high and as sustained a level of violence,'' said Col. James W. Bierman, who commanded a Marine battalion in the area in 2006 and helped establish the American presence in the Korangal Valley.

In the months after American units left the Korangal last year, insurgent attacks from that valley into the Pech Valley increased sharply, prompting the current American battalion in the area, First Battalion, 327th Infantry, and Special Operations units to carry out raids into places that American troops once patrolled regularly.

Last August, an infantry company raided the village of Omar, which the American military said had become a base for attacks into the Pech Valley, but which earlier units had viewed as mostly calm. Another American operation last November, in the nearby Watapor Valley, led to fighting that left seven American soldiers dead.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 24, 2011

An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to a pullback of American forces in eastern Afghanistan. It is a pullback from remote territory within Kunar Province, not from the province as a whole.

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Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We've stated over and over in this debate the cost of this war in this budget alone will be over $113 billion--$113 billion. There are Members who have come to this floor trying to whack a billion dollars in spending here and there. This is $113 billion. You want to cut out waste, let's get out of Afghanistan.

Keep in mind that when you go to the Pentagon, and some of our Members have, and have gone to Afghanistan, there's an open-ended war going on here. There's no end in sight. I've submitted for the Record articles with respect to that. Hear this: We're going to be there through at least 2020. And that's going to cost us an extra, at least an extra trillion dollars.

Where are we going to get that money? Are we going to cut Social Security for that? Are we going to cut health care and cut funds for education? Are we going to cut more funds for home heating aid?

Where are we going to get this money? Are we ready to give up our entire domestic agenda so that we can continue on the path of a war to prop up a corrupt regime whose friends are building villas in Dubai, presumably with money that comes through the United States that's shipped out in planes out of the Kabul airport?

We have to start standing up for America here.

I appreciate and respect every Member of this Congress who served in the military. We honor them, just as I honor the members of my own family; my father, Frank, who was a World War II veteran; my brother Frank, who was a Vietnam veteran; my brother Gary, a Vietnam-era veteran; my sister Beth Ann, an Army veteran. I come from a family that appreciates service to our country.

But how are we serving our troops by letting them in a situation that is absolutely impossible, whether it's greater numbers of them returning home with injuries from IEDs. How are we serving our troops by telling them we're going to keep extending the period of the war? Who's speaking up truly for our troops here? Is it General Petraeus, who says, Well, we'll just keep the war going and maybe--maybe--we'll send 2,000 troops out of Afghanistan or redirect them by 2014. He doesn't get to make the choice. That choice must be made by the Congress of the United States.

It's time that we started to stand up for the Constitution of the United States, which, last I checked, in Article I, section 8 provides that Congress has to make the decision whether or not to send our troops into war. We have not the right to give that over to a President, over to a general, or anybody else. It's our prerogative inside this Congress.

In 2001, Mr. Speaker, I joined with Members of this House in voting for the authorization of military force following the terrorist attacks on 9/11. I don't take a backseat to anyone in standing up to defend this country. But as the United States continues in what is now the longest war in our history, it has become clear that the authorization for military force is being used as a carte blanche for circumventing Congress' role as a coequal branch of government.

I want you to hear this. We're a coequal branch of government. We're not lap dogs for the President. We're not servants of generals. We are a coequal branch of government expressing the sovereign will of the American people.

It has become clear this administration, just as the last administration, is willing to commit us to an endless war and an endless stream of money, just a year after a commitment of an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan and continued assurances of ``progress.'' They have been walking that dog down the road for the last 7 years. Progress.

My legislation invokes the War Powers Resolution of 1973, and if enacted, would require this President to withdraw U.S. Armed Forces out of Afghanistan by December 31, 2011.

Regardless of your support or opposition to the war in Afghanistan, this debate has been a critical opportunity to evaluate the human and the economic cost as this Congress works to address our country's dire financial straits. Those of us that supported the withdrawal may not agree on a timeline, but an increasing number of us agree it's time to think and rethink our current national security strategy. And we have to know the costs are great. We can't get away from the costs of this war.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joe Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, his associate, wrote a book about the Iraq war. They projected then a minimum of $3 trillion in costs.

I would like to include in the Record, Mr. Speaker, a statement that I made over 8 years ago at the beginning of the Iraq war, where I pointed out there was nothing--no reason why we should be going to war in Iraq because there was no proof that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

I mention that in terms of this debate because we're at the confluence of the events--the anniversary of the Iraq war; the confluence of the funding of the war in Afghanistan. We've got to get out of Afghanistan. We've got to get out of Iraq. We've got to start taking care of things here at home.

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