A Decade in Afghanistan

Floor Speech

Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Speaker, we have been in Afghanistan for 10 years.

Two years ago, on the eighth anniversary of our invasion of Afghanistan, I stood in this same spot and asked: Have our 8 years, 791 American deaths, and billions of U.S. dollars spent in Afghanistan made America safer? My conclusion, sadly, was no.

Two years later, I am left asking the same questions and reaching the same conclusions: al-Qaeda is still not primarily in Afghanistan, but in Pakistan, Yemen, Africa and elsewhere. We still cannot afford a vast ground war and rebuilding effort abroad. We should be fighting a smaller, smarter war that goes after terrorists instead of building nations. It's time to get out of Afghanistan before another year passes and we are back here saying the same thing all over again.

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