On the recordOctober 7, 2015
The recent news about Afghanistan is, at best, distressing. Soon Congress will be debating an increase in the debt ceiling so we can borrow more money to pay our bills. The sad part is that some of that money will go to Afghanistan. Three recent headlines are most discouraging: One from the Fiscal Times, September 23, ``U.S. Wasted Billions of Dollars Rebuilding Afghanistan.'' The second headline from the New York Times, October 1, ``Afghan Forces on the Run.'' The third headline, ``U.S. Soldiers Told to Ignore Sexual Abuse of Boys by Afghan Military Leaders.'' I am so outraged about the third headline story that I am demanding answers on the Pentagon's policy of permitting Afghan men to rape young boys on U.S. military bases. I have written a letter to the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and asked him to hold hearings on this issue. We need to get to the bottom of this. Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires. We are headed to the graveyard. We need to borrow money just to carry on the needless war. We need to borrow money just to pay our bills. We are over $18 trillion in debt, and President Obama signed us up for 8 more years in Afghanistan, 8 more years of wasted money. No one even listens to John Sopko, the Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, who has testified before Congress many times. He releases report after report detailing the waste, fraud, and abuse in Afghanistan, and no one in Congress seems to care.…
