Brian Jones: “In the letter to Mr. Ryan, I ask him, the Speaker of the House, if he would find 45 minutes in the very busy schedule…”

“In the letter to Mr. Ryan, I ask him, the Speaker of the House, if he would find 45 minutes in the very busy schedule that he has to meet with John Sopko. I have been in meetings, both formal and informal, with John Sopko, and other Members of Congress have, and his group, known as SIGAR, have given full reports every year for the past few years to talk about the failure of our policy in Afghanistan. I don't know why we in Congress continue to fund Afghanistan. It is nothing but a waste of life and money, and it needs to stop. Mr. Speaker, it is true now that we have fewer Americans killed in Afghanistan, but they still are being killed and wounded. I have a poster beside me that I have carried down to my district in North Carolina, as well as here in the House. For every one American that dies, I write a letter to the family. I have sent over 11,000 letters to families in this country. I started this when we had the war in Iraq, on which I failed to vote my conscience. I bought the misinformation from the Bush administration, and I voted to send our troops to Iraq. This picture is of a little girl standing there with her hand holding her mother's hand, with her finger in her mouth kind of wondering why her daddy is in a flag-draped coffin. This will continue to go on. There will be families across this Nation until we pull out of Afghanistan. Let Afghanistan take care of its own problems. We cannot buy friendship in Afghanistan. I close with this, Mr. Speaker.…”