Jane Harman: “Madam Speaker, the war in Afghanistan has continued for 9 years, and the Obama administration continues to rely on the…”

“Madam Speaker, the war in Afghanistan has continued for 9 years, and the Obama administration continues to rely on the almost decade-old authorization to use military force which Congress passed, as we have heard, by an overwhelming vote a few days after 9/11/2001. Most who voted for it, including me, thought it was limited in time and place, but it became the basis for many actions taken by the Bush administration. In my view, the AUMF has been overused and abused as the basis for policy. It is time for us to consider whether it should sunset, and I believe that it should. But the resolution before us is not, in my view, the right place to address that issue. After years of giving Afghanistan short shrift, tolerating rampant government corruption, and standing by as the Taliban reestablished itself, we now have a better strategy. That strategy, developed by President Obama late last year, includes a promised drawdown of our troops beginning in July 2011--or possibly sooner, according to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who visited there earlier this week. Let me be clear, I do not support the surge of an additional 30,000 additional American troops in Afghanistan.”