Political Quotes

“I thank my colleagues for bringing that recitation to an end, but I also urge my colleagues to pay careful attention to what we're trying to accomplish here. I'll try to explain it without reading each and every one of those lines. The Afghan Study Group, Richard Haas and many others who are very familiar with the Afghanistan war and the way in which it is being conducted have suggested that by the end of 2012, America should have no more than 25,000 troops in Afghanistan and then further, wind down the war in 2013 to 10,000 troops focused on terrorists, focused on al Qaeda. As I spoke a few moments ago on this issue, this amendment is to accomplish that goal, to wind down the war in a responsible way over the next 18 months so that at the end of the 18 months--that would be December 31, 2012--that there'd be no more than 25,000 troops in Afghanistan. Now, unfortunately, I can't add the rest of it, but I will at least give the reason for this. And that is to pivot on the success of getting bin Laden. We went to Afghanistan to get al Qaeda. We succeeded. And now we are involved in a civil war, a great civil war, a five-sided civil war, maybe a six- or seven-sided civil war; and we are supporting a government in that war that is at best corrupt and quite possibly even more inept. So what are we doing there besides spending $120 billion a year? Well, we are kind of fighting it out. We're losing a lot of Americans, and even more Afghans are dying.…”