Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I rise today for this opportunity to speak as an original cosponsor of this bill on what I believe is the foremost foreign policy issue facing the United States today. There is perhaps no more important matter on the table right now than Afghanistan, not least because every dollar we spend abroad for war is a dollar of investment lost to all of our communities here at home. We have spent more than $250 billion fighting and occupying Afghanistan. President Obama is now implementing his plan to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, which will cost another $33 billion. This is an enormous amount of money, and the security gains are dubious when there are more al Qaeda in other parts of the globe. So long as the United States has a major military presence in Afghanistan, long-term stability will continue to be a goal just out of our reach. More troops are not the answer. We need to turn the corner. We must rebuild. We must build a governing capacity among the Afghans, not military fighting capacity. As long as Afghanistan is able to depend exclusively on the United States for stability, the longer they will continue to do so. The quicker we prepare for transfer authority to the Afghans, the sooner we will be able to leave the country. Over a year ago, President Obama announced his strategy to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda in its safe havens of Afghanistan and Pakistan. I made clear that I would not rubber-stamp his strategy for more troops.…”