Bill Delahunt: “To think that our military, as it has in Iraq, performed so professionally and admirably in Afghanistan, and now we are…”

“To think that our military, as it has in Iraq, performed so professionally and admirably in Afghanistan, and now we are on the verge of seeing Afghanistan becoming a failed state. Nicolas Kristoff, a columnist in the New York Times, says, and again it is this week, in the 2 years since the war in Afghanistan, opium production, and he has given us three choices, virtually been eliminated, declined 30 percent, soared 19-fold and become the major source of the world's heroin. That is what is happening in Afghanistan today. In two provinces that are religiously conservative parts of Afghanistan, the number of children going to school has quintupled, has risen 40 percent, has plummeted as poor security has closed nearly all the schools there. The right answer is the last one. This is truly potentially a disaster. President Karzai's brother, Ahmed Karzai, who represents the government in one of the southern provinces, was very blunt to an AP reporter this past Monday: it is like I am seeing the same movie twice, and no one is trying to fix the problem. What was promised to Afghans with the collapse of the Taliban was a new life of hope and change. Those are the words of President Bush, but what was delivered, nothing. There had been no significant changes for people. Karzai says he does not know what to say to people anymore.…”