Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, I rise to support the Lee Amendment to end the war in Afghanistan and bring our troops home as quickly as possible. The whole premise of the war in Afghanistan is wrong. The rationale for the war is to fight Al Qaeda, but most of the day-to-day fighting is against an entrenched Taliban insurgency that will outlast any foreign fighters. Fighting in Afghanistan does not enhance the security of the United States in any way. In 2001, we were attacked on 9/11 by Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda had bases in Afghanistan, and at that time it made sense to go in and destroy those bases, and we did. But that took about three weeks. We should have withdrawn after three weeks. The CIA told us more than a year ago that there are fewer than one hundred Al Qaeda personnel in all of Afghanistan. So why do we still have 88,000 troops there? Troops who will continue to risk their lives every day in a war that has already claimed far too many lives. And why should we continue pouring billions of dollars into an intractable mess when we should be devoting those funds to our own economy, our own jobs, our own schools, our own bridges and roads and highways, our own housing, social programs, and education? Afghanistan is in the middle of what is, so far, a 35 year civil war. We do not have either the need or the ability to determine the winner in that war, which is what we're trying to do.…”