Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I won't take 5 minutes. I rise to speak in support of the Lee amendment, which I have the honor of cosponsoring. My views on Afghanistan, I expressed a little while ago, but I just want to make a couple of comments. The gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis) said we have to be careful, that we have to be wary of a vacuum should we pull out. He analogized it to what happened with the Soviets when the Soviets lost and there was a vacuum because we turned our backs on it. And he was right. We should not have turned our backs on helping, on helping with schooling and other things in Afghanistan at that time. But the fact of the matter is the world's history is full of empires that threw away their substance on silly military adventures. This is a silly military adventure. It's a total waste, because it is a classic, where we are fighting when we have forgotten why we are fighting. We went into Afghanistan to get rid of the al Qaeda bases. That took a week. For good measure we spent another week and got rid of the Taliban government. And now what are we fighting for for the last 8 years? To put a government in our image? It's not going to happen. To install and see that there is a government that can rule from Kabul? There hasn't been a government in Kabul who has run the entire country since Alexander the Great. That's not going to happen.…”