Political Quotes

“The U.S. has been training troops in Iraq and Afghanistan for over 7 years now with arguably little or no sign of success; yet we are applying the same failed counterinsurgency strategies in Iraq, Afghanistan and now perhaps Pakistan. A seemingly endless stream of money, an estimated $1 trillion, has been poured into the destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan. Millions of dollars in taxpayer money spent to prop up a corrupt and unpopular central government and to train local security forces. Yet attacks on the U.S. and allied troops continue to rise. Documents released by WikiLeaks report that Pakistan intelligence service, the ISI, supports Taliban attacks on U.S. forces. This despite an average of $1 billion a year in aid from the U.S. Now, this raises a broader question, Mr. Speaker, which is really about today in Washington. Can the United States win the war in Afghanistan or hope to have any success there at all if our major ally, Pakistan, through their intelligence agency, is cooperating with the Taliban against our troops in Afghanistan?”