On the recordJuly 6, 2011
Before I yield to my colleague from California to respond, I would like to mention, and I appreciate Mr. Lewis' history, but I would suggest to you that al Qaeda could have found a base in Yemen, they could have found a base in the Sudan, they could have found a base in other places. There was nothing particularly unique about Afghanistan that allowed them to have that base there. The fact is that we went into a country to fight al Qaeda, which was all in the mountains in Pakistan, and even in the cities in Pakistan, probably with the knowledge of the Pakistani government, and we have wasted a lot of money and lives in an area where we didn't need to be because that war will continue. There are only 100 al Qaeda, give or take, left in Afghanistan, but there are al Qaeda in other spots in the Middle East, and al Qaeda's people have plotted terrorist activities from Germany and from other places in Europe. They don't need Osama bin Laden's base to have activity. There is nothing unique with Afghanistan. As far as the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union went down for goodly reasons, because of all of the money they spent in Afghanistan. True, we were there fighting them; but their attempt at gaining empire, which has been the cause of the loss of many empires, stretching too far and going beyond their supply lines, killed them. They spent money there. And they'd like us to stay there. They are being real nice to us.…
