On the recordMay 25, 2011
I continue to reserve the balance of my time. Mr. McGOVERN. I yield myself the balance of the time. Mr. Speaker, let me close by making a couple of points here. First, I would urge everybody, Democrats and Republicans, to support the McGovern-Jones amendment on Afghanistan. I think there is bipartisan concern and bipartisan anxiety about our policy. I think there are Republicans, as well as Democrats, who believe that it's time to rethink this strategy and to come up with an exit strategy to bring our troops home, to bring them back to their families and to bring them back to their communities. We need to make our voices heard. The President has said in July he is going to make an announcement about the drawdown of American troops. We're hearing from some sources that it may be only a token drawdown. We need a real drawdown, a significant drawdown, because if not, we are going to be engaged in a war that has no end. We are borrowing money like there's no tomorrow to pay for this war; $8.2 billion a month we're borrowing. We're not even paying for it. For those who support this war, I would say that if you support it, then pay for it. And I will tell you that most of the people across this country believe it's time to leave. We're supporting a corrupt government. The Karzai government is corrupt. There's no question about it. By every measure, they are wasting our money. And this is not a man, quite frankly, who our American servicemen and -women should have to die for.…
