Political Quotes

“I, first of all, wish to associate myself with the remarks of Mr. Duncan, Mr. Jones, and Mr. McGovern, who spoke earlier; and I intend to address the issue of the war in Afghanistan. This war has got to end. It's got to end because it's making us weaker, not stronger. It's a dead-end strategy that is the result of decisions that were made that do not treat with the respect they are entitled to the willingness of our men and women in uniform to serve. They will do whatever it is we ask them to do. Our job is to give them a policy that's worthy of the sacrifice that they are always willing to make. This war in Afghanistan has been going on for 10 years. It has morphed into the United States military and the United States taxpayer having the burden of building a nation in Afghanistan. That can't be done. We know it can't be done, but there is an unwillingness to have a reckoning in this Congress and in this country to turn the direction of our national defense into fighting terrorism in a sensible way, not nation-building in Afghanistan. So the central issue here is not just the money, which I'll address; it's not just the time that this war has been going on, which I'll address; it's the basic strategy. This nation-building approach, over 100,000 American troops in Afghanistan, over 110,000 contractors, does that make sense when the enemy that we're fighting is decentralized and dispersed? It's not a nation state threat.…”