Drawing Down American Troops from Afghanistan

Floor Speech

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Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, it is now mid-June and we are just weeks away from the July date the President promised for a drawdown of American troops from Afghanistan. But so far, so far, there appears to be little movement towards the kind of redeployment that the moment actually calls for and that the American people are insisting on.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, Defense Secretary Gates, on his way out the door, endorsed a ``modest'' drawdown, even though the President has promised something significant. This is not a moment that calls for modesty. This is a moment for boldness and true leadership. This is a moment to break out of the war default posture--the posture that we've been in for going on 10 years now.

The longer this war goes on, the bloodier it becomes. We were told last year that fatalities would be unusually high in 2010 as the surge troops begin penetrating the Taliban strongholds. But it turns out there's no sign that casualties are tapering off, and we're on pace for an equally deadly 2011. We lost more troops in March, April, and May of this year than we did during the same months of 2010.

And let's not forget--because I don't think it's talked about nearly enough--that it's not just uniformed members of the U.S. military being put in harm's way by this conflict. The United Nations said over the weekend that there were more civilian casualties in May than in any single other month of this war. Needless to say, killing innocent people is certainly not the way to win the hearts and minds of another country.

The American people's patience is wearing thin, Mr. Speaker; and there are many Members of this body--a fair number in the Republican majority--who cannot support this Afghanistan policy either. I for one am tired of being told that the strategy is working and it just needs more time to succeed. How many military families will lose a father or a mother or a son or a daughter in the time it takes for this strategy to go nowhere? How many troops will be physically and psychologically damaged beyond repair?

Mr. Speaker, I think nearly a decade--longer than any war in American history--is more than enough time to admit that the strategy does not work. We don't need simply a token drawdown. We need a fundamental change in policy and a complete reorientation of our thinking about national security. We need to finally end this war and bring our troops home.

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