Afghanistan: The Graveyard of Empires

Floor Speech

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Mr. JONES. Mr. Speaker, last week in the House Armed Services Committee, we had a hearing on the budget for fiscal year 2016. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, both testified before the committee, and I have great respect for both of them. I asked them if, after a decade in Afghanistan, keeping troops in Afghanistan for 9 more years would even make a difference.

Last year in his Politico article, ``Down the Opium Rathole,'' Roger Simon argues, ``If you spent 13 years pounding money down a rathole with little to show for it, you might wake up one morning and say: `Hey, I'm going to stop pounding money down this rathole.' ..... Unfortunately, the U.S. Government does not think this way. Even though our combat troops are leaving Afghanistan, our money will continue to flow there, billion after billion.''

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Mr. JONES. In recent days, the waste of billions of dollars in Afghanistan has been dominating the headlines:

March 20 of this year, ``Afghanistan Can't Manage Billions in Aid, U.S. Inspector Finds''; March 14, 2015, ``C.I.A. Cash Ended Up in Coffers of Al Qaeda''; May 4, 2013, ``Karzai Says He Was Assured C.I.A. Would Continue Delivering Bags of Cash.''

Mr. Speaker, the squandering of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars by the Afghan Government is one small aspect of the rampant waste, fraud, and abuse in Afghanistan.

The House is looking to vote on the budget produced by the Republican majority this week which continues billions of dollars the military deserves, but the billions of dollars going to Afghanistan are a waste. The Republican budget also provides billions of dollars for emergency war funding to get around sequestration. Why do we have sequestration in the first place? Because Congress has not passed an honest budget in years.

A couple of weeks ago, the House Armed Services Committee had a hearing on U.S. policy in Afghanistan, where I asked General John Campbell, U.S. Army, commander of the International Security Assistance Force and United States Forces in Afghanistan, if he will ever have a successor who will be honest with Congress and the American people about the fact that we have done as much as we can do in Afghanistan. He did not give me a direct answer, but his response was this: ``For very little continued investment, we can make this a shining light of central Asia.''

Mr. Speaker, if I had had more time, I would have asked General Campbell what his definition of ``very little continued investment'' is when we have already spent billions and billions of dollars and spilled blood in Afghanistan.

There are bridges, roads, educational needs, and veterans benefits to provide here in the United States. Let's focus on their needs rather than on chasing something that will never happen. History has proven Afghanistan will never change. It is a graveyard of empires.

Mr. Speaker, without a debate in Congress, President Obama signed a Bilateral Security Agreement with Afghanistan to keep our United States troops there for 9 more years. Let's cut the 9 years to 3 or 4 years and bring our troops home.

Finally, with an ever-climbing $18 trillion debt, the American people are frustrated. Congress needs to impose spending controls to save taxpayer money.

Mr. Speaker, may God continue to bless our men and women in uniform, and may God continue to bless America.

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