US soldier mortally wounded is taken off the battlefield under fire by the Taliban in 2014.
On June 24, 2014 Rep. Walter Jones of North Carolina asked for and received permission to address the United States House of Representatives regarding the war in Afghanistan:
“Mr. Speaker, I want to bring to the attention of the House an article in the Daily Journal Online titled “No End for Afghanistan’s War on the United States Taxpayer”–” No End for Afghanistan’s War on the United States Taxpayer,” which states: John F. Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, known as SIGAR, may have taken Uncle Sam and shaken him by the lapels last month, but the media missed it. Americans, however, need to hear how Sopko, in an address at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C., laid out why Afghanistan remains “relevant”–and a cause for outrage–for every U.S. taxpayer and policymaker. In short, Afghanistan is on life support, and Joe Citizen is its permanent IV.
These are the words of John Sopko. This article goes on to say:
SIGAR, on the job since 2008, has produced 118 audits and inspection reports and made 23 quarterly reports to Congress. Nothing seems to penetrate the Capitol dome, however.
Mr. Speaker, this brings me to a quote by Pat Buchanan, with whom I agree strongly on foreign policy issues:
Is it not a symptom of senility to be borrowing from the world, so we can defend the world?
How appropriate a statement is that? We are a debtor nation that has to borrow money every year to pay the debts of our own Nation, and we borrow money to spend overseas in foreign areas. It makes no sense.
That is why I am so disappointed that, last week, we were unable to put a stop on the waste, fraud, and abuse of the American taxpayer money in Afghanistan.
Now, when we also must consider the collapse of Iraq, I am reminded of a quote from our country’s first President, in a letter from George Washington to James Monroe, and I quote Washington:
I have always given it as my decided opinion that no nation has a right to intermeddle in the concerns of another, that everybody has a right to form and adopt whatever government they liked best to live under themselves.
Mr. Speaker, beside me is a poster of military carrying the casket of an American soldier killed in either Iraq or Afghanistan. I bring this to the floor because, this past weekend, we had three marines from Camp Lejeune–which is in the district I represent, the Third District of North Carolina–three marines in the engineering battalion in Afghanistan helping to build roads in Afghanistan. The three were shot and killed.
That is why I continue to join my colleagues, and both parties come to this floor and to say to the Congress: you are not listening to the American people, the American people are sick and tired of their sons and daughters dying in foreign lands, borrowing money from the Chinese to pay for that development in those foreign lands, and we continue to have more and more losing their life and their limbs.
It is time for the Congress to listen to the American people. They are the ones that elect us to come here to represent their views and their interests, and we are not listening to them as it relates to Afghanistan. I pray for our men and women in uniform, their families, and pray for the families who have given a child dying for freedom in Afghanistan and Iraq”, said Rep. Jones (Source: Congressional Record http://thomas.loc.gov/).
See related article: War cost in Afghanistan near “$2 trillion”, says Rep. Cicilline https://groundreport.com/war-cost-in-afghanistan-near-2-trillion-says-rep-cicilline/
See also: US is the largest funding source to the Taliban in Afghanistan http://www.robert-tilford.newsvine.com/_news/2014/05/31/24097362-us-is-the-largest-funding-source-to-the-taliban-in-afghanista
said Rep. Jones (Source: Congressional Record http://thomas.loc.gov/).
See related article: War cost in Afghanistan near “$2 trillion”, says Rep. Cicilline https://groundreport.com/war-cost-in-afghanistan-near-2-trillion-says-rep-cicilline/
See also: US is the largest funding source to the Taliban in Afghanistanhttp://www.robert-tilford.newsvine.com/_news/2014/05/31/24097362-us-is-the-largest-funding-source-to-the-taliban-in-afghanista