U.S. Rep. McGovern on 10 years in Afghanistan: Enough is enough

Enough is enough. Get out of Afghanistan. The costs in blood and treasure have been too high. Ten years is more than enough. After ten years, it's time to come home.

Washington, DC, October 5, 2011
Enough is enough. Get out of Afghanistan. The costs in blood and treasure have been too high. Ten years is more than enough. After ten years, it's time to come home.

10 LONG, COSTLY, BLOODY YEARS OF WAR IN AFGHANISTAN: THE COSTS ARE TOO HIGH

Madame Speaker, on Sunday, newspapers across the country reported that the total number of U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan since 2001 is 1,780. This tally may be slightly incomplete because of lags in reporting.

1,780 servicemen and women, M. Speaker. Husbands, fathers, wives and mothers. Sons and daughters, brothers and sisters. Holes created in families and communities that can never be filled, losses that will be felt for a generation or more.

Saturday began the new fiscal year, Mr. Speaker - Fiscal Year 2012. According to the Congressional Research Service, the estimated war funding for Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001 through Fiscal Year 2011 is 1.283 Trillion Dollars. $443 Billion of that has been spent in Afghanistan. For Fiscal Year 2012, which began on Saturday, we will spend another $113.7 billion in Afghanistan. By this time next year, our total spending in Afghanistan will be $557.1 Billion - or over half a trillion dollars.

And when I say -spend,- Madame Speaker, I really mean -borrow.- Because from Day One of the Afghanistan War - and the Iraq War for that matter - we have not paid for these wars. We have borrowed nearly every single penny of that money, put it on the national credit card, let it rack up over a quarter of our cumulative deficit, helped explode our debt year after year for a decade.

There has only been one other time in the history of the United States that a war was financed entirely through borrowing, Mr. Speaker, without raising taxes - and that was when the Colonies borrowed from France during the Revolutionary War. I know lots of Members in this House believe in the Tea Party, but that's just stupid economics.

Even if we were to leave Afghanistan and Iraq tomorrow, our war debt will continue for decades. Future bills will include such things as caring for our military veterans and providing them the benefits they have earned through their service. It will require replacing military equipment, rebuilding our armed forces and paying interest on the trillions we have borrowed for these wars. These costs are significant.

Madame Speaker, this Friday, October 7th, marks the 10th Anniversary of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. Ten years, M. Speaker. Ten years of support for a corrupt government. Ten years of sacrificing our brave uniformed men and women. Ten years of borrowing money we never had.

This war is no longer about going after al-Qaeda, which I voted to do. Osama bin Laden is dead. Instead, we're now bogged down in a seemingly endless occupation in support of a corrupt, incompetent Karzai government. This is not what I voted for.

And the human and financial costs of the war in Afghanistan go on and on. Not just on the battlefields of Afghanistan, but in Veterans Hospitals and counseling clinics around the country - another $8.4 billion to care for our veterans, wounded in both body and soul.

We continue to struggle with soaring post-traumatic stress and suicide rates among our soldiers and our veterans. Their impacts are devastating on families, friends, colleagues and military buddies.

It's hard to explain how we could borrow and spend so freely, so casually, while our men and women bled in the plains and mountains of Afghanistan. But now we have to face the consequences of that lack of accountability, that lack of responsible governance.

When the Super-Committee makes its decisions on how to handle the deficit and the debt, I say ending the wars as rapidly as possible must be the first item on the table. I also say that from this point forward, the wars must be paid for - no more -emergency- funding. No more -overseas contingency funds- that get a free pass from responsible budgeting. I believe President Obama has to bring this to the negotiations and the House and Senate members of the Super-Committee have to step up to the plate and end these wars. Now. They have undermined our economy and our security.

Ten years into the Afghanistan War, the violence shows no sign of abating, the Karzai government shows little interest in cleaning up corruption, and no one is interested in the kind of region-wide negotiations required to bring stability and security to all parties.

So I say, enough is enough, Madame Speaker. Get out of Afghanistan. The costs in blood and treasure have been too high. Ten years is more than enough. After ten years, it's time to come home.