to remind people, 46,000 killed or wounded in one of the smallest armies since 1939. i just gave an award to a dad whose son got the silver star. he wasn t there to receive it himself because he was back in afghanistan on his sixth combat tour, so at the end of the day tom ricks superb article this morning in the washington post captured a lot of this. our way out is build afghan security forces. lieutenant general build caldwell is on the ground. petraeus is going to go in. he s got to build a police force and an afghan army that can maintain order. we don t have the political will to stay with this much longer. i m the daughter of a military officer and i know the sacrifices these soldiers are making. they are brave, done everything brilliantly and whatever we ve asked them to do. if congress allows it we ll have an endless war so it s time to begin to look at an exit strategy, a time line and to begin to safely redeploy our young men and women out of afghanistan and begin to
i was watching you yesterday. you made a strong case. but bottom lining this thing, do you think this president will ever give you what you want? a date for the beginning of the withdrawal? and a date for the final removal of all troops from afghanistan? i certainly hope so, chris. because remember, nine years ago, when we went into afghanistan, the president then was given authority to wage what i considered then an endless war and i did not vote for that resolution. but the american people were told that we were going into afghanistan to capture osama bin laden and to stop bin laden. and to stop al qaeda, excuse me. this is now the longest war in american history. the american people are weary, chris. we need to develop an exit strategy, a plan, and a time line to begin to safely redeploy our young men and women out of afghanistan. i did not support the july timetable because when you look at what is happening in afghanistan, it s not getting
going into afghanistan to capture osama bin laden and to stop al qaeda. at this point we have to look at what has happened during that last ten years. has hour goal and mission been accomplished? the reason i cannot support giving then president bush and any subsequent president a blank check to wage endless war was precisely because of what has happened. the american people, had they known, that this would be the longest war in history, i think they would have been much more debate and discussion in congress. there may have been a three-hour discussion before this authorization was granted. i think we need an exit strategy. we need a plan. we need a way to begin to redeploy our young men and women out of harm s way, and we need to look at how to move forward. do you think the president is backtracking when he says, hey, we never said we d turn the lights out and leave? i think the public expects a review in december. the public expects us to begin
over a minute left and congresswoman, too. how does this end? to remind people, 46,000 killed or wounded in one of the smallest armies since 1939. i just gave an award to a dad whose son got the silver star. he wasn t there to receive it himself because he was back in afghanistan on his sixth combat tour, so at the end of the day tom ricks superb article this morning in the washington post captured a lot of this. our way out is build afghan security forces. lieutenant general build caldwell is on the ground. petraeus is going to go in. he s got to build a police force and an afghan army that can maintain order. we don t have the political will to stay with this much longer. i m the daughter of a military officer and i know the sacrifices these soldiers are making. they are brave, done everything brilliantly and whatever we ve asked them to do. if congress allows it we ll have an endless war so it s time to begin to look at an exit strategy, a time line and to begin to safely red
in just being in afghanistan for the sake of being in afghanistan or saving face or in some way, you know, sending a message that america is here for the duration. if we re really just fighting al qaeda, al qaeda is not there. the most dangerous aspect of al qaeda is the network which is supported in some fashion by pakistan, operating in the tribal region on the border, and yet we hear about the enemy being the taliban. are we clear on who we re fighting? general jones actually indicated that i believe less than 100 members of al qaeda in afghanistan. look at somalia, you look at yemen, this is a global operation. they are not going to deal with al qaeda al qaeda is not in a cave in afghanistan. we ve got to remember that, and so as we look at how we move forward, cook, first of all, has to have this debate. secondly, we do have to develop an exit strategy and a time line and begin to bring our young men