mekong man has already signed onto the letter. thank you both congresswomen. i was watching you yesterday. you made a strong case. but bottom line in 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 troops from afghanistan? i certainly hope so, chris. remember, nine years ago, when we went into afghanistan, the president then was given authority to wage what i consider then an endless war, and i did not vote for the 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
people were told that we were 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 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 and women home. let s remember some history
middle, transition period, and an end. we don t know how that ends. there s mixed signals coming from the white house. the republicans just yesterday told the american people that we can t afford to extend unemployment benefit for those who are out of work now, millions of our fellow citizens. we don t have the money. yet when it comes to supporting president karzai, a corrupt and c con competent incompetent leader, we re a bottomless pit. we need clarity, but the clarity need to include an exit strategy which we don t have right now. let me ask you, congressman nadler, what s the difference between the bush strategy in afghanistan and the obama strategy because we know this we have the same secretary of defense. and now we have the same field commander, patraeus. we got gates, patraeus, the only thing missing is w. him. what s the difference in the two policies? can you discern it? i cannot discern a difference other than a stated intention to begin withdrawing either small nu
not the date when the u.s. heads for the exits. who sets those conditions? general patraeus as a hawk, congressman mcgovern and congressman nadler, or the government who s somewhat of a centrist on this issue? who decide when decisions are made? the president of the united states is our commander in chief. he makes these decisions in consultation with general patraeus. but there is no exit strategy. and i think general patraeus comments just just amplify that fact. we don t know how this is going to end. we ve been here for ten years. and as congressman nadler said, we were originally going after al qaeda. you know, al qaeda is now moving to other places. what we need to do is find a way to elk triindicate ourselves extricate ourselves from afghanistan. get the government to stand up and do its job, and going after the enemy, those who are responsible for the killing of so many people on september 11. we need to redirect our effort to getting to them. congressman nadler, las