I appreciate that.
There are still 12,000 troops under Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, as you know. My concern, though, is that under the operational practice of the Americans.... It was brought to this committee by Colonel Capstick and others as a real concern--who we are following. I agree with you. I hope we don't follow the wrong direction and the wrong mission, which is solely the counter-insurgency. In simplistic language, it's find the bad guys, get them, and kill them. I don't want to see our folks in there.
I talked to a constitutent yesterday, whose son is serving, about making sure that we contemplate this thoroughly and seriously. She totally disagrees with the mission, and she is very concerned. She was actually calling me because of the vote coming up.
I'm concerned that if we don't understand the consequences of getting, in this case, a thousand troops from the United States, who actually gets to decide what's going on? And with the number of American troops there now, it has affected--I won't give you an opinion on it--what we're doing on the ground in the south. That's why I asked the question.
I would like to turn to what I think is a question on many people's minds, and you've already touched on it. There's a consensus that you can't win this militarily. We've heard it over and over again, from people in the military, in development, from the opposition side, from government--well, not so much the government side, but you hear it time and time again. The government seems to have taken from your report what I'm calling a “mini-surge”, that a thousand troops and more helicopters and drones will somehow get the job done. I didn't see that in your report.
I'm looking toward and our party has been pushing for how we open up other avenues, particularly around reconciliation and diplomacy. We don't have enough resources on the ground for that, and it's not balanced. In heaven's name, what are we to do? I don't think you were trying to say give us a thousand troops, helicopters and drones, and that's it. And that's what I'm hearing from the government.