Mr. Speaker, I guess what we have to do is change what we have been doing because it has not been working. Every report that has come forward says that security is down and corruption is up.
I want to point to the corruption right now. We hear about the schools that are being filled with children and that is true, but one of the problems, however, is that there are not many teachers in them. I have a report from Afghanistan for just last week. The fact is that teachers get paid $50 a month. How much does someone make in the opium fields? It is $20 a day.
What is happening right now is that the security problem is directly connected to the corruption problem. We have to learn in this place that not all the Taliban are the same. What is happening, because of the corruption in the government, was quoted by Sarah Chaise recently. She said that during the day they are shaken down by government officials and at night it is the Taliban.
We have to understand that we are not going to win this war through military means. We are not going to provide security by just providing more helicopters, troops and drones. We have to understand that the path to peace and to the Afghan people is to deal with corruption, poverty, and the horrible situation that most people are living in right now. That means a different form of security.
People might have different views of what security means. Security often is through protection. It does not always come through the barrel of a gun. The point was made about people being taken out to be shot or hung. It is important to note that between 1992 and 1996, tens of thousands of people died in the civil war in Afghanistan. People have not forgotten that. Scores are still being settled.
The fact of the matter is that until the wide gap that was not filled after the Bonn agreement is dealt with and the reconciliation process is not dealt with, this matter will get worse. That is why our party has put forward an amendment for a new UN mandate which would provide the possibility of peace and reconciliation.
I was in Iraq this past summer. The Iraqi people are just starting to get to that point now and many believe it is a point that should have been dealt with long before. Perhaps the government still agrees with the war in Iraq. For those of us who opposed it, we also believe that the mistakes that were made after the invasion continued the misery for the people in Iraq.
No one wants to see that happen in Afghanistan and I am sad to say that if we choose more troops, drones and helicopters, we are going to find ourselves in three years in a similar situation as to the one that is happening right now in Iraq.