Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have the opportunity this evening to address you on a subject that is both a meaningful memory for me, as the elected representative of the people of eastern Indiana's Sixth Congressional District, but also, as I…
Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have the opportunity this evening to address you on a subject that is both a meaningful memory for me, as the elected representative of the people of eastern Indiana's Sixth Congressional District, but also, as I believe we will hear not only from my recollection but
from colleagues who will join us, and a very rare opportunity to have a contemporary conversation about the critical importance and the extraordinary success of the United States of America in Afghanistan.
I had the privilege, as a Member of the House Committee on International Relations, to lead a congressional delegation both to Pakistan and Afghanistan this past December. Between the dates of 7 December and 14 December, I had the opportunity of traveling through Pakistan. We landed in Islamabad. We drove by ground transportation to the border of the tribal areas, the city of Peshawar, but also the areas both north and south, Wazirastan, where many may recognize the areas most often associated with theories about the hiding place of one Osama bin Laden.
While I and the Members of our delegation were in the city of Peshawar, we actually sat down for a meal with tribal leaders from that central area of south Wazirastan, which is in effect in the western area of Pakistan, and it probably is analogous to the Wild West in American history and folklore. As we met with the Prime Minister of Pakistan and the Governor of the Peshawar Province, they referred to this area of Pakistan as the ungoverned areas of their country.
So they really are dominated, Mr. Speaker, by tribal leaders who are, in effect, military and familial leaders of communities ranging from 20,000 to 100,000 persons that dot the mountainous landscape of western Pakistan.
Now, while we stopped in Pakistan and evaluated the progress of the war on terror in that country, the primary purpose for our trip was to visit Afghanistan, where Operation Enduring Freedom has been an extraordinary success since the months immediately following the devastating attack on our country on September 11, 2001. It was my happy privilege to lead what came to be known as CODEL Pence, but the happier part of that was to be joined by colleagues and senior staff personnel of the House Committee on International Relations, who made this trip that much more meaningful and informative for the four policymakers that were alongside for the journey.
My colleagues, some of whom will join me here tonight to share their reflections on Afghanistan and the experience that they had, both in Kabul as well as at provisional reconstruction sites around the country, but my colleagues who joined me included the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake), the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Davis), and my good friend and colleague, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Chocola).
There were also noteworthy senior staff personnel from the House Committee on International Relations who joined us, as well as members of the media, all of whom, I might add, demonstrated an extraordinary degree of compassion toward the soldiers that we met and an extraordinary degree of compassion toward the regular Afghani adults and children that we encountered.
And I might also add that while at no time was our delegation in any physical peril, I do want to commend all those who traveled with us for the willingness to go into a combat environment and to carry the encouragement of the people that we serve to these soldiers in what was the holiday season, when they found themselves so far away from home.
From that dinner in Peshawar with the tribal leaders, we embarked by a C-130 and traveled for our first day into Afghanistan. We arrived in Kabul, Afghanistan, in the belly of a C-130 cargo plane, and we made our way through Kabul. By way of my first recollection, it was an extraordinarily war-torn city.
Our victory in Operation Enduring Freedom was so overwhelming and so quick against the Taliban and the al Qaeda that they harbored that I do not know that I did not really expect to see a metropolitan capital relatively unmolested by war. But that is only because I was not thinking. I was not thinking that it was not the military engagement of the United States of America in Kabul that has wreaked havoc on that, the largest city in Afghanistan. Rather it was years and decades of warfare in that country.
More on that later. More on how that has affected the attitudes of the Afghans both toward the American military commitment and presence in the region and how it bears on our relationship going forward.
But this city had been torn asunder by the military barbarism of the Taliban and, of course, by a decades-long struggle with the former Soviet Union that used barbaric military force again and again and again to attempt to defeat and subjugate the Afghan people and the Afghan military, ultimately to their defeat and ultimately to their national demise.
During our trip, we had a number of great privileges. We met while we were in Kabul with President Karzai. We had the privilege, Mr. Speaker, of being the very first congressional delegation to meet with President Hamid Karzai after his inauguration as the first elected President of Afghanistan. It was an extraordinary privilege for us to be there on December 13, 2004, sitting in the presidential palace and sitting in the office with President Karzai.
By way of reporting to this Chamber a few personal reflections on Hamid Karzai, he is a man who I truly believe is the George Washington of this generation of the Afghan people. He is, as General Washington, whose portrait hangs in this very Chamber, he is in every sense the indispensable man of the transition from the brutalities of Soviet Communism to the brutalities of Taliban extremism to the free era of an Islamic democratic republic in Afghanistan.
I started to get a sense, as we sat in his office in the palace, about why this man has been so successful. He is, first and foremost, a man whose personal biography is deeply compelling. Hamid Karzai comes from the region of Afghanistan down along the border. We were headed to his hometown, which if memory serves, is Kandahar.
His father had been, in effect, a tribal leader in Kandahar during the rise of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan; and as history records, Hamid Karzai's father had been initially very supportive of the Taliban, but very soon saw their twist into totalitarianism and brutality, and Hamid Karzai's father spoke out against the Taliban. And as often happens in brutal dictatorships, Hamid Karzai's father was assassinated, at which point he was spirited across the border into Pakistan. And during much of the reign of the Taliban, he essentially hid out in parts of Pakistan, which of course is very familiar to Hamid Karzai because he had been educated in the country of Pakistan. And to this day he bears both the Pakistani's facile ability with the English language as well as a deep understanding of history and academic thought.
It is that Hamid Karzai who, first with his biography was from a family that had suffered under the Taliban, that then he is able to come back and be the first elected president.
But I think also, and maybe my colleague from Indiana (Mr. Chocola) can reflect on our meeting with Hamid Karzai as well, I found him to be an extraordinarily compelling personality as well. The one message, and I will yield to my colleague for reflections on that meeting and maybe invite my colleague, Mr. Speaker, to a bit of a give-and-take as we tell the story of our journey through Afghanistan. I found him to be an individual who was deeply humble, who had a profound understanding of history, particularly the history of democracy, and who said to us again and again, I will not steal the gentleman from Indiana's thunder because he really asked a profound question of Hamid Karzai that I hope he recites and refers to, but I had a sense again and again that President Karzai understood that we were probably hearing back home that his people may not want the United States to stay around in Afghanistan. He looked at us again and again, Mr. Speaker, and said, When you go home, tell the people that you serve that we will never in Afghanistan fail to be grateful for what you have done and that we love the American soldier, we are grateful for their sacrifices and we love the American people.
To hear that from the elected President of a country that within a matter of years ago was not only one of the great enemies of our country in the world but harbored the al Qaeda, it was
just an extraordinary miracle of history and a great testament to this President's leadership.
With that, Mr. Speaker, and I hope he will stick around for much of our conversation as we tell the story of journeying through this area, is the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Chocola) who is beginning his second term in Congress, a member of the Committee on Ways and Means. We are proud of his leadership in Indiana. I was especially grateful that his family was willing to spare him to travel through a pretty difficult part of the world to gain a greater understanding as a policy leader. I yield to the gentleman for any reflections on our trip, but most especially would press him for an anecdote about our meeting with President Karzai.
I am grateful for the gentleman's remarks, Mr. Speaker.
This is an area, and I hope anyone that might be looking in to this august Chamber tonight might hear what my colleague from Indiana just said about the gratitude that came out of President Hamid Karzai. I had literally forgotten until you recited the story that that is precisely how he answered the gentleman's question, was to say our success is the success of the American people.
It has been an incredible success. Afghanistan, as the station chief where we overnighted at the American embassy in Kabul told us, and I will never forget it as we met for a briefing there on the embassy compound. He said, Afghanistan is a place where American power and American generosity are working. Let me say it again for the benefit of any here: Afghanistan is a place where American power and American generosity are working.
We have our challenges in Iraq and with this strong Commander in Chief that we have, we will see our way through this and we will see those good people with their ink-stained fingers through to the freedom they so richly deserve. But Afghanistan is a place we do not read about as much in the news. I think that animated my colleague from Indiana and my desire to go there and tell the story of the success that we had seen.
One of the things that we saw there was to travel in Kabul to the northern outskirts of the city to what has come to be known as Camp Phoenix, a large military installation and principally where, as near as this non-veteran could appreciate, where a great deal of the supplies are managed on a regular basis for Operation Enduring Freedom. And also, I might add, it is also a place where, if we can brag for just a moment and go to a different poster, 15 percent of the Army National Guard in Afghanistan are stationed and every single one of them is a Hoosier. For anyone looking in who does not know the vernacular, that means from Indiana.
This, of course, is a photograph that my colleague actually should be in this picture because the gentleman from Indiana actually brought this Indiana flag, but all of these soldiers, this photograph taken at the provisional reconstruction team site in Jalalabad are of some 1,500 members of the Indiana Army National Guard, away from their families, away from their husbands and their spouses and their wives and their children and their grandchildren, and doing the kind of work day in and day out that is the building of schools, the establishing of fresh water, the establishing of basic services through these provisional reconstruction teams.
We took a memorable helicopter ride on, I think it was a CH-53, a Hercules helicopter, very much like Luke Skywalker through the mountains of Jalalabad, hugging the mountainsides, and landed softly at this provisional reconstruction site. And these folks who, when they are not in uniform, are insurance salesmen and small business owners and pastors and business people and blue-collar workers, but here they are American soldiers and they are impacting the lives every day of regular, ordinary Afghanis. They are a source of enormous pride to this Hoosier for the sacrifices that they are making.
As we think about the role, particularly of General Moorhead who commands the Hoosiers at Camp Phoenix, who are literally fanned out all across Afghanistan, I am reminded as I prepare to yield to my colleague for any memories of that part of our trip and the Hoosiers that we met, the night before we left, many of us, my colleague included, and our spouses were able to be with the President and the First Lady at the White House for a holiday celebration. In the few minutes I had with the President, I told him I was leaving for Afghanistan the next day and he thanked me for that, as the Commander in Chief would, and asked me to thank my delegation for going. And then I said to the President, you know, 15 percent of your Army National Guard over there are Hoosiers. And without missing a beat, the President of the United States said, ``That's
why it's going so well, Mike.'' I told that to every single one of the Hoosiers that we met. I thought the President was just being nice, but when we went over there and saw the professionalism and the commitment and the compassion with which these Hoosiers are bringing, in many ways, civilization, stability and democracy to the people of Afghanistan, I became convinced that the President's generous comment was actually pretty close to right. I yield to the gentleman.
If I may interrupt the gentleman on that point, before the gentleman arrived, I was reflecting on our experience in Pakistan and in Islamabad; and I might, Mr. Speaker, with your permission, encourage the gentleman to speak about precisely that point, which is a profound point which he made both on national television appearances related to this trip, that economic development and education, I think his phrase was, are the principal means to combat terrorism long term.
I am wondering, Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman might reflect on what we saw in the advances at what are known as madrassas or traditionally religious education facilities. We were one of the few American delegations to be permitted to visit a traditional Islamic madrassa in Islamabad, Pakistan. Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman to reflect on that and how that bears on his keen insight about the need to encourage greater, more expansive education in this difficult part of the world.
Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman for that memory and, more importantly, the observation about the critical importance of education.
This photograph is just so meaningful to me, and I think I could live to be a lot older and have just a little bit more gray hair and not cherish any photograph more. And I hope anyone peeking in would examine this or even go to my Web site and take a careful look at it.
As the gentleman will remember, we were walking down this road outside of the provisional reconstruction team's compound in Jalalabad. We were surrounded by soldiers carrying very large weapons and wearing body armor; and we were walking along what we can see is a small village, which, like most villages in that area, was walled with a rustic door. But what struck me and what strikes me about this photograph, it speaks to the gentleman's point about education and it speaks to the gentleman's point about whether it be in Afghanistan or Pakistan or other parts of the world that if we can win the hearts of the children for freedom and to understand the heart and the intent of the good people of the United States of America, we will have gone a long way toward defeating terrorism in the 21st century.
What I love about this photograph is that, and the gentleman will recall, as we came down this street again in an intimidating environment, we were surrounded by big men carrying big guns and wearing body armor, but these children came streaming out of this door running up to the soldiers as long-lost friends. Every one of the soldiers, after checking the perimeter carefully, took a knee. Many of them began to speak in the native tongue with the children. The gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Chocola), the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake), and the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Davis), all of us kind of fanned out and started learning names and chatting with children and posing for pictures; and the most striking thing to me about this photograph, and these are all children, and I am sure we were told but I cannot imagine what their families live on per year but it has to be pennies a day in our currency, and yet every child in this photograph is smiling. Every child in this photograph looks healthy and well fed.
And I know the only reason that is true is because of the United States of America and because of the American soldier; that Jalalabad was an area that was destitute, impoverished, lacking in fundamental basic services, lacking in schools because, as we met with regular Afghans, they told us, We have never had little girls be able to come to school. The Taliban would never allow it, and we never had buildings to come to school in until the United States of America.
So what this picture represents to me with almost an Old Testament- looking wall and door behind it, which if one goes through Afghanistan, it is pretty Old Testament. I mean, it literally looks like a scene out of an Easter pageant. The whole country does, with mud walls and mud streets and ox-drawn carts, and yet to see these children and to see the looks on their faces that is evident in this photograph just
moved me and blessed my heart at a level that said what these soldiers have done, what their families who have sacrificed their time and in some cases they have said good-bye forever to their sons who have fallen in Operation Enduring Freedom, is in some way recompensed by these smiles and by the affection.
I do not know if the gentleman remembers that or the times that we went into classrooms in Jalalabad. The reaction that we got from children was just extraordinary to me to see the way these children were responding to American soldiers and to American personnel and to know they knew we were from America and that America was doing all of these things in Jalalabad and in Kabul and all over Afghanistan for their people. It just was deeply moving to me.
I yield to the gentleman from Indiana.
Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, that is especially well said, and it is fitting because in some of the time that we have remaining, I wanted to reflect on the American soldier and the opportunity that we had both at Camp Phoenix in Kabul, in Jalalabad, and then Bagram Air Force Base and probably for me as well being able to visit injured soldiers at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center on the way back.
But one of the things that was a great privilege for me was, Mr. Speaker, along with the gentleman from Indiana, thinking of the 1,500 Hoosier National Guard who were in Afghanistan and thinking, Mr. Speaker, of the holiday season that was upon us, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Chocola) and I developed what we came to call Operation Holiday Greeting. And it resulted in our inviting our constituents, three quarters of a million people in north central Indiana and three quarters of a million people in eastern Indiana, to send in holiday greeting cards to soldiers. We announced the initiative on November 11; and within 10 days we received, Mr. Speaker, more than 25,000 lovingly handmade holiday greeting cards that we were able to take with us to Operation Enduring Freedom.
This photograph captures just one of literally dozens and dozens of scenes where the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Chocola), the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake), and the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Davis) and I were handing out greeting cards to the delight of soldiers who read them. One soldier in the foreground of this photograph has completely forgotten about us and is into what we can clearly see from the American flag was a hand-crafted card very likely by some grade schooler in South Bend or a grade schooler in Muncie, Indiana.
And this was such an extraordinary blessing to be able to be a part of it because it does strike me, and then I will yield to the gentleman for his memories of this particular part of our trip, that having some politician walk up to someone on a far-flung theater of operation and deployment and say, Hey, the folks back home are praying for you, appreciate what you are doing, and have got you in their hearts, it is a whole other thing for that politician, who by and large we do not trust anyway, to hand to the soldier a fist full of lovingly crafted holiday greeting cards that say we are praying for them, we are thinking of them, we would love a note from them to say how things are going.
I saw some of the biggest, toughest most grizzled soldiers at Bagram Air Force Base in that cafeteria where we wandered, when we walked up to them and they kind of had that lockjawed look and they do not know who we are and they do not know if they like us; and when we tell them we are Congressmen from Indiana, they think, well, that is okay, thanks for coming over and we appreciate it.
But then when I would hand them the cards, these big guys would melt. Just one after another I saw more than one guy start to wipe tears from his eyes. And as the song goes, ``It Ain't Funny When a Soldier Cries,'' but I saw more than a few well up with tears, not because of anything I did or I would say anything that the gentleman from South Bend did, but these cards and the fact that in 10 short days Hoosiers of all ages, senior citizens, grade school kids, people at churches and synagogues, took time to sit down and express their prayers and their good wishes and their greetings to these soldiers.
And the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Chocola) and I, I must say, Mr. Speaker, we lugged a lot of boxes, and I want to commend the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Chocola) for his tireless effort in passing these cards out.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Indiana for any memories of Operation Holiday Greeting.
Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I am jealous to learn about the signed battle flag, but it is to the gentleman's credit, because it was the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Chocola) who remembered to bring those flags from home, and I want to commend him again for his thoughtfulness in remembering to bring that for our soldiers, but also to have them return, to have them show their appreciation.
I guess I just appreciate, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman's reflection on the character of the soldiers that we saw in Operation Enduring Freedom. There is a toughness there. I think, candidly, we were there at a very tough time of the year.
I have had the privilege in my 45 years of never not being home for a little bit of Christmas. I have always been able to be home for part of Christmas. It is a grievous thing to not be home, and yet beyond what on the surface you could tell was not an easy time for many of them, was a seriousness and a professionalism and an understanding of the importance of what we are doing in Afghanistan, which is still a dangerous place.
I guess that is where I would like to close our reflections tonight as we have talked about President Karzai and our meetings in Kabul, as we have talked about the children that we saw, the provisional reconstruction team, but is to say it is my hope that anyone looking in, Mr. Speaker, would understand that Afghanistan is not succeeding because there are no bad guys there. Afghanistan is not succeeding because it is an easier place to build a democracy than Iraq. Afghanistan is succeeding because American generosity and American power, in partnership with the good people of Afghanistan, is causing that success, day in and day out.
As we approach, I believe, the parliamentary elections this coming April, where the legislative body of that government will be elected, that is all being made possible because the people of Afghanistan, who, as I suggested earlier in this conversation, it strikes me that from our conversations with regular Afghanis as well as President Karzai, is the one thing you hear from folks, is this: They are bone weary of war in Afghanistan, the war that was pressed down on them by the Soviet communists, the war that was pressed down on them through tribal in- fighting, the war that was pressed down on them by the Taliban and al Qaeda under its patronage. And when the American military came in and the generosity of the American people was unleashed, the people of Afghanistan have opened their arms and said, ``Yes, come, stay, help us build stability, help us create a country that is no longer dependent on the narcotics trade. Help us transition to an agricultural economy.''
But it is all working. I guess my real burden in trying to take up an hour of the people's time tonight, Mr. Speaker, and I will yield to the gentleman for any closing thoughts, is just to make sure that as we go into a debate over additional funding for Afghanistan, as we go into a debate for additional counternarcotics funding, and there will be those of us that would argue that those things should happen in the regular budget as opposed to the supplemental, but beyond all of those arguments, it is my hope that the American people would understand that we are succeeding in Afghanistan because of American generosity and American power and the Afghan people are making it happen.
It is not happening automatically. It is not the absence of conflict or the absence of danger that is resulting in this success. It is in spite of those things that we are succeeding. And even though no news rarely makes it in the newspaper, the truth is if things are not blowing up on a daily basis, things slip out of the news, and Afghanistan has slipped out of the news and the American people tend to, and I think I am as guilty as the next person; before we went, I tended to think it is not that tough over there. It is tough. It is hard. It is commitment and focus every single day.
But it is working, and it is my hope that we really celebrate that. As we have a debate over additional funding for Afghanistan, at every level, that we will understand that the good people of Afghanistan have embraced the American people with gratitude, they have embraced the American soldier, as the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Chocola) just recited, as the Iraqi woman embraced the mother of the fallen soldier just yards away from where we are standing now, and to understand that we must keep that commitment to bring these good people of Afghanistan the freedom they so richly deserve.
I yield for closing remarks to the gentleman.
Mr. Speaker, I do want to express my profound gratitude to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Chocola) for being willing to leave family and his constituents behind and travel, as we described tonight, through Islamabad, Pakistan; through Parachinar, where we met with tribal leaders; into Kabul, where we went to Camp Phoenix; through the mountains of Jalalabad to Bagram Air Base, and then out of the country.
It was a great, great privilege to travel with the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Chocola), the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Davis), and the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake), all of whom I think exemplified the very best of a servant's attitude about public service.
I told many soldiers as we traveled that there was not hardly a person that I served in all of eastern Indiana who would not rather be standing right there in front of them thanking them for their service, assuring them of their prayers, and expressing the gratitude that the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Chocola) just described, that the American people feel for the success that the American soldier has wrought and is continuing to provide to the good people of Afghanistan.
I close by just reminding, Mr. Speaker, anyone that might be looking in, what the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Chocola) heard from President Karzai. As I have said again and again tonight, Afghanistan is a place where American power and American generosity of work are working. But when the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Chocola) asked President Karzai at the presidential palace, ``What would you have us tell our constituents if you were there,'' and he said, ``Tell the American people our success is their success, and that the President of Afghanistan said congratulations, America, on being a part of freedom and stability and opportunity coming to the good people of this historic land.''
So, Mr. Speaker, with a grateful heart for the opportunity to have led CODEL Pence through Pakistan and Afghanistan, I yield back the balance of my time.