This is military Keynesianism to believe that we should do this forever.“Design sprints” seem to be popping up everywhere these days. You don't have the constitutional authority. The people who are bragging about these changes, even if you could, you are not supposed to. And we are going to be completely brought down to our knees. We have control of when we are supposed to go to war. We have avoided our prerogatives of saying that we have the control. We now have been so careless for the past 50 or 60 years that, as a Congress and especially as a House, we have reneged on our responsibilities. Nobody is going to declare war against Afghanistan or Iraq or Libya. They don't do it now because the American people wouldn't support it. If we would be precise and only go to war with a declaration of war, with the people behind us, knowing who the enemy is, and fight, win, and get it over with, that would be more legitimate. I have always claimed that it's the way we get into the wars that is the problem. It calls attention to how we slip into these wars. Fortunately, I guess for those of us who would like to see less of this killing, we will have to quit because we won't be able to afford it.The process that we are going through is following the War Powers Resolution. We don't even need to be considering going into Libya or anywhere else. And you would think there would be a message there.How did the Soviets come down? By doing the very same thing that we're doing: perpetual occupation of a country.We don't need to be occupying Afghanistan or any other country. We are in the midst of a military conflict that is contributing to this inevitable crisis and it's financial. All empires end for fiscal reasons because they spread themselves too far around the world, and that's what we are facing. How much do we spend a year? Probably about $130 billion, up to $1 trillion now in this past decade. The money issue, we are talking about a lot of money. If anything, it gives the incentive for al Qaeda to grow in numbers rather than dealing with them. But the argument here on the floor is we have got to go after al Qaeda. They want foreigners out of their country. The Taliban's main goal is to keep the foreign occupation out. The Taliban used to be our allies at one time when the Soviets were there.

There was a resolution passed that said that the President at that time, under the emergency of 9/11, could go and deal with al Qaeda, those who brought upon the 9/11 bombings. Who says it isn't a war? Everybody talks about the Afghan war. So how many more men and women have to die, how many more dollars have to be spent to save face? That is one of the worst arguments possible. Some argue we have to be there because if we leave under these circumstances we'll lose face it will look embarrassing to leave. Financially, there's a good reason to come home as well. The chance of winning, since we don't even know what we are going to win, doesn't exist. He said (emphasis added): “ it's time to get out of Afghanistan. On March 17, 2011, Paul delivered a speech on the House floor pushing for the withdrawal of troops from the country.

Former Lake Jackson Congressman Ron Paul spent the last two decades warning about US involvement and nation building in Afghanistan.

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