Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

One of the best qualities of U.S. Representative Lynn Woolsey is that her congressional activism doesn’t follow the ebb and flow of the news cycle. When she identifies an issue that matters, she keeps paying attention to it long after the collective attention of journalists has turned to something new.

Thus, although it was weeks ago when revelations of American military contractor corruption in Afghanistan took place, Lynn Woolsey is still speaking about the matter. Why? Congress still hasn’t taken care of the problem: The American military is paying big money to private contractor corporations, who in turn are paying protection money to Afghan warlords, who then give the money to the Taliban, who the American military is supposed to be fighting in the first place.

This week, Representative Woolsey linked the corruption to a fundamentally irrational structure of our nation’s military misadventure in Afghanistan, and renewed her call for a pullout of American soldiers from central Asia:

“At a time when communities here at home are crying out for investment in schools, hospitals, and other infrastructure, it’s galling to think that American taxpayer dollars are supporting the kind of thuggery in Afghanistan that is quite possibly endangering our troops. It’s bad enough, Madam Speaker, that the American people are being asked to pay for our failed war. Now it appears that they’re being asked to pay for the wrong side.

Madam Speaker, we simply cannot sustain a counterterrorism strategy that has us doing business, however indirectly, with the terrorists themselves. It’s illogical and it’s unconscionable. This is just one more piece of evidence that this war is failing the American people, undermining instead of advancing our national security objectives. It’s time for a radical change in our policy. It’s time to bring our troops home.”