House members call for end to wars on eve of 10th anniversary of Afghanistan operations

Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.), another long-time critic of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, also spoke, noting the hundreds of letters he’s signed to families who have lost loved ones overseas.

Several Democrats took up these arguments, and said ending the wars needs to be part of the GOP’s effort to reduce the deficit.

“We have borrowed nearly every single penny of that money, put it on the national credit card, let it rack up over a quarter of our cumulative deficit, and helped explode our debt year after year for a decade,” Rep. James McGovern (D-Mass.) said of the war in Afghanistan, which he said would reach more than a half-billion dollars in costs by next year.

“When the supercommittee makes its decisions on how to handle the deficit and the debt, I say ending the wars as rapidly as possible must be the first item on the table,” he said.

Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) agreed that Afghanistan has become unaffordable.

“It has morphed into the United States military and the United States taxpayer having the burden of building a nation in Afghanistan,” he said. “That can’t be done. We know it can’t be done.”

Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) argued that U.S. funding is being wasted in a corrupt country. “Afghanistan is widely considered to be one of the most corrupt countries in the world, behind only Somalia,” he said.

Earlier this week, several Democrats introduced legislation that would require the Defense Department to calculate and publish what the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya cost each U.S. taxpayer.

—This story was updated at 2:12 p.m. to correct that it was Rep. John Duncan (R-Tenn.) who spoke, not Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.).