3:06:51 to 3:07:15( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Byrd: and a firm believer in a plying the less -- applying the lessons of history to present planning and to future planning. there is no making the same mistakes over

3:07:37 to 3:08:02( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Byrd: shifting sand. our military planners and our afganistan policy well as members of this senate, would do well -- do well, i say,

3:08:28 to 3:08:51( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Byrd: throughout the long centuries afganistan's geopolitical value has been its great silk road. -- silk road that carried both

3:09:15 to 3:09:37( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Byrd: afganistan has limited natural resoces. afganistan has a climate and a geography that produced very little for export.

3:10:09 to 3:10:33( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Byrd: armies that travel across it. tribesmen have used the dry rocky plains and the steep, bear cavern-riddled mountains to

3:11:02 to 3:11:26( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Byrd: a base from which to raid. r-a-i-d, raid. in wary succession rulers and nations have witnessed their dreams of conquest and their

3:12:00 to 3:12:21( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Byrd: 326b.c. -- b.c. to the british in century to the 20th century no invading

3:12:48 to 3:13:09( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Byrd: graveyard of empires. graveyard of empires. or to say it another way

3:13:32 to 3:13:52( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Byrd: the british lost more than 16,000 troops and civilians in a single 110-mile retreat from

3:14:26 to 3:14:49( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Byrd: yet -- now get this -- yet here we are discussing a counterinsurgenc would vastly -- vastly increase the u.s. presence in afganistan

3:15:12 to 3:15:28( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Byrd: spawning -- an economy and a land that in many areas and in m still frozen in the time of

3:16:06 to 3:16:29( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Byrd: afganistan in way back there, in the 1960's. yes, i went to afghanistan. in the 1960's.

3:17:04 to 3:17:28( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Byrd: like beasts of burden. actually pulling carts like oxen. yes, i saw it. living conditions were primitive

3:17:56 to 3:18:10( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Byrd: the intervening decades, many of the scenes that i see in the news still look very familiar to

3:18:43 to 3:19:03( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Byrd: some nato particularly in the least developed rural areas where the tribal theocratic taliban rule is most entrenched would certainly be a

3:19:30 to 3:19:51( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Byrd: mr. president, what is really at stake for the united states in afghanistan? what is really at stake for the

3:20:21 to 3:20:39( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Byrd: us militarily. al qaeda, however, is a demonstrated threat to us with ambitions and a philosophy that must, must, must keep us

3:21:10 to 3:21:33( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Byrd: one based only on the temporary expediency of location, an expediency that has already been replaced as the al qaeda leadership has moved and may

3:22:06 to 3:22:28( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Byrd: opium poppies may or may not deny al qaeda a again. it will, however, guarantee that

3:22:54 to 3:23:16( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Byrd: b, many afghanistan for many, not just a few, many years entering and

3:23:39 to 3:23:59( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Byrd: educating our children or expanding access to health care for more of our own people, our own people. and yet, there are many here in

3:24:22 to 3:24:41( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Byrd: are many, i say, here in the senate who believe we should proceed with such a afghanistan. during a tim of deficits -- and i mean record

3:25:13 to 3:25:33( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Byrd: hundreds of billions of borrowed dollars into afghanistan, effectively turning our backs on our own substantial domestic needs, all the

3:26:08 to 3:26:30( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Byrd: to address. mr. byrd: our national security interests lie in defeating -- i say defeating -- no, i go further.

3:26:55 to 3:27:18( Edit History Discussion )

Robert Byrd: long, long, long list of whose best-laid plans have died, died, died on the cold, barren, rocky