Madam Speaker, the supplemental appropriations bill to continue our military operations in Iraq and in Afghanistan will soon return to the House for another vote. I voted against it in the first place, and I am going to vote against it again. I cannot support it because it will prolong our military involvement in Iraq and it will increase our military buildup in Afghanistan.

I would gladly vote to fund the safe withdrawal of our troops and contractors out of Iraq. But the supplemental gives me a feeling of deja vu. Haven't we been there before, voting to include billions of dollars for the occupation of Iraq?

Congress has voted to increase funding for Iraq many times, even though the American people want the occupation to end, and it seems the Iraqi people want us out of their country as well.

The supplemental also calls for sending more troops to a foreign land, this time Afghanistan, with no exit strategy. Talk about repeating past mistakes. Talk about deja vu. Afghanistan feels exactly the same as Iraq did to me.

President Obama has said that a campaign against extremism will not succeed with bullets and bombs alone. He is absolutely correct about that. But the money in the supplemental is overwhelmingly devoted to military operations. It includes very little for the economic development, humanitarian aid, and diplomatic efforts that we really need to stop extremists in Afghanistan and in Pakistan.

The ratio is 90-10, 90 percent to the Department of Defense, 10 percent to the smart alternatives. I believe the supplemental also violates the spirit of President Obama's historic speech in Cairo where he offered the Muslim world the hand of friendship. In that speech he said that we must leave Iraq to the Iraqis. But the supplemental will only delay the return of sovereignty to the Iraqi people.

And then there is the little matter of the recession, Madam Speaker. When the American people are feeling such great pain and need so much help right here at home, we can't afford to squander another $100 billion on foreign military adventures that will not make our country safe.

Instead of approving the supplemental bill, the House should be urging the administration to fundamentally change our mission in Iraq, and our mission in Afghanistan. We can do this in several ways.

First, we should support the bill offered by Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, which calls upon the administration to submit an exit strategy for Afghanistan.

Second, I urge my colleagues to consider the plan that I have offered in House Resolution 363. It's called the Smart Security Platform For the 21st Century. Smart Security attacks the root causes of violence by fighting poverty and giving people hope for a better future. It controls the spread of nuclear and conventional weapons of mass destruction, and it strengthens our national security by reducing our dependence on foreign oil.

And finally, we should insist that at least 80 percent of all future funding for Afghanistan be devoted to the Smart Security I just described. Right now, the supplemental, as I told you, devotes more than 90 percent of its dollars to purely military efforts, efforts that are getting us nowhere.

Madam Speaker, we must not repeat the mistakes of the past. We've got to stop writing more blank checks for open-ended occupations. This is what the American people want, and Congress must listen.