U.S. soldiers in Kandahar
(Photograph: ISAF Regional Command-South)
The Pentagon has
drawn up plans that would pull 10 percent of U.S. troops out of Afghanistan by year's end. If the White House approves the plan, it's likely to collide head-on with a growing number of congressional Democrats who see the killing of Osama bin Laden as a turning point in the decade-long U.S. war in Afghanistan that is now costing $2 billion a week and the lives of 921 Americans since Barack Obama became President. There is little doubt there will be significant internal debate within the administration:
If approved by top military officers and the president, an initial withdrawal of 5,000 would represent a modest reduction from the current 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, allowing the military to preserve combat power through this summer's fighting season. Some of the troops that leave in July will be combat troops but commanders hope to minimize the impact by culling support staff as well. ...
Military officials believe the White House doesn't want a precipitous drawdown that would undercut U.S. gains in southern Afghanistan, a traditional stronghold of the Taliban, whose top leadership in Pakistan have had longstanding ties to bin Laden and his terror organization. ...
"The president has made no decision about the scope and pace of the drawdown that will begin in July, nor has he received any recommendation," said Shawn Turner, spokesman for the president's National Security Council, when asked about possible plans for a drawdown. "Any speculation is therefore completely premature and says nothing about the decision that the president will ultimately make."
How much that decision is affected by opposition among Americans, in general, and Congress, in particular, is anybody's guess. But the pressure is steadily growing.
Rep. Raul Grijalva and five other co-chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus sent a letter to President Obama on May 4 urging him to start a significant drawdown in July. In March, 81 House members asked for a substantial reduction of forces in Afghanistan. Senators Kirsten Gillibrand, Barbara Boxer, Sherrod Brown and Dick Durbin have just stepped up their opposition with the Safe and Responsible Redeployment of United States Combat Forces from Afghanistan Act of 2011, which calls for the President to present, by July 31, a plan with a deadline for complete withdrawal.
The bipartisan Afghanistan Exit and Accountability Act (HR 1735), introduced last week by Rep. James McGovern (MA-03) with eight Democratic and eight Republican co-sponsors, goes a good deal further. It seeks not only a timeframe and deadline for withdrawal, but also a report from the President regarding the savings to be had in 5-year, 10-year and 20-year time periods if there were an accelerated redeployment of the 100,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan within six months.
But while some in Congress are pushing a rapid withdrawal, others, led by Rep. Buck McKeon (CA-25), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, has other ideas:
The so-called “Chairman’s Mark” of the [2012 defense] bill, currently before the House Armed Services Committee, wants to update the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force, to reflect that the al-Qaida of the present day is way different than the organization that attacked the U.S. on 9/11.
While the original Authorization tethered the war to those directly or indirectly responsible for 9/11, the new language authorizes “an armed conflict with al-Qaida, the Taliban, and associated forces,” as “those entities continue to pose a threat to the United States and its citizens.”
To its supporters, the proposal catches Congress up to the reality of today’s war. There aren’t many al-Qaida members in Afghanistan, but the war there rages onward. Meanwhile, the Obama administration wages a series of secret wars against al-Qaida entities in Pakistan and Yemen.
Among those likely to argue for a slower withdrawal are General David Petraeus, the nominee to head the CIA who is currently in charge of U.S-NATO operations in Afghanistan and has previously said the counter-insurgency approach being taken there will take years to complete. A "precipitous" withdrawal would, some military analysts have said, destroy advances against the Taliban the Pentagon claims to have been made in the past year.
It would also probably end most reconstruction and "nation-building" efforts. While there have been successes in some such projects that undoubtedly improve Afghan lives, tens of billions of dollars in that effort have been lost to corruption, poor planning and profound incompetence.
Meanwhile, USAToday reporting on a military study showing that "U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan are experiencing some of the greatest psychological stress and lowest morale in five years of fighting." In 2005 65.7 percent of troops said they had medium, high or very high morale. Last year, 46.5 percent said they did. About one in seven soldiers—and one in five Marines—reported high or very high morale.
More ammunition to back what Joan McCarter wrote Sunday:
Osama bin Laden wasn't found and killed because we still have tens of thousands of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, or because we are at war. This successful operation provides the justification and the opportunity for President Obama to end both the fighting wars (the mission really has been accomplished) and the false war, the war on terror.
End them both and let America be America again, without the constant fear, the ongoing erosion of civil liberties, the construct as America as victim.
And bring the troops home.
The war-without-enders we will always have with us. The question is whether we have the wherewithal to leash them.
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You can urge your Congressperson to become a co-sponsor of HR 1735 by clicking here.