Twitter
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Delicious
Digg
Newsvine
Google
Yahoo
Technorati
Published on Saturday, June 20, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
Congress Should Require an Exit Strategy from Afghanistan
In March, President Obama told
CBS' "60 Minutes" that the United States must have an "exit strategy"
in Afghanistan.
At least eighty-eight Members of Congress agree. They're supporting H.R. 2404, a bill introduced by Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA) whose text is one sentence long: "Not later than December 31, 2009, the Secretary of Defense shall submit to Congress a report outlining the United States exit strategy for United States military forces in Afghanistan participating in Operation Enduring Freedom."
Next week, Rep. McGovern is expected to try to attach this language to the 2010 military authorization bill. Today peace advocates are asking Americans to call Congress and urge that this language is enacted into law.
The Members of Congress are going a bit further than President Obama. They're saying not only that the U.S. should have an exit strategy, but that Congress and the American people should be told what it is.
It's Congress - and the American people - who have the power of the purse. This week, over the protests of progressive Democrats, Congress approved another war supplemental - paying for military escalation with no exit strategy - bringing the total spending for the war in Afghanistan to $223 billion since 2001, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Americans aren't just paying for the war through their tax dollars. More than 700 American soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001[http://icasualties.org/oef/]. Some 56,000 U.S. soldiers are in Afghanistan now, and President Obama has ordered 21,000 more soldiers to be sent there. Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has acknowledged to Congress that U.S. casualties will likely rise.
Of course, the price Americans are paying for this endless war pales in comparison to the price that Afghan civilians are paying. Under the banner of liberating Afghans, we're killing them with our bombs. Brave New Films shows here the consequences of U.S. air strikes for Afghan civilians:
Earlier this year, an ABC poll reported that nearly four-fifths of Afghans say U.S. air strikes are unacceptable, while less than one in five wanted the U.S. to send more troops.
Critics of the escalating war in Afghanistan fear that we are being led into a quagmire like Vietnam. A January report from the Carnegie Foundation concluded that the presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan was likely the single most important factor driving the country's insurgencies. Already the Administration's announced escalation has had the effect of uniting different insurgent groups against the U.S.
We're told that we're supporting a democratic government in Afghanistan, but when that government asks us to stop deeply unpopular air strikes and Special Forces night raids, these protests are largely dismissed. When the Afghan government asks us to support meaningful negotiations with leaders of the country's insurgencies towards a political settlement of the country's conflicts, we don't even acknowledge the request. These are among the most important issues facing the country, and we don't allow the Afghan government to have effective say. We want the people of Afghanistan to see their government as legitimate - but when it comes to key issues that we control, we don't treat the government as legitimate, so it's little wonder if Afghans follow our lead in not taking their government seriously.
When Congress tried to impose a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq through legislation, we were told "arbitrary withdrawal timetables" were unacceptable. But eventually - also under pressure from the Iraqi government - the Bush Administration agreed to a withdrawal timetable. President Obama has repeatedly re-affirmed this timetable, including in his recent speech in Cairo.
In McGovern's bill, eighty-eight Members of Congress aren't demanding a timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan. They're simply asking to be told what the plan is for getting to the situation where there is no U.S. military occupation of Afghanistan. In announcing his new strategy and in his speech in Cairo, President Obama said that the U.S. does not want to remain in Afghanistan indefinitely. But he hasn't told us what his plan is for doing something else.
One thing you almost never hear our leaders talk about is: how long are we going to be in Afghanistan? It's a forbidden topic. But occasionally something slips through: last year a British commander said the goal for handing back Kandahar air base was the year 2020.
If our government's exit strategy for Afghanistan includes 11 more years of war, don't the American people have a right to know that? If you think we do, urge your Member of Congress to support the McGovern bill. The Congressional switchboard is 202-225-3121, and you can find who represents you in Congress here.
At least eighty-eight Members of Congress agree. They're supporting H.R. 2404, a bill introduced by Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA) whose text is one sentence long: "Not later than December 31, 2009, the Secretary of Defense shall submit to Congress a report outlining the United States exit strategy for United States military forces in Afghanistan participating in Operation Enduring Freedom."
Next week, Rep. McGovern is expected to try to attach this language to the 2010 military authorization bill. Today peace advocates are asking Americans to call Congress and urge that this language is enacted into law.
The Members of Congress are going a bit further than President Obama. They're saying not only that the U.S. should have an exit strategy, but that Congress and the American people should be told what it is.
It's Congress - and the American people - who have the power of the purse. This week, over the protests of progressive Democrats, Congress approved another war supplemental - paying for military escalation with no exit strategy - bringing the total spending for the war in Afghanistan to $223 billion since 2001, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Americans aren't just paying for the war through their tax dollars. More than 700 American soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001[http://icasualties.org/oef/]. Some 56,000 U.S. soldiers are in Afghanistan now, and President Obama has ordered 21,000 more soldiers to be sent there. Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has acknowledged to Congress that U.S. casualties will likely rise.
Of course, the price Americans are paying for this endless war pales in comparison to the price that Afghan civilians are paying. Under the banner of liberating Afghans, we're killing them with our bombs. Brave New Films shows here the consequences of U.S. air strikes for Afghan civilians:
Earlier this year, an ABC poll reported that nearly four-fifths of Afghans say U.S. air strikes are unacceptable, while less than one in five wanted the U.S. to send more troops.
Critics of the escalating war in Afghanistan fear that we are being led into a quagmire like Vietnam. A January report from the Carnegie Foundation concluded that the presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan was likely the single most important factor driving the country's insurgencies. Already the Administration's announced escalation has had the effect of uniting different insurgent groups against the U.S.
We're told that we're supporting a democratic government in Afghanistan, but when that government asks us to stop deeply unpopular air strikes and Special Forces night raids, these protests are largely dismissed. When the Afghan government asks us to support meaningful negotiations with leaders of the country's insurgencies towards a political settlement of the country's conflicts, we don't even acknowledge the request. These are among the most important issues facing the country, and we don't allow the Afghan government to have effective say. We want the people of Afghanistan to see their government as legitimate - but when it comes to key issues that we control, we don't treat the government as legitimate, so it's little wonder if Afghans follow our lead in not taking their government seriously.
When Congress tried to impose a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq through legislation, we were told "arbitrary withdrawal timetables" were unacceptable. But eventually - also under pressure from the Iraqi government - the Bush Administration agreed to a withdrawal timetable. President Obama has repeatedly re-affirmed this timetable, including in his recent speech in Cairo.
In McGovern's bill, eighty-eight Members of Congress aren't demanding a timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan. They're simply asking to be told what the plan is for getting to the situation where there is no U.S. military occupation of Afghanistan. In announcing his new strategy and in his speech in Cairo, President Obama said that the U.S. does not want to remain in Afghanistan indefinitely. But he hasn't told us what his plan is for doing something else.
One thing you almost never hear our leaders talk about is: how long are we going to be in Afghanistan? It's a forbidden topic. But occasionally something slips through: last year a British commander said the goal for handing back Kandahar air base was the year 2020.
If our government's exit strategy for Afghanistan includes 11 more years of war, don't the American people have a right to know that? If you think we do, urge your Member of Congress to support the McGovern bill. The Congressional switchboard is 202-225-3121, and you can find who represents you in Congress here.
24 Comments so far
Show AllI wonder, no strategy still, impose the hard rules like USA handled Pakistan.
Require an exit strategy and put Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich and Maurice Hinchey in charge of it.
Why do these authors keep using the word "should" when they would be better off using the word "MUST" ? This is why the progressives keep losing. If instead these authors would write their articles in a manner that actually motivates us to say "YES THEY MUST" then we would all have the spunk to get up and stimulate our movements to get others to join us on board and hold Congress accountable until they fear us and not the corporations. Instead, these authors write as if they're talking to a wall instead of actually addressing and motivating their audience. They're most likely paid very well to sit and give drippy and droopy wishful thinking articles such as this one. Even RoboCop wouldn't be able to tackle Congress.
Greedy rodents never think of exit strategies. Enticed by irresistible aromas, strait into the cage they walk. Slam! goes the trap door. "What was that? I wonder if I should be thinking of a way out? Not now, the cheese is just too darn tasty".
Mordechai Shiblikov writes:
"Can you see congress, like Oliver Twist, going up to Obysmal and asking, "Please, sir, can we have an exit strategy?" They're too busy hustling money for the next election. The exit strategy will be forced upon Obysmal by events in that part of the world, not by anything congress does."
--> Events in "that part of the world" presumably includes Iran, where the civil strife has drawn less comment from Oblabla than . . . single mothers, Cuban society, etc. . . . presumably because Oblabla, being big on "wins", wants to see who comes out on top, before He aligns His fickle self with anything in particular.
Mere citizens of the US, with its diddled elections, might want to take a lesson FROM the streets of Tehran ... just get into the streets of DC and wave scarves around until we get Single Payer, bring our troops home from everywhere they have no business being, and get back all that "bailout" baksheesh.
Obaama -- who has the nerve to decry any "violence" in the mideast of which He is not the commander-in-chief -- is a figurehead and a fraud, put in office for the presumed unassailableness of His birthday suit, and His long-demonstrated determination to be shepherded into office, then do nothing to disturb the existing power structure. He is as disgusting as the bought-and-paid-for clothes-horses who are clogging up the Congress with their occasional presence while pursuing their perpetual campaigns.
Nothing is going to change for the MAJORITY in this country -- other than the skin color (which truly makes NO difference) of the corporate shill in the catbird seat -- until the people MAKE it change. Now'd be good, before another 9-11 materializes to prop up the mob-friendly Obama organization.
Fourth of July, anyone? :^)
An "exit strategy" only exists without an exit.
Congress would have to be able to read first before they could ask nicely for an exit strategy. Can you see congress, like Oliver Twist, going up to Obysmal and asking, "Please, sir, can we have an exit strategy?" They're too busy hustling money for the next election. The exit strategy will be forced upon Obysmal by events in that part of the world, not by anything congress does.
Actually, Obd't Servant, I find your cynicism lacking. I think deep down inside you want to believe the system "kinda-sorta" works. But you are right, we have passed the point of no return. How can a den of foxes ever guard a hen house? Expecting the Congress to go against the vested interests of Big Profits Inc. is beyond a pipe dream.
The system is broken beyond repair. Money is God and rules the land. The sheeple worship at the malls during the weekends and bury their heads in the sand or watch Templevision during the week. The Democrats aren't going to save us and third party candidates are marginalized. The only hope lies in a revolution. And seeing as I'm sure to be on Big Brother's list of subversives, I need to add that the revolution needs to be nonviolent.
"One thing you almost never hear our leaders talk about is: how long are we going to be in Afghanistan?"
they are your leaders if you voted for them.
the empire is winding down, soon these types of military adventures will not be fundable. unfortunately, both here and abroad, many lives will be disrupted or worse. the repetitious nature of history...someone will try to take our place.
As I've been writing more and more lately: "Should" is a bold word.
I believe that it's difficult for even intelligent, highly-educated, and insightful Amerikans to accept what has become as plain as the nose on The Statue of Liberty's face: our federal institutions of government are perfidious.
The debacle of the health care issue couldn't make this sorry and tragic truth plainer, in my opinion. On its own motion, and in obvious alliance with the Executive Branch, the corporate vested interests, and the banksters whose sticky fingers are universally in play have simply declined and refused to countenance the people's need for a truly sensible and effective health care plan.
Rather, they will concoct a typical Rube Goldberg monstrosity to keep ordinary citizens enthralled by insurance corporations and our increasingly authoritarian government.
Returning to the topic, why SHOULD Congress do what it should do, if you get my drift?
When it comes to feeding the military juggernaut, look back at the ruinous trail that the authoritarian executive branch and its military hacked through the US Treasury this century-- with Congress virtually unanimously and enthusiastically signing blank checks all along the way.
Think of all of the Merry Mixups involving MASSIVE funding expenditures, back to millions of dollars in hard cash disappearing under Viceroy Bremer's imperial talons in Iraq! Providing further examples of waste, fraud, and abuse (without even the pretense of controlling graft and malfeasance) going forward would take more space than this thread allows.
So Congress is free to do as it has been doing: acting as an independent organized crime syndicate in cahoots with the banksters and vested interests.
As Creedence sang so well and truly:
♪ Some folks inherit star spangled eyes,
Ooh, they send you down to war, Lord,
And when you ask them, "How much should we give?"
Ooh, they only answer More! more! more! ♪
Since ascending the throne, Bonnie Prince Obama has displayed star-spangled eyes wide shut; whether he is a natural Warlord, or a reluctant Warlord nevertheless determined to play the role to the hilt for ambition's sake, is a distinction without a difference.
Despite earnest bleatings from the Peanut Gallery from whom the politicians' power is theoretically derived, congresspersons and Senators have no compunction about roundly ignoring them, and occasionally indulging outbursts of temper berating We the People as unacquainted with "reality".
My oh my, such corrosive cynicism! That's the first response coughed up by a Denial Mechanism. But actually I'd LIKE to believe that the system still kinda-sorta works, even if it depends on We the People keeping our shoulders firmly pressed to the ass of Congress to resist perpetual backsliding.
But I fear We've passed a point of diminishing returns.
· Yr Obd't Servant
"It's Congress - and the American people - who have the power of the purse."
-right, that's what we tell our elementary school students. We know the power of the purse is held by Big Business Inc. and the Military Industrial Complex. It could not be more clear.
"...but when that government asks us to stop deeply unpopular air strikes and Special Forces night raids, these protests are largely dismissed."
-since when has US foreign policy been about anything other than what in in the best interests of US War Profiteers Inc?
"President Obama said that the U.S. does not want to remain in Afghanistan indefinitely."
-Orwellian New Speak. What he means if that eventually we will bleed the region dry and have no more need to be there.
What the United States has done in Afghanistan and Iraq is a way for the neoconservatives to fulfill their pledge that they had given at PNAC-the Project for a New American Century-when it was declared that the only way for the United States to establish its dominance in the Middle East would be by controlling the oil supply in those countries and the best way for that to happen would be by making sure that a "new Pearl Harbor" would occur. That, of course, is exactly what transpired when the Bush administration either allowed 9/11 to happen-LIHOP [Let It Happen On Purpose-] or indulged in MIHOP [Made It Happen On Purpose]. Yet that statement contained in PNAC and the events that had occurred on Sept. 11, 2001 have appeared, as in Alice in Wonderland, to have gone right down the rabbit hole where it disappeared from the collective consciousness of America.
Bring America Back !!!!......................No, it has not gone down the hole with Alice, Erroll. I am a MIHOP guy myself, Erroll, and a good reading of the occupants of Building #7, Saloman Bros Bldg, World Trade Center up to 9/11 turns up all the Usual Suspects we know and love to hate ! Motive, Means, Opportunity, all right there in a building which just happened to collapse into it's own construction footprint at 5:30 pm that same evening ! Evidence poofed, gone !
***Erroll=====DEMOLITIONING. Some day a guilty conscience will prompt Our White Rabbit====name it 'Deep Cottontail", to blow the Whistle on the exact Neocons and the proof we need on how they pulled it off !!!
Our Deep Throat(s) are out there, somewhere, somehow ! We will NEVER forget 9/11 !
Erroll, do not be surprised when we 'look back' at 9/11, we discover not only the
Neocons, but very many NeoLibs in that pack of Rats. DEMOLITIONING
There is no exit strategy from AfPak and there cannot be one; I have repeatedly written this.
The military goal of the US troops in AfPak is 'preventing future terrorism' by its enemies (al-Qaeda and the Taliban, as announced by Bush). [read Public Law 107-40]
There is never an end to preventing future terrorism. There can be no victory. There is no exit strategy.
No President will accept defeat. There is no exit strategy.
Our despicable and corrupt Congress started this mess when they enacted Public Law 107-40 (AUMF).
These monkey-brained imbeciles in Congress must clean up their mess by revoking this insane legislation and taking away the President's power to wield the military in an unending war in search of an impossible goal.
Withdrawing from AfPak will not stop this 'war formerly called GWOT, then WOT, then Long War and currently needing a new name'. It will only burst forth somewhere else where 'future terrorism' can be fought, where future terrorists can be found, invented or imagined.
Bring America Back !!!!.......My poor Robert Naiman...here you go asking a generic Congress to do something it is not capable of. Is Naiman on Planet Earth or Planet Krypton ?
*When you vote to approve over 100 billions $$$ to increase the War efforts, it then becomes impossible to ask for an "Exit Strategy" !!! The horse is way out of the Barn !
*Team Obama promised to end this War and has failed miserably. They have Surge Hero General Betrayus making personal appearances at the Super Bowl, just as if this is
a justified, moral war. We know what it really was and is.
*The military-industrial complex is a runaway Beast, which keeps feeding upon itself. Team Obama is absorbed by the MI Complex, has no will or purpose to change it.
*This goes against all we voted for. Obama deserves only one term of Office as a complete failure==like Carter and H. Bush----read my lips.
*Naiman, and commentators like him , need to get a copy of Dwight David Eisenhower's farewell speech--The Inherent Evils of an Uncontrolled MI Complex===keep it in their back pockets, and refer to it often when asking for impossible acts from the US Congress......Naiman says, duh--Ike who ?
Sioux Rose
TRUTH: Right on. Exactamente!
Is his Imperial Highness Obama still planning on installing a dictator to overide Karzai's agitation for his nation and people?
this exit strategy needs to come before that deadline if more bloodshed is to be avoided, as well as more monumental waste and destruction and distraction from very real and pressing human and environmental issues both at home and abroad. unfair trade policies need addressing as our corrupt military/industrial complex has gone international and made mercenary paramilitaries commonplace worldwide, undermining trust and genuine innovation at the grassroots that could help bring peace given half a chance. this war was a monumental error that needs correcting as soon as possible. mcgovern (dang! if only every congressperson were paying attention and getting serious about pushing through some of that actual 'change we can believe in!!!) deserves kudos for sponsoring this bill (as well as hr2567 to get serious about ending the impunity/violence perpetrated by the school of the americas or, now, 'WHINSEC') but december is half a year away.... overly generous time to get down to business dismantling the monstrosity of this shameful war (and iraq too.... military aid to israel too.... the list could go on and on...) that has dragged on far too long already.
Here's an 'exit strategy'...STOP FUNDING the war(s)!
Right on the money!
It astonishes why the status quo types life this Cat keep showing up on the progressive news wire. This tripe ought to be disseminated in the main line news where it belongs.
Why not develop an exit strategy from the Democratic Party who has sold us out on every issue.
Yay! elohim, clap, clap, clap, clap. Elohim for president, 2012! :)
An "exit strategy" where we control how we leave would be immensely better than a repeat of the panicky exodus from South Vietnam in 1975 -- only made even more perilous by Afghanistan's peculiar geography (it's land-locked, y'know).
That's basically like saying, "AIPAC should require an exit strategy from Afghanistan."