Two Senate Democrats, along with Republican Rand Paul, are calling for the removal of all U.S. combat forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2012, arguing that America would be ?more secure and stronger economically? with a quicker troop drawdown.
Writing on Tuesday?s New York Times op-ed page, Sens. Jeff Merkley, Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Paul of Kentucky say that the United States has ?largely achieved our objectives in Afghanistan? and ought to move ?aggressively to bring our troops and tax dollars home.?
Continue ReadingPresident Barack Obama?s plan to drawdown his late 2009 surge of 33,000 troops by September 2012 doesn?t go far enough, the senators write, when there would still be close to 70,000 other members of the U.S. military left on the ground there. Current plans have Afghan security forces taking the lead in 2014 ahead of the withdrawal of all U.S. forces.
Keeping troops in Afghanistan beyond next year isn?t about rooting out Al Qaeda or killing the now-dead Osama bin Laden, the senators say. Rather, it?s about staying ?bogged down? in nation-building: ?a prolonged effort to create a strong central government, a national police force and an army, and civic institutions in a nation that never had any to begin with. Let?s not forget that Afghanistan has been a tribal society for millenniums.?
While national security sometimes ?warrants extreme sacrifices, and our troops are prepared to make them when asked,? the war in Afghanistan is no longer one of those instances.
?[T]here is little reason to believe that the continuing commitment of tens of thousands of troops on a sprawling nation-building mission in Afghanistan will make America safer,? Merkley, Paul and Udall say.
And, rather than focusing on nation building abroad, the U.S. government should turn its focus to the troubles on domestic soil. ?We have urgent needs at home: high unemployment and a flood of foreclosures, a record deficit and a debt that is over $14 trillion and growing. We are spending $10 billion a month in Afghanistan,? the senators write. ?We need to change course.?
Obama made a similar declaration last month in his major speech announcing the troop drawdown, saying that the country must turn its attention to ?nation building here at home,? but the three senators want that return to a domestic focus to be more rapid and more complete.
Though Obama has set out a drawdown plan, ?[i]t is not too late to change course in what has become the longest American war in history,? they say. ?In light of our considerable national needs, both security and domestic, we urge the president to bring our troops home at last.?
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