Democratic support for Afghan war waning

[Denny Crane]

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090911/D9AKVUQ82.html

[FONT=Verdana,Sans-serif]Democratic support for Afghan war waning[/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana,Sans-serif] WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic leaders in Congress urged the Obama administration Thursday to quickly produce a plan for winning the war in Afghanistan or risk widespread opposition within the president's own party to a new troop buildup.

Simmering congressional frustration could lead to tighter scrutiny and more limited resources, even if Capitol Hill ultimately does approve sending more U.S. troops to the war-torn nation, aides said.

"I don't think there's a great deal of support for sending more troops to Afghanistan in the country or in the Congress," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the highest-ranking Democrat to signal that a push for more troops will get a skeptical look.

Democratic Rep. John P. Murtha, chair of the powerful House Appropriations panel that oversees military spending, described himself as "very nervous" about sending more troops to Afghanistan and cited limited funds to do so.

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(AP) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif. speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington,...
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[/FONT]In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid urged Democrats to resist rushing to judgment. But he, too, said he wanted to see President Barack Obama's plans for the military mission before adding more soldiers, pilots and Marines to the mix.

"Let's just take it easy," Reid, D-Nev., told reporters. "I don't think we need 100 secretaries of state. I think we should wait and give the president an opportunity to see what he recommends, and then we can dissect that any way we want."

The tepid support reflects growing impatience among lawmakers to see an on-the-ground assessment of the military situation in Afghanistan that was delivered last week to the White House.

Perhaps more importantly, lawmakers said they wanted to hear how the Obama administration will measure the mission's success or failure.

Pelosi said she did not expect to be briefed on the plans until next week at the earliest.

Aides said they expected Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen to brief senators on Tuesday and House lawmakers Wednesday.

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(AP) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif. gestures during a news conference on Capitol Hill in...
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[/FONT]White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama was still waiting for the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan to formally ask for additional troops, a request that is expected by the end of the month. This spring, Obama ordered 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan, which will bring the total number of U.S. forces there to 68,000 by the end of the year.

"The president has always discussed, and particularly since coming to office, that there isn't a military solution alone for Afghanistan," Gibbs told reporters at the White House.

With a nod to Congress' worries, he added: "We do not have the troops or the money to be there in perpetuity. ...We have very clear goals."

The Pentagon has yet to give Obama at least two military evaluations of the on-the-ground assessment. Those reports, by Mullen and U.S. Central Command Gen. David Petraeus, will be delivered this week, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said.

Last week, Obama received the on-ground assessment by his top commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, that did not specifically ask for more troops.

That will likely come in a follow-up report delivered shortly, officials said.

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(AP) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif. gestures during a news conference on Capitol Hill in...
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[/FONT]At the same time, the White House is in the process of compiling a list of about 50 benchmarks to judge whether the military mission is working. The list is due Sept. 24, and White House officials have said they are working with Capitol Hill in drawing it up - in part to corral congressional support as the troops' death toll in Afghanistan grows.

Fifty-one U.S. troops died in Afghanistan in August, making it the bloodiest month for the U.S. since it invaded in 2001, weeks after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Pelosi said she was "more interested" in the list than McChrystal's report. "September 24th is fraught with meaning for us," she said.

Murtha, a Marine veteran from Pennsylvania, said he would consider sending additional troops to Afghanistan if the estimated 130,000 U.S. soldiers and Marines in Iraq are sent home quickly.

Without that, "I'm very hesitant to endorse additional troops," Murtha said. "We don't have the financial resources to sustain one long deployment, let alone two. ... There's so much consternation in Congress about additional troops, especially without a plan. It's going to come to a head here."

Not all lawmakers - or even all Democrats - are leery of a troop buildup.

In a statement, House Armed Services Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo., urged his colleagues to "give our forces the time and resources they need to show progress in the fight against the enemies responsible for the attacks of 9/11."

Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., top Republican on Skelton's panel, warned that without more troops, the U.S. mission in Afghanistan easily could be lost.

"Narrowing the effort in Afghanistan or withholding vital resources from our troops and diplomats would be a major error, guarantee continued stalemate, and could eventually lead to defeat," McKeon said.

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[Denny Crane]

Not enough flags behind Pelosi in the pictures.

 

[deception]

mr crane, do u realize where al queda does business? in collapsed states such as sudan, somalia and afghanistan. i used to be against canadian involvement in afghanistan, particularly in eastern afghanistan where the fighting used to be the heaviest but i soon realized that nation building was the only way to go in these places that have no govt. its way too dangerous to abandon these failed states, particularly afghanistan considering what happened 8 years ago. however, i get it- u dont care about your nation's security, no, u just want the president fail!!! are u any better than mohammed atta in that light?

 

[Eastoff]

Afghanistan is a very tricky play for a war. The eastern part is basically independent cities surrounded by waste lands. The Tali Ban is out there more so than Al Queda. But I think it is important to get these people.

 

[maxiep]

Not enough flags behind Pelosi in the pictures.

Also, they're the wrong ones. Here's the one she'd prefer:

 

[bluefrog]

Imagine the progress that could have been made in Afghanistan if the US didn't fight 2 wars

 

[maxiep]

Imagine the progress that could have been made in Afghanistan if the US didn't fight 2 wars

It would have been about the same. We're really good at conventional wars; it's the unconventional ones that give us problems.

 

[deception]

It would have been about the same. We're really good at conventional wars; it's the unconventional ones that give us problems.

"we're"? how many ied attacks have u survived? ppl like u love sanitized, safe, distant wars where they actually dont partake.

 

[BlazerWookee]

Imagine the progress that could have been made in Afghanistan if the US didn't fight 2 wars

Imagine the progress that could have been made without members of Congress actively rooting against their own country in a war as a tactic to strengthen their own political position.

 

[julius]

Imagine the progress that could have been made without members of Congress actively rooting against their own country in a war as a tactic to strengthen their own political position.

Sadly, both sides are guilty of that.

 

[Eastoff]

"we're"? how many ied attacks have u survived? ppl like u love sanitized, safe, distant wars where they actually dont partake.

that's what he said... learn to read man

 

[Eastoff]

Imagine the progress that could have been made without members of Congress actively rooting against their own country in a war as a tactic to strengthen their own political position.

"I hope obama fails!" -boss limbaugh... Granted he's not a senator.

 

[Eastoff]

Also, they're the wrong ones. Here's the one she'd prefer:

I think you meant this:

unless you think she likes the beach Mmmm pelosi in a swimsuit! HAWT!!!! (where is the barfy emote?)

 

[BlazerWookee]

"I hope obama fails!" -boss limbaugh... Granted he's not a senator.

I hope Obama fails, too. Not in the prosecution of any war, but in fundamentally changing how our economy works.

 

[TradeNurkicNow]

I think you meant this:

unless you think she likes the beach Mmmm pelosi in a swimsuit! HAWT!!!! (where is the barfy emote?)

wait dont you mean

ITS BECAUSE SHE'S A NAZI RIGHT

 

[deception]

that's what he said... learn to read man

no, he included ("we're) himself in the military, thats what i took offense with

 

[mook]

No sense beating each other up and calling each other un-American over this. Everybody wanted Afghanistan to succeed. It's asinine to say otherwise. Not once in 8 years have I ever heard any American say, "Boy, I hope we fail there, the Taliban has a resurgence, and we get more 9-11 events."

The point is that more and more Americans want to get out of the country. You can blame Nancy Pelosi or Bush or Obama or whomever you want, but the truth is that Americans eventually get exhausted with nation-building, particularly when it doesn't seem to be working.

George Will put it best:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/31/AR2009083102912.html

U.S. strategy -- protecting the population -- is increasingly troop-intensive while Americans are increasingly impatient about "deteriorating" (says Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) conditions. The war already is nearly 50 percent longer than the combined U.S. involvements in two world wars, and NATO assistance is reluctant and often risible.
The U.S. strategy is "clear, hold and build." Clear? Taliban forces can evaporate and then return, confident that U.S. forces will forever be too few to hold gains. Hence nation-building would be impossible even if we knew how, and even if Afghanistan were not the second-worst place to try: The Brookings Institution ranks Somalia as the only nation with a weaker state.
Military historian Max Hastings says Kabul controls only about a third of the country -- "control" is an elastic concept -- and " 'our' Afghans may prove no more viable than were 'our' Vietnamese, the Saigon regime." Just 4,000 Marines are contesting control of Helmand province, which is the size of West Virginia. The New York Times reports a Helmand official saying he has only "police officers who steal and a small group of Afghan soldiers who say they are here for 'vacation.' " Afghanistan's $23 billion gross domestic product is the size of Boise's. Counterinsurgency doctrine teaches, not very helpfully, that development depends on security, and that security depends on development. Three-quarters of Afghanistan's poppy production for opium comes from Helmand. In what should be called Operation Sisyphus, U.S. officials are urging farmers to grow other crops. Endive, perhaps?
Even though violence exploded across Iraq after, and partly because of, three elections, Afghanistan's recent elections were called "crucial." To what? They came, they went, they altered no fundamentals, all of which militate against American "success," whatever that might mean. Creation of an effective central government? Afghanistan has never had one. U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry hopes for a "renewal of trust" of the Afghan people in the government, but the Economist describes President Hamid Karzai's government -- his vice presidential running mate is a drug trafficker -- as so "inept, corrupt and predatory" that people sometimes yearn for restoration of the warlords, "who were less venal and less brutal than Mr. Karzai's lot."
Mullen speaks of combating Afghanistan's "culture of poverty." But that took decades in just a few square miles of the South Bronx. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, thinks jobs programs and local government services might entice many "accidental guerrillas" to leave the Taliban. But before launching New Deal 2.0 in Afghanistan, the Obama administration should ask itself: If U.S. forces are there to prevent reestablishment of al-Qaeda bases -- evidently there are none now -- must there be nation-building invasions of Somalia, Yemen and other sovereignty vacuums?
U.S. forces are being increased by 21,000, to 68,000, bringing the coalition total to 110,000. About 9,000 are from Britain, where support for the war is waning. Counterinsurgency theory concerning the time and the ratio of forces required to protect the population indicates that, nationwide, Afghanistan would need hundreds of thousands of coalition troops, perhaps for a decade or more. That is inconceivable.
So, instead, forces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy: America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent Special Forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters.

 

[barfo]

I hope Obama fails, too. Not in the prosecution of any war, but in fundamentally changing how our economy works.

Do you honestly think he's trying to fundamentally change how our economy works? That seems extraordinarily unlikely to me. Changing tax rates on the rich is not a fundamental change. Bailing out a handful of bankrupt companies is not a fundamental change. Minor changes to health insurance laws is not a fundamental change.

What fundamental change has he proposed (or what fundamental change do you fear, even though he hasn't proposed it)?

barfo

 

[Ed O]

no, he included ("we're) himself in the military, thats what i took offense with

Why do YOU take offense at that? The soldiers from our country are of our country.

That's just a silly thing to take offense with.

Ed O.