[Peace-discuss] The Nation: Senator Dick Durbin Questions Sending 'One More' Soldier to Die in Afghanistan

[Robert Naiman]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/160377/senator-dick-durbin-questions-sending-one-more-soldier-die-afghanistan

Senator Dick Durbin Questions Sending 'One More' Soldier to Die in Afghanistan

George Zornick | May 3, 2011

Early on in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing [1] about
Afghanistan today, Medea Benjamin of Code Pink interrupted a
discussion about whether the United States should maintain current
troop levels or draw down to a smaller force focused on
counter-terrorism operations. “There is another opinion—just leave,”
she said.

Senator John Kerry (D-MA), the committee’s chairman, quickly gaveled
the hearing into a brief recess, and Benjamin left the room. Had she
stuck around, she might have been surprised to hear the number-two
Democrat in the Senate essentially echo her position.

Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), the Democratic Party whip, asked by far
the hearing’s most important question and one of the most pointed by a
Democratic leader to date: “If you believe that resolution of this
conflict by military means is highly unlikely and not a realistic
basis for US policy, how can we send one more American soldier to
fight and die in Afghanistan?” he said.

Durbin noted that “Afghanistan has been a graveyard of empires,” and
repeatedly invoked the human cost borne by American soldiers. “We are
now in a very sterile conversation about diplomacy and foreign
policy,” he said. “The reality is they’re fighting and dying over
there. And the question is—how long will we keep sending them?”

Aside from Durbin, other senators who attended the hearing—both
Republican and Democrat—voiced serious concerns about extended
commitments to Afghanistan. Not one openly called for staying the
current course.

Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) cited [2] President Obama’s recent $100
billion budget request for fighting the war in fiscal year 2012, along
with a strategy that “appears to be devoted to remaking the economic,
political, and security culture of that country,” and said that “it is
exceedingly difficult to conclude that our vast expenditures in
Afghanistan represent a rational allocation of our military and
financial assets.”

Lugar’s concerns were echoed by Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), who
said plainly that “I’ve been supportive of the administration so far,
but I have a real hard time as we move forward.” Menendez wondered
aloud whether there was “an amount of money or plan that can actually
work here.”

The only other Republican to speak, Senator Bob Corker (R-TN), also
raised questions about the amount of money being spent. “I think the
one thing that would stun the American people on the ground in
Afghanistan, is how much we are investing in this country, and what we
are investing in,” he said.

President Obama will soon decide whether the July drawdown of troops
will be substantial or simply a matter of optics. The hearing’s
witnesses divided into two camps. Ann Marie Slaughter, late of the
Obama administration, and Ronald E. Neumann, who served as President
George W. Bush’s ambassador to Afghanistan from 2005–07, both
advocated for extended American investment in the country.

Slaughter said she envisions a “secure, stable, and self-reliant”
Afghanistan, despite the continued elusiveness of anything resembling
that situation. “It may seem like an impossible job,” Slaughter
testified. “But the sooner we embark on it, the better the chances
that we can get it done.”

The Council on Foreign Relation’s Richard Haass, on the other hand,
called for the end of combat operations against the Taliban, though
not a total withdrawal—he wanted a small number of US troops to remain
in the country, performing counter-terrorism operations.

“I do not believe…a quote-unquote ‘self-reliant Afghanistan’ is a
reasonable goal,” Haass said. “I think that is an open-ended
commitment for the United States, militarily and economically, and I
do not believe that that can be strategically defended, given the
costs and given the opportunity costs; given all else we need to worry
about in the world and given all else we need to worry about here at
home.”

Nobody yet knows to what degree President Obama will withdraw troops
from Afghanistan this summer, but it is clear he’s gaining cover on
Capitol Hill for substantial action.

Rep. Barney Frank told [3] Think Progress’s Faiz Shakir he now favors
withdrawal. “People say, well, America can't look like it was driven
out with the mission not accomplished. We went there to get Osama bin
Laden!” The Atlantic’s Elspeth Reeve counted [4] seven other House
Democrats who spoke up in favor of reconsidering current troop levels
in the wake of bin Laden’s death,

Even before bin Laden was killed, Obama may have been considering a
serious drawdown. The Atlantic's Yochi Dreazen reports [4] that Obama
was already moving away from the idea of a token drawdown, and “with
bin Laden now out of the picture, the White House may feel even freer
to order a larger drawdown than most in the military would prefer.”

Lugar’s criticism aside, Republicans aren’t likely to support a
perceived retreat. House speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has already said
bin Laden’s death “makes our engagement in places like Pakistan and
Afghanistan more important not less.” But with eroding Congressional
support and polls showing [5] the public wants out of Afghanistan even
if it’s not stable, that could be a tough position to hold.

Like this blog post? Read it on The Nation’s free iPhone App, NationNow. [6]
________________________________
Source URL: http://www.thenation.com/blog/160377/senator-dick-durbin-questions-sending-one-more-soldier-die-afghanistan
Links:
[1] http://www.c-span.org/Events/Congress-Examines-al-Qaeda-After-bin-Laden/10737421273-1/
[2] http://foreign.senate.gov/press/ranking/release/?id=b8020272-c906-468f-a079-aac91ba7afd8
[3] http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/02/barney-frank-withdrawal/
[4] http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2011/05/after-bin-laden-lawmakers-question-afghan-war/37288/
[5] http://www.pollingreport.com/afghan.htm
[6] http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nationnow/id399704758?mt=8
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Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org