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McDermott Sole WA Supporter of Anti-War Resolution
by Doug Collins
A resolution to end the war in Afghanistan was debated in the US House of Representatives on March 10. The measure lost by a 365-65 vote, but the debate during the hearing of the measure was largely unprecedented. Five Republicans were among those voting in favor of the measure.
The resolution was sponsored by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio. It called for withdrawal of US forces within 30 days of passage.
Jim McDermott of Seattle was the only congressperson from Washington State to vote for the measure. His statement is quoted below.
“Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of Rep. Kucinich’s resolution to call our troops home from Afghanistan. When the President announced in December that he wanted 30,000 additional troops sent to Afghanistan, I said that I was unconvinced his plan would work. And now that many of those troops are in place, I’m still not convinced. We recently watched the start of Operation Mushtarak, the largest coordinated offensive since 2001, which is intended to loosen the Taliban’s grip in the Southern region of the country. It was originally supposed to take a few weeks, but now estimates say that it may take 12 to 18 months. I think this is a perfect example of the biggest obstacle we face: we are asking troops to fix problems that the military is not capable of solving.
“American soldiers have been in Afghanistan for nearly a decade and have been doing a magnificent job of what’s been asked of them. But with every passing year, I grow more doubtful that we have the ability to build a stable democracy with the military alone. And I certainly do not believe that committing more troops will bring about the change necessary to stabilize the country, nor do I believe that it will hasten the process.
“But that’s the course that many continue to advocate, including President Obama. And while I know that the President wants to get out of Afghanistan as fast as possible, I also believe that if we want to help the Afghani people form a stable democracy and functioning economy, we need to help them with even more aid and support, not an increase in troops.
“Over the last 30 years, Afghanistan has served as a battlefield in a series of devastating conflicts, first between the Soviet Union and the United States, and then between the United States and the Taliban. We hear a lot about the problems with poppy farming in the region, but we don’t hear much about the cause. Before any of these incursions, Afghanistan was considered the orchard capitol of central Asia, with nearly 80 percent of the population working on the land. But now it is estimated that more than 60 percent of the orchards and vineyards have been destroyed, which led many Afghanis into poppy production and the drug trade. This is in part due to the fact that the Soviets thought that orchards were too good a place to hide, so they cut them all down.
“The kinds of problems that Afghanistan faces are not the kinds of problems the US military or NATO are equipped to solve. That is ultimately up to the Afghani government and its people, and we need to realize that our involvement can only do so much. The sooner we understand that, the sooner we can make a strategically acceptable exit.
“I rise today to voice my support for Rep. Kucinich’s resolution to invoke the War Powers Act to call all of our troops home from Afghanistan within the next 30 days —or, as the legislation outlines, by the end of the year if 30 days is deemed too dangerous. I refuse to watch as we send soldier after soldier into a battle I do not believe the military can win.”
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