Lugar Demands Endgame in Afghanistan

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Lugar Demands Endgame in Afghanistan

By: David Dayen Wednesday May 4, 2011 9:53 am
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I don’t know if we can prove beyond the shadow of a doubt Pakistani complicity in the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden or the attack on the compound, though I have my suspicions. But it will be interesting to see how that affects the Afghanistan war. Pakistan wants to be a player in any peace deal involving Hamid Karzai and the Afghan Taliban. I don’t know if whatever happened on bin Laden facilitates that. What I do know is that his death has increased calls for drawdown from US progressives.

The leaders of a House liberal caucus pressed President Obama on Wednesday to approve a “significant drawdown” of U.S. troops from Afghanistan this summer now that Osama bin Laden’s been killed.
Six top members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, including its co-chairmen, Reps. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), urged the president to use the successful assault against bin Laden in Pakistan as a pretext for hefty cuts to the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan.
“You acted decisively in your efforts to capture the mastermind behind those tragic events and we commend your calls for national and global solidarity as we acknowledge the world is safer for his absence,” the lawmakers wrote. “It is our hope that you can similarly unifY the nation by bringing our troops home and ending America’s longest war in history- a position supported by an overwhelming majority of the American people.”

You could envision some scenario where a regional deal gets inked with the pressure of Al Qaeda out of the picture, opening the door for withdrawal. I don’t think that will happen so quickly. As Jonathan Landay speculates, this could change the strategy – a de-emphasizing of Al Qaeda as a casus belli for the war and an increase in emphasis on the home-grown insurgency – but not necessarily a change in force size. But one lawmaker is being pretty bold in saying that the costs are no longer justified – Republican Sen. Richard Lugar.

“Clearly it would not be in our national security interest to have the Taliban take over the government or have Afghanistan reestablished as a terrorist safe haven,” Lugar said in a Tuesday statement. “But the President has not offered a vision of what success in Afghanistan would entail or how progress toward success would be measured.”

Lugar added that, with only 100 Al Qaeda remaining in Afghanistan, the country “does not carry a strategic value that justifies 100,000 American troops and a $100 billion per year cost, especially given current fiscal restraints.” Plus, the very fact of the raid inside Pakistan shows that no safe haven is truly safe, nor do we have no tools we’re willing to use to deal with the prospect of a safe haven, even if we aren’t holding the country in question under occupation. We obviously have no problem responding to terrorists at any time and any place.
We’ll have to see how this plays out over a number of months. But I would not be surprised to see a gradual shift in priorities away from Afghanistan. With public attention at a high level, now would be a good time to start that.

[ghundal]

coincidence? Naaw

[Nokia_Apridy]

tArekh ba khpal Ketab da hem walkey chay

AMREKAY hem khpal Zor pa PUKHTANU wazmwalo.........

[ghundal]

RINO Lugar Goes South On Afghan Commitment - Effort "Does-by PipeLineNews.org


RINO Lugar Goes South On Afghan Commitment - Effort "Does Not Carry A Strategic Value"


May 4, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - Indiana's sometimes GOP Senator, Richard Lugar [ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, John Kerry Chairman] seems to have his eyes set on working with the Dems to defund the war in Afghanistan.
In a strongly worded statement made yesterday, Lugar's assessment of the planned $100B expenditure [FY 2012] to be made for that campaign was harsh, "...it is exceedingly difficult to conclude that our vast expenditures in Afghanistan represent a rational allocation of our military and financial assets." [source, Senator Lugar's website, ]U.S. Senator **** Lugar
Lugar suggested that the "mission" must be clarified as to "core objectives," but offered nothing clear in the way of guidance.
Taking an entirely contrary position, as recently as January 18, Lugar indicated that a withdrawal from Afghanistan would produce "disappointing," effects as far as American interests were concerned. [source, Editorial board meeting with Christian Science Monitor, ]
This leaves Mr. Lugar where most conservatives usually find him, riding what he thinks are the prevailing winds with little regard for anything but his prospect for re-election.
©2011 PipeLineNews.org LLC. All rights reserved

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

http://www.thenation.com/blog/160377/senator-****-durbin-questions-sending-one-more-soldier-die-afghanistan?page=full

Early on in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing 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.
George grew up in Buffalo, NY and holds a B.A. in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Prior to...







RT @DarrylMason: FBI : “...reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on #Osama's Most Wanted page is because FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.”
@Jabbatron 16 sec





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 **** 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 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 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 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 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 the public wants out of Afghanistan even if it’s not stable, that could be a tough position to hold.