It's Time for Our Troops to Come Home

In the aftermath of September 11th, our nation went to war in Afghanistan. We had three goals: to dislodge the Taliban government, destroy al Qaeda training camps, and to bring to justice those who masterminded the attacks.

Thanks to our men and women in uniform, the Taliban government was quickly removed from power. Moreover, we destroyed terror training camps, and now al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan number fewer than 100, as noted by CIA Director Leon Panetta and other military experts. And just last month, U.S. Special Forces succeeded in killing Osama bin Laden, just as we have taken out so many other senior al Qaeda leaders over the last decade.

Now it's time for our troops -- who have served so long and so well -- to come home.

Our national security demands that we continue to root out al Qaeda, wherever in the world they may hide -- not that we engage in an ambitious nation-building exercise in Afghanistan. After nearly 10 years and hundreds of billions of dollars later, we should safely and expeditiously end our war in Afghanistan, start a sizeable and sustained withdrawal of our troops next month with a goal of ending the combat and nation-building mission as soon as possible, and use the hundreds of billions of dollars in savings to reduce the deficit and make smart investments here at home.

Yesterday's report from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee highlights the inherent flaws in a nation-building strategy in Afghanistan. The study found that the nation-building attempt has had limited success and has flooded areas with rebuilding money with little to no oversight, distorting local economies in ways that are simply unsustainable and contributing to the corruption that undermines the development of capable institutions.

Our enemies are operating in countries around the world, and we need to take the fight to them with all of the tools at our disposal. But we don't need to engage in nation building to do so. The recent operation against Osama bin Laden highlights the successes of a global, comprehensive, counter-terrorism strategy, relying on intelligence, special forces, covert actions, and the many other tools at our disposal. We took out bin Laden in the suburbs of Islamabad, Pakistan, not in Afghanistan. Neither leading a decades-long nation-building process nor refereeing internal power struggles is a national security priority of the United States. And lord knows we can hardly afford the hundreds of billions of dollars it is costing to pursue a mission that is not critical to our security.

That is why I am working with many Senate colleagues to shift course in Afghanistan. Next month the President is scheduled to announce plans for troop withdrawals. Soon, we will send a letter to the President urging that the plan be a sizable and sustained reduction of U.S. military forces in Afghanistan, not just a token reduction in the troop levels. The letter has the support of many distinguished former military leaders, as well as peace advocacy groups such as the Council for a Livable World, and thousands of citizens. I urge you to lend your voice to these efforts.

The future of Afghanistan will be decided by Afghans. Only Afghans can choose to root out corruption in their government and create a sustainable economy that works. It is time to clear the path to let Afghanistan create their own self-determination. America must focus on keeping our people safe and getting our economy growing.

 

Follow Sen. Jeff Merkley on Twitter: www.twitter.com/SenJeffMerkley

Comments

[talkmedown]

09:46 PM on 06/12/2011

Attababy Jeff! You are absolutely correct, JP

[BluePhantom2]

07:21 PM on 06/12/2011

It was time to go long ago. Karsi said the other day that we couldn't bomb homes so lets go one better and go home.

[Troutguy]

06:43 PM on 06/12/2011

Republicans are threatening to vote to defund everything from health care overhaul to Planned Parenthood to Wall St. regulation. Why on earth can't Senator Merkley and his colleagues vote to defund the war? Time to do a little nation building here at home instead of throwing billions of dollars down the hole in Afghanistan.

[shakylegs]

05:51 PM on 06/12/2011

When the Roman Empire was collapsing the legions were ordered home - but it was too late to defend the civilized world from the invading barbarians. Our barbarians are the big banks, financial, and multi-national corporations who are hollowing out the country. The beginning of the Dark Ages is at hand.

[1088]

04:29 PM on 06/12/2011

I bet you would not write this article if Bush was still in power!

[leftLibertarian]

09:09 PM on 06/12/2011

why's that?

[styrofoamcup]

03:10 PM on 06/12/2011

Thank you, Senator. You're representing Oregonians well. Keep fighting the good fight.

[Sally Richardson]

04:43 PM on 06/12/2011

Ditto, ditto, ditto!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Genders]

03:05 PM on 06/12/2011

Long past time, but thank you. You know the problem, right? Money. The use spend more on war than the rest of the world combined. The US spends 54% of it's taxes on war and war related costs.
http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm Ike was right. Beware the MIC. Stop giving the president more power. "The Constitution supposes what the history of all Governments demonstrates, that the executive is the branch of power most interested in war and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the Legislature." James Madison

[Cynthia Rays]

03:02 PM on 06/12/2011

All those in Congress and also the media were negligent in getting us into these quagmires. Then we the public failed to question any of it. It is time to put pressure on our government to end these fruitless wars. Imagine having all of that war money to spend on needs of US citizens.

[Agenhippy]

02:29 PM on 06/12/2011

Been time.

[Edward Meeker]

02:15 PM on 06/12/2011

To any of those that want to point a finger at either party. It was a Republican President who led us into these messes and, at that time, there were no significant Democrats that tried to stop it. In fact many that supported it. Now we have a Democrat President and the Republicans are less than silent on the matter. My only problem with the view here is that it is not simply time but that we should have abandoned this insane effort a long time ago. And for those that keep bringing up the, “We will lose prestige.” and such nonsense, remember post Vietnam, where we were actually defeated (no matter what people want to believe) and in the period that followed, we had better relations with most of the nations and an economy, that after about a decade, recovered nicely. Ending a war is only painful to the macho who believe conquering everything is so sexy. This may work in the movies but the truth is war only drains the economy, and kills a lot of people.

[genboomxer]

01:54 PM on 06/12/2011

Precisely. Declare victory and bring them home.

[sunnynight]

12:44 PM on 06/12/2011

The only war the USA has ever won was the Spanish-American War.
The USA Government is a complete failure capable of nothing but lies and fraud.
The shameful negotiations with the Talibans and cowardice withdrawal from Afghanistan will be the last nail in the coffin for the USA prestige and reputation.
The USA is history anyway!

[TommyMcCarthy]

04:36 PM on 06/12/2011

WW2.....???

[sunnynight]

11:40 AM on 06/18/2011

WW2 was won by the USSR not by the USA.
Without the USSR the USA and UK would have been defeated by Germany and Japan.

[Michael Dayne]

12:31 PM on 06/12/2011

It is doubtful that we accomplished anything in Afghanistan other than to spill more blood and disrupt a country that we had no business being in, in the first place. Obama's foolish policy to send more troops there was a tell as to his lack of understanding of foreign policy and military purpose. The parallels to Viet Nam are obvious. Stuck in a war with no clear military or political objective, we negotiate with the supposed enemy in an attempt to save face and then pull out leaving behind a vacuum and untold thousands of casualities and destruction. Ironically, Viet Nam evolved and has prospered once we left the Vietnamese to run their own country. Hopefully Afgahnistan can do the same.

[nirek]

10:43 AM on 06/12/2011

In my opinion we need not have gone into Afghanistan to get ObL and we certainly had NO business invading Iraq.
People wonder why our deficit is so high should remember that "w" put these two WARS on the credit card. If we had done the covert action of getting ObL it would have cost us less in blood and $$$$!
Diplomacy should have been the action we took.

[Free Your Mind]

10:30 AM on 06/12/2011

Well said Senator!

U.S. President James Madison said: “If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”