Amendment calling for troop drawdown in Afghanistan fails

Josh Richman
Contra Costa Times
May 27, 2011

The House came close to approving an amendment Thursday that would have required the Obama administration to provide a plan and time frame for an accelerated draw down of military operations in Afghanistan.

The bipartisan amendment, sponsored by Jim McGovern, D-Mass., and Walter Jones, R-N.C., failed on a 215-204 vote, but got 42 votes more than a similar amendment last year. All Bay Area members voted for it. Some said the close vote sends a message to the White House that Congressional support for the war is significantly and inexorably slipping away.

“With (Osama) bin Laden dead, al-Qaida’s training camps in Afghanistan destroyed, and fewer than 100 al-Qaida operatives left in Afghanistan, we have largely completed our mission in Afghanistan. Spending $120 billion a year to maintain 100,000 troops fighting in Afghanistan’s internal civil war on behalf of the corrupt Karzai government is not the way to keep America safe,” said Rep. John Garamendi, D-Walnut Grove. “I voted (Thursday) to enhance our national security by insisting we refocus our efforts toward targeting al-Qaida and other terrorists like a laser wherever they take root.”

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