Below The Beltway

Rep. Tim Johnson (R-IL) called recently for a withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan:

GIBSON CITY – U.S. Rep. Tim Johnson, R-Urbana, told a town hall meeting Monday night that he plans to sponsor legislation calling for the immediate withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan.

“I want to protect America, but I don’t want to lose lives senselessly,” Johnson said following a one-hour, open-air session with about 300 people at a park pavilion in Gibson City. “And we cannot police the world.”

Johnson’s unexpected comments were reminiscent of a break he made in early 2007 with former President Bush over the war in Iraq. At that time, he came out against a “troop surge” in Iraq. “People believe and I believe that we are at a point in history where, unless we have dramatic change in direction, we can wind up being mired and continue to lose large numbers of lives – American, Iraqi and others – indefinitely,” he said in January 2007. “And I’m not going to be a part of it.”

Two years later, regarding a different country and with a different president, Johnson said he sees a similarity.

“I’m suggesting to you that there is no end game. I believe that our men and women are there in a mission that is ill-defined,” Johnson said of the war in Afghanistan and the growing pressure to send more American troops there. “I think we’re losing people by the day, here and over there, with no even indirect relationship to our national security.

“Within a couple of weeks, I’m going to be looking at legislation and issuing a definitive statement on my position on Afghanistan which at this point I would suggest would call for our withdrawal of troops forthwith.”

“We’ve had a succession from Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan, and the net result has been thousands of lives lost, and very little progress made.

“It’s kind of like one of those whack-a-moles at the fair. You knock down one and there are four others to get up. I’m in favor of doing everything we can to make America secure, to make sure we don’t have another 9/11 or even anything analogous to that, but I’m also convinced that our continued presence in Afghanistan is not serving that role. And we need to seriously re-examine where we’re at.”

Johnson said he is working with a bipartisan group, including Reps. Ron Paul, R-Texas, Jim McGovern, D-Mass., and Jerry Costello, D-Belleville, on the Afghanistan withdrawal legislation.

Clearly, Congress is starting to recognize that, after eight years, we really have no idea what we’re doing in Afghanistan and no real plan for accomplishing whatever the goal might be. When we went in there, the goal was to destroy al Qaeda and it’s safe haven’s in the country. Well, even General Stanley McChrystal is saying that there’s no sign of al Qaeda in Afghanistan now. They’ve all moved across the border to Pakistan, our supposed ally, while we stay up north pretending that we can bring democracy to what is turning out to be a corrupt Central Asian state.

It’s not worth American lives to keep the Karzai brother in power. It’s time to come home.