Bipartisan blowout blocks Afghanistan withdrawal

In an overwhelming show of bipartisan support for President Obama’s surge in Afghanistan, the House on Wednesday soundly defeated a resolution setting a timetable for withdrawal.

The vote, which marked the first time the House has had a full debate on Afghanistan since Mr. Obama announced his surge last year, unleashed years of pent-up frustration from liberal Democrats and a few conservative Republicans angry over the direction the nine-year-old conflict has taken.

But the 356-65 vote against withdrawal was a dominant endorsement to give Mr. Obama the time he’s asked for to stabilize the troubled nation.

“Have we forgotten? Have we forgotten what happened to America on 9-11?” demanded Rep. Ike Skelton, Missouri Democrat and chairman of the Armed Services Committee. “Have we forgotten who did it? Have we forgotten those who protected and gave them a safe haven?”

Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, though, the Ohio Democrat who wrote the failed measure, said corrupt Afghan leaders don’t deserve the blood American troops are shedding, and said the money the U.S. is spending should instead be used at home.

“Should the United States people contionue to bear the burdens of this war?” he said.

Late last year Mr. Obama announced he was sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, but also announced he will begin pulling them out in July 2011. Following on the success of President George W. Bush’s surge in Iraq, Mr. Obama said the goal was to give Afghanistan the breathing space to step up its own security forces and clean up government.

Mr. Kucinich’s resolution demanded a pullout within 30 days or, if Mr. Obama deemed that unsafe, would have set a hard deadline of the end of this year.

Democratic leaders allowed the resolution to come to the floor unfettered by parliamentary tactics as a signal of the importance they placed on the debate in an election year.

Just five Republicans and 60 Democrats voted for the withdrawal. They said they appreciated the forum, which gave them a chance to air grievances over Mr. Obama’s plans, over former President George W. Bush’s original decision to go to war, and even over the American press’s coverage of the debate, which Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy, Rhose Island Democrat, called “despicable” in its lack of depth.

He glanced up in the gallery overlooking the House and saw just two reporters inside, and said he was angry that reporters seemed more interested in seedy details of former Rep. Eric Massa than in this major debate.

He also took aim at Republicans who said passing the resolution would insult the memory of more than 1,000 U.S. troops who have lost their lives in Afghansitan.

“What is it we’re going to do? We’re going to double down on a bad policy to protect the honor of someone who’s died?” he said, speaking so strenuously his voice at times cracked.

For his part, Rep. Ron Paul, Texas Republican, called it an “immoral war” and questioned why Afghanistan was a target in the first place. He said he’s seen no evidence that Osama bin Laden, the force behind al Qaeda, was actually responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks and said the evidence he’s seen shows only slim ties between the hijackers and Afghanistan.

Mr. Paul also faulted the way the country went to war without Congress actually declaring it. Instead, in 2001, Congress passed an authorization for the use of force.

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