Sunday, December 06, 2009

"Feingold blasts logistics, costs of new Afghan strategy" (with video)

Tony Romm (The Hill) with video from ABC News "This Week" (00:46):
The White House's recently announced troop surge in Afghanistan "defies common sense," Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.), one of the war's most outspoken critics, charged on Sunday.
The strategy costs too much money and continues a military effort that "doesn't relate in any way to our fight against al-Qaeda in 2001," the senator told ABC's "This Week."

"Well Pakistan, near Afghanistan, on the border region, is perhaps the epicenter [of al-Qaeda]... why would we build up more than 100,000 troops in [Afghanistan], an area not even near the border?" the senator said.

"It doesn't give anybody what they want," Feingold added, noting the troop surge will help neither Pakistan nor Afghanistan restore stability. "It doesn't give the American people any confidence we might actually end this."

A number of lawmakers in both political camps have signaled utter dissatisfaction with President Barack Obama's new Afghan war strategy, which he announced on Tuesday in a televised addressed.

Some Republicans lament the president's decision to specify a tentative transition date of July 2011, many liberal-leaning Democrats fret any war escalation whatsoever and an emerging, bipartisan, third group of skeptics oppose the strategy because of its potential effects on the federal deficit.

Feingold belongs to the latter two camps. He told ABC on Sunday the entire war effort "flies right in the face of the American people," and he renewed his threat to do "whatever we can" to stop the troop increase or block its funding.
"I think that's something we're going to oppose, not only on the grounds of it being an unwise policy but because its financial irresponsible," Feingold said of both the surge effort and Democrats' attempts to pay for it.

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