The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly rejected a measure calling for President Barack Obama to pull U.S. forces from Afghanistan, in an election-year test of his decision to escalate the war.
But dozens of Obama's Democrats in the House did support the pullout resolution, indicating division over war policy ahead of November congressional elections in which Republicans are expected to make gains.
Sixty-five lawmakers, most of them Democrats, voted for the pullout resolution written by liberal Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich, while 356 voted against.
It was the first challenge by members of the Democratic majority in Congress to U.S. involvement in the conflict since Obama ordered 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan and an offensive began last month to retake the Taliban stronghold of Marjah in Helmand province.
. . . Supporters of the Kucinich resolution said it was time for lawmakers to consider if they wanted to continue the nearly nine-year-old war in Afghanistan in which about 1,000 U.S. soldiers have been killed and hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N10177047.htm
The Democrats ran as the "anti war" party in 2006 and 2008.
Now we know that all except 65 representatives were simply playing politics on the issue.
No comments:
Post a Comment