Congressional Democrats back expanded war in Afghanistan

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As US death toll hits 1,000 in “Operation Enduring Freedom”
Congressional Democrats back expanded war in Afghanistan
By Patrick Martin
11 March 2010

The US House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Wednesday evening
against a resolution to end the war in Afghanistan and begin a
withdrawal of US troops within 30 days. The roll call vote, with only
65 in favor and 356 against, showed top-heavy majorities of both
Democrats and Republicans opposing an early end to the war.

House Democrats voted against the resolution by 189 to 60, House
Republicans voted against by 167 to 5. The leaders of both parties
lined up in unanimous opposition to the resolution, which would have
invoked the 1973 War Powers Act. This provides that the president can
send US armed forces into war abroad only with the authorization of
Congress or if the US is already under attack.

The measure, introduced by a handful of liberal Democrats led by
Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, would have had no effect even if it had
passed, since the bill would still require Senate passage and then
face a certain presidential veto.

Moreover, the bill would have allowed President Obama to keep US
troops in Afghanistan through December 31 if he determined this was
necessary for “national security.” In other words, the deadline set by
the “antiwar” resolution is only seven months earlier than the nominal
deadline announced by Obama in his speech last December, when he
claimed that some US troop withdrawals would begin by July 2011.

The perfunctory debate and swift defeat of the resolution were a
demonstration of the enormous gulf between the great mass of American
people and the representatives of big business who comprise the
congressional delegations of both parties.

A majority of the American population opposes the war in Afghanistan
and wants it to end as soon as possible. But even a symbolic gesture
in the direction of this mass antiwar sentiment finds little support
in Congress.

Despite the toothless character of the congressional opposition, there
was an effective media blackout on even the most tepid criticism of
the escalating US military operations in Afghanistan. There was no
reporting of the debate or vote on the network newscasts, although the
roll call ended just after 6 p.m.

There were only two reporters sitting in the press gallery during the
debate, a fact taken note of and denounced by one congressman,
Democrat Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island, who is retiring from
Congress and may thus feel less politically constrained.

The House vote came two days after the Pentagon reported that the
death toll among US troops engaged in Operation Enduring Freedom, the
official title of the Bush-Obama “war on terror,” has passed the 1,000
mark. Of these, about 930 were killed in the course of operations in
Afghanistan, with the balance consisting of soldiers killed in a dozen
other countries, mainly in accidents, where they were deployed
allegedly against Al Qaeda—including Yemen, Somalia the Philippines,
and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Of the 930 deaths in the Afghanistan theater, which includes
Uzbekistan and Pakistan, some 726 are classified as combat deaths,
with the rest due to helicopter and plane crashes, weapons
malfunctions and disease. More than 5,000 US soldiers have been
wounded, more than half of them severely enough to require evacuation
from the war zone.

The US death toll in Afghanistan has risen rapidly over the past year,
and according to an analysis of the deaths over the last three months,
one third of those killed had previously been deployed in Iraq. US
troops are being killed this year at the rate of slightly more than
one per day.

According to the tabulation by icasualties.org, the US death toll rose
from 117 in 2007 to 155 in 2008 and doubled to 316 in 2009. In the
first two months of 2010, another 70 US soldiers have been killed. The
US-led NATO forces have lost another 670 soldiers since the war began
in November 2001, including 272 from Britain and 140 from Canada.

Casualties among the occupying forces have been concentrated in
Helmand and Kandahar provinces, with 671 deaths in those two provinces
alone, the heartland of Taliban resistance, nearly 40 percent of the
combined US-NATO losses.

The death toll among Afghan civilians and guerrilla fighters opposing
the US occupation is far less accurately tallied, but undoubtedly
amounts to tens of thousands.

The House vote to uphold the Obama administration’s escalation of the
war coincides with a visit to Afghanistan by Defense Secretary Robert
Gates, who met with the puppet president Hamid Karzai in Kabul, then
toured Helmand and Kandahar provinces in the south, the focus of the
US escalation.

Gates met with US troops at a base just north of Kandahar,
Afghanistan’s second-largest city, which is to be the target of a
major US offensive in the coming months. He told them they would play
a lead role in that offensive, declaring, “Once again you will be the
tip of the spear.”

The 800 soldiers in the Stryker battalion have suffered 21 dead and 62
wounded, a casualty rate of 10 percent, in heavy fighting against
entrenched Taliban forces in the rural area outside the city.

An equivalent casualty rate for the 30,000 troops ordered into
Afghanistan by Obama would mean 750 dead and 2,250 wounded just among
the new forces, not counting the casualty toll among the nearly
100,000 US and NATO troops already deployed.

According to press accounts, Gates and Karzai discussed the details of
the coming offensive into Kandahar with General Stanley McChrystal,
the top US commander in Afghanistan. McChrystal told reporters that
the military operations in Kandahar would be conducted differently
than the recent offensive against Marjah, in neighboring Helmand province.

Unlike Marjah, a largely rural area, Kandahar is a large city of an
estimated 900,000 people, where Taliban forces operate covertly rather
than openly, at least in the daytime. McChrystal said that only 6,000
of the 30,000 troops ordered in by Obama have arrived and moved into
position. The Kandahar operation would require several more months of
preparation.

http://wsws.org/articles/2010/mar2010/afgh-m11.shtml

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