The Politics of Military Escalation In Afghanistan and Pakistan by Tom Hayden & Joseph Gerson

The Politics of Escalation
By Tom Hayden & Joseph Gerson
The Nation
May 12, 2009


Congressional leaders are cooperating with the Obama administration in quashing any serious criticism of growing military escalation in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Indications are that there will be no benchmarks or conditions set on the more than $85 billion supplemental appropriation before Congress beginning this week. The administration, which once promised no more rushed supplemental appropriation, is rolling funds for war and swine flu into one package, while not yet disclosing how much is earmarked specifically for Afghanistan.

Rep. David Obey says he wants to give the Obama administration a one-year deadline for results, which likely means making it more difficult to withdraw from a deepening quagmire.

The only current Congressional vehicle for dissent is a proposed amendment by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass) that requires the secretary of defense to report on an exit strategy from Afghanistan by this December, six months after Congress has appropriated funds for escalating the war. Even that modest measure, with fifty co-sponsors at present, has met with administration resistance to an exit strategy with benchmarks.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, under fire for what she knew about Guantánamo waterboarding and when she knew it, is going along with the administration by preventing the McGovern amendment from being voted on. Congressional leaders believe that war opponents are not sufficiently powerful to either require a vote on the McGovern measure to achieve more than two hours of debate on the supplemental, which could also include soliloquies on the swine flu.

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