Congress Approves Afghan War Funds
Politico reports that Congress has approved additional funding for the Afghan War:
Tens of billions of dollars in new Afghanistan war funding cleared Congress late Tuesday, even as the House easily upended a liberal challenge to the increased U.S. military presence — and drone attacks — across the border in Pakistan.
The back-to-back votes buy precious time for President Barack Obama to show progress on his strategy for the region. But even as the anti-war movement remains weak in Congress, Obama can’t ignore a growing split among House Democrats over the cost of his military commitments at a time of tighter budgets and economic troubles at home.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey (D-Wis.), who had managed the $59 billion war funding bill, voted against it in a final protest and helped to take 101 Democrats with him. A solid majority of the caucus —148 Democrats — still held firm with the president on the 308-114 vote, but the scene was in stark contrast with just a year ago when all but 32 Democrats supported a still larger $105.9 billion war funding measure for Afghanistan and Iraq operations.
“It is wrong to be borrowing money from China, laying off American police officers to train police officers in Afghanistan,” said Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) Citing the release this week of previously secret battlefield reports from the war zone, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said, “The same old, same old is simply not working, and it’s costing us dearly.”
“This is not just the president’s war. It’s our war, too,” McGovern told the House. “We must not simply kick the can down the road and hope for the best.”
With the August recess looming, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) was a driving force in engineering the vote, which put a priority on speed and Republican cooperation. “If we don’t get the funding today, we’re not going home; we’re going to stay here until we get this done,” vowed Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), echoing Hoyer. And as though racing ahead of the fallout now from the leaked war reports, the leadership brought the bill to the floor both early in the day and on the suspension calendar, thereby limiting debate and lowering its profile.
