Twenty-seven Senators sign bipartisan letter calling on Obama to speed up Afghan withdrawal

[ProSense]

Twenty-seven Senators sign bipartisan letter calling on Obama to speed up Afghan withdrawal

By Greg Sargent

Ever since the killing of Osama Bin Laden, it has seemed inevitable that his death would provide the hook for a major change of course in Afghanistan, and now Dems are about to escalate the pressure on the White House to hurry up and get our combat troops out of the country.

I’m told that twenty seven Senators — including Dem leaders, moderates, and even two Republicans — have now signed a letter calling on Obama to initiate a “sizable and sustained reduction” of military forces in Afghanistan. The letter argues that Bin Laden’s death means the U.S. has accomplished a principle goal of the invasion, that Al Qaeda no longer is a sizable presence in that country, and that there’s no clear rationale or set of achievable goals that justify delaying withdrawal any longer.

The letter had already been made public, but the final range and number of signatories — which you can view after the jump — is new. The letter’s chief sponsors — Jeff Merkley, Tom Udall and Mike Lee — will officially go public with the full list of signatories later this morning. From the letter:

From the initial authorization of military force through your most recent State of the Union speech, combating al Qaeda has always been the rationale for our military presence in Afghanistan. Given our successes, it is the right moment to initiate a sizable and sustained reduction in forces, with the goal of steadily redeploying all regular combat troops.

There are those who argue that rather than reduce our forces, we should maintain a significant number of troops in order to support a lengthy counter-insurgency and nation building effort. This is misguided. We will never be able to secure and police every town and village in Afghanistan. Nor will we be able to build Afghanistan from the ground up into a Western-style democracy...

While it is a laudable objective to attempt to build new civic institutions in Afghanistan, this goal does not justify the loss of American lives or the investment of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars...

Mr. President, according to our own intelligence officials, al Qaeda no longer has a large presence in Afghanistan, and, as the strike against bin Laden demonstrated, we have the capacity to confront our terrorist enemies with a dramatically smaller footprint. The costs of prolonging the war far outweigh the benefits. It is time for the United States to shift course in Afghanistan.

We urge you to follow through on the pledge you made to the American people to begin the redeployment of U.S. forces from Afghanistan this summer, and to do so in a manner that is sizable and sustained, and includes combat troops as well as logistical and support forces.

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Any time nearly a third of the Senate speaks on anything, it’s a significant statement. And the range of signatories — it includes Dem leaders Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin, as well as a host of moderate Democrats and Republicans Mike Lee and Rand Paul, hinting at a right-left alliance against the war — clearly demonstrates that the mainstream position is for speedy withdrawal.

Full letter and signatories after the jump.

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[Cali_Democrat]

1. K&R

Keep the pressure on him!