Appleton, WI – Today, in a meeting with the editorial board of the Appleton Post-Crescent, Senator Feingold called for a flexible timetable to bring our troops out of Afghanistan. During his meeting, Feingold said:
“After
eight years, I am not convinced that simply pouring more and more
troops into Afghanistan is a well thought out strategy. And I have
raised this issue with the President, with the Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mullen, Mr. Holbrooke, the special
representative to the area, and everybody else I can and have never
been convinced that they have a good answer to the concern that I have,
and that other people have. And that is aren’t we sort of helping
drive more extremists into Pakistan, by continuing to build up troops
and resentment in Afghanistan. And of course Pakistan is where the
witch’s brew of every kind of nightmare comes together in a nuclear
country and I think it’s not a very well thought strategy.
“So
something I have not said before which I want to say here in Appleton
is that I think it is time we ought to start discussing a flexible
timetable when people in America and Afghanistan and around the world
can see where we intend and when we intend to bring our troops out.
This isn’t something that can’t be adjusted. It isn’t something that
can’t be thought out. But I think what you do is increase the view
that we are occupying the country, we don’t have a strategy, if you
don’t say look, this is basically what we think we’ll do. I know the
argument will be, well they’ll know when we’re leaving. Well you can
say the same thing about Iraq right now. And those who claim we’re
succeeding in Iraq aren’t saying that now. There’s a timetable out
there and people claim it’s succeeding. I think showing the
people there and here that we have a sense about when it’s time to
leave is going to be one of the best things we can do to succeed in
Afghanistan. People in that country have to take ownership of it,
everybody says that. So I want a conversation in this country to
begin. (Four) years ago I was the first senator in the United States -
I announced it in Marquette, Wisconsin - to say we ought to have a
timetable for Iraq. I believe that activism was important in moving us
forward and having elections where people said it’s time to finish it.
“So
we have to be dead serious about security. We have to maintain the
ability to go after al Qaeda within Afghanistan. It doesn’t mean we
give that up. But simply continuing operations there - and apparently
there are going to be requests for many more troops - I’m not sure it’s
a wise idea.”
In a couple recent
Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings, Feingold raised his
concerns with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike
Mullen and the Special Envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard
Holbrooke, both of whom could not guarantee that increasing the U.S.
presence in Afghanistan would not push Taliban and other fighters into
Pakistan making a dangerous situation even worse. The exchange with
Holbrooke is here and the exchange with Mullen is here.