The U.S. House of Representatives voted today for another $33 billion for the war in Afghanistan. As The Oregonian notes, four out of five members of Oregon's delegation voted against the funding.
Those members that voted against continued funding of the war - Earl Blumenauer, David Wu, Kurt Schrader and Peter DeFazio - should be congratulated for sending a strong signal to the White House that the mission in Afghanistan is unclear.
Religious leaders, myself included, wrote to President Obama in late 2009 saying in part: "We respectfully and prayerfully suggest that you pursue a strategy built on a humanitarian and development surge. Massive humanitarian assistance and sustainable development can rebuild a broken nation, inspire confidence, trust, and hope among its people, and undermine the appeal of terrorism. And it costs less - far less - than continued war."
In 2006, the National Council of Churches in Christ in the USA released a statement regarding Iraq that applies, I think, to the situation in Afghanistan as well:
… we call upon the U.S. Government to recognize that the continued presence of occupying forces has not provided meaningful security for Iraqi citizens and only exacerbates escalating violence, and begin an immediate phased withdrawal of American and coalition forces from Iraq with a timetable that provides for an expeditious final troop withdrawal. And we further call upon our government to link this withdrawal plan to benchmarks for rebuilding Iraqi society, since the reconstruction of infrastructure, the restoration of essential services, and a foundation for economic growth are necessary to nurture Iraqi hopes for a stable future, and to steps to meet the security concerns of all Iraqis, including the more vulnerable, smaller ethnic and religious communities...The path we are going down now seems doomed to failure. But we need to find a way to leave that does not cause additional harm to the people of Afghanistan.
