Senator Dick Durbin Questions Sending 'One More' Soldier To Die In Afghanistan

[jefferson_dem]

Took a while but I'm now on board. It's time to bring them home, Mr. President.

Senator Dick Durbin Questions Sending 'One More' Soldier To Die In Afghanistan
George Zornick | May 3, 2011

Early on in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing <1> about Afghanistan today, Medea Benjamin of Code Pink interrupted a discussion about whether the United States should maintain current troop levels or draw down to a smaller force focused on counter-terrorism operations. “There is another opinion—just leave,” she said.

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), the committee’s chairman, quickly gaveled the hearing into a brief recess, and Benjamin left the room. Had she stuck around, she might have been surprised to hear the number two Democrat in the Senate essentially echo her position.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), the Democratic Party Whip, asked by far the hearing’s most important question and one of the most pointed by a Democratic leader to date: “If you believe that resolution of this conflict by military means is highly unlikely and not a realistic basis for US policy, how can we send one more American soldier to fight and die in Afghanistan?” he said.

Durbin noted that “Afghanistan has been a graveyard of empires,” and repeatedly invoked the human cost borne by American soldiers. “We are now in a very sterile conversation about diplomacy and foreign policy,” he said. “The reality is they’re fighting and dying over there. And the question is—how long will we keep sending them?”

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http://www.thenation.com/blog/160377/senator-dick-durbin-questions-sending-one-more-soldier-die-afghanistan