The retirement of Rep. David Obey, the powerful Chairman of the House Appropriations Comiittee, signals a fascinating fluidity in debate over Afghanistan. Obey's decision comes as the next $33 billion war supplemental is being considered, almost exactly a year after he said he would begin to oppose an open-ended commitment. The 30-year congressman began his career as one of the "young Turks" opposing Vietnam, along with Joe Biden, Sen. Daniel Inouye, and others who have risen to positions of leadership. Obey was a co-sponsor of the Addabbo Amendment in 1973, which blocked Nixon's attempt to transfer general Defense Department funds to offensive military operations in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, after a string of resolutions attempted to confine Nixon to basic troop supply and orderly withdrawal.
Now Obey, who has expressed regret for going along with war funding, finds himself in a position to block the war supplemental request coming up in a few weeks.
By demanding a freeze on troop deployments, stipulating a halt on offensive operations, and allowing any funds passed to be used only for properly equipping troops and preparing for orderly withdrawal, Obey would cap his career with a breathtaking act of courage...
To block the war supplemental, making national news and history, would bring him full circle and leave an amazing legacy.
This would throw the war party (which consists of members of both parties) into a dizzying disarray, as Speaker Pelosi is forced to decide on whether to remove Obey as Chair and become the Democratic face of the war herself. Pelosi has a challenger currently navigating the Republican primary who, although he has some typically off-kilter positions on taxes and healthcare, has a strong anti-war position. It may be said that given the make-up of the district, Pelosi's seat is secure, but that is what they said about Martha Coakley in Massachusetts. Moreover, John Dennis is a far more likable guy than Scott Brown, with liberal positions on civil liberties and a manner which has won over some anti-war activists on the progressive side. The fear would not be that anti-war San Francisco progressives will suddenly jump to vote for a Republican, but rather, simply stay home. The Massachusetts upset made abundantly clear that it was not who voted in the heavily Democratic state which made the difference, but who didn't.
As one of the most senior members of the House who is looked up to by freshman and relative newcomers as one who knows "what's going on," Obey could start a stampede which will see us beginning slow, careful withdrawal this year, while at the same time amply funding a the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund in order to create the basic jobs building rudimentary infrastructure which Afghans have longed for. The realization has come around that only addressing the economic roots of the insurgency will bring stability, and enable Afghans to kick the Pakistani side of the Taliban, the more ideological elements, out of their valleys. It has finally sunk in that a country cannot have 40 percent unemployment, 35 percent of the population clinically malnourished (according to the UN), the Taliban offering $10 a day, and not have an insurgency.
With Obey's opposition, it's a no-brainer that the planned operation in Kandahar would be off. With the elders and the population overwhelmingly against it, saying they prefer to talk to the Taliban, this would be an opportunity to begin to re-align American words with actions. The US military previously said that the operation would not go forward without approval of the elders. Now that the elders are against it, let them talk. They know who belongs and who doesn't, who can live in peace and who can't. Talking to people you were fighting just a minute ago is something Afghans have been doing for a long time.
Obey said almost exactly a year ago that he would give Obama a year to do what he wanted to do in Afghanistan, and then he would begin to oppose the war. Doing so, in the high profile manner which his position would command, would signal the beginning of the end of the war in Afghanistan. This would immediately place him on the mantle with the great progressives and notables the state has a tradition of producing, LaFollette, Feingold. The country would benefit from a dose of the old Fighting Dave.
Ending a war is its own reward, measured in the numbers of young men who go home to raise children, watch them graduate, vet daughters' boyfriends as they begin to date, or provide stern loving hands which keep sons off drugs. To die at last in the way which is good and natural, old and happy and full of years, in a bed surrounded by family.
Not scared and alone, watching your life bleed into the sand, not yet twenty-one, before it even began. No more. No more. For God's sake no more.
Key resolutions which ended the Vietnam War:
1970 H.R. 17123 ("McGovern -Hatfield")
Prohibited the obligation or expenditures of funds "authorized by this or any other act" to "maintain a troop level of more than 280,000 armed forces" in Vietnam after April 30, 1971. Between April 30 and December 31,l971, limited expenditure of funds to "safe and systematic withdrawal of remaining armed forces"
1970 H.R. 19911 ("Cooper-Church", Enacted)
Prohibited using any funds authorized or appropriated in this or any other act to finance the introduction of ground troops or U.S. advisors in Cambodia.
1971 H.R. 9910 ("Cooper-Church")
Stated that the repeal of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution had left the U.S. government without congressional authority for continued participation in the Indochina war. Required that on or after enactment of this act, funds authorized in this or any other Act can be used only to withdraw
U.S. forces from Indochina and may not be used to engage in hostilities in North or South Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos except to protect withdrawing forces.
1971 H.R. 6531 ("Chiles")
Prohibited expenditure of any funds authorized or appropriated under this or any other act after June 1, 1972 to deploy or maintain U.S. armed forces or conduct military operations "in or over Indochina" except to protect U.S. forces during withdrawal, or provide protection for endangered S. Vietnamese, Cambodians, or Laotians.
1971 H.R. 8687 ("Gravel")
Prohibited expenditure of any funds authorized or appropriated under this or any other law to "bomb, rocket, napalm, or otherwise attack by air any target whatsoever" within Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam or Laos unless the President determined it necessary to ensure the safety of U.S. forces withdrawing from Indochina to set another date within that fiscal year.
1973 H.R. 7447 ("Addabbo")
Prohibited the Defense Department from transferring $430 million in H.R. 7447 from other defense programs for U.S. military activity in Southeast Asia, including the cost of bombing raids over Cambodia, and paying for increased costs due to devaluation of the dollar.
1973 H.R. 7645 ("Case-Church")
Prohibited obligation or expenditure of funds "heretofore or hereafter appropriated" to finance the involvement of U.S. military forces in North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Laos or Cambodia or to provide direct or indirect assistance to North Vietnam "unless specifically authorized hereafter by the Congress."
1973 H.J.Res. 636 (Enacted)
Prohibited obligation or expenditure of any funds in this or any previous law on or after August 15, 1973 to directly or indirectly finance "combat in or over or from off the shores of North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Laos or Cambodia."