Today, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) criticized President Obama’s plan to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. Nadler released the following statement:

“I am disappointed by President Obama’s decision to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. I am not convinced that the United States and its allies will be able to end the 35-year civil war in Afghanistan, nor is that our responsibility. We should not send additional troops to prop up a corrupt government which neglects its own people’s needs. It is simply not justifiable to sacrifice more lives and spend more money on this war. We must rethink our policy in Afghanistan. If we do not, we are doomed to failure and further loss of American lives.

“In late 2001, we undertook a justified military action in Afghanistan in response to the attacks of 9/11, and, with moral clarity and singular focus, we destroyed the al-Qaeda camps, drove the Taliban from power, and pursued the perpetrators of mass-terrorism. I supported that action. Today, however, our presence in Afghanistan has become counterproductive. We are bogged down amidst a longstanding civil war between feuding Afghans of differing tribes, classes and regions whose goals have little to do with our own.

“Moreover, our very presence in Afghanistan has fueled the rising insurgency and emboldened those who oppose foreign intervention or occupation of any kind. In seeking security and stability in Afghanistan, we have supported and enabled corrupt leaders with interests out of sync with the interests of ordinary Afghans. By backing the Afghan government, we have further distanced ourselves from the Afghan people and empowered the insurgency.

“If our mission in Afghanistan is indeed to prevent the safe harbor of terrorists within a weak or hospitable nation, that mission is largely accomplished, since there are now fewer than 100 al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. And, by the same logic, we should send troops to Somalia, Eritrea and Yemen. In reality, terrorist plots can be hatched anywhere, in any nation, including our own. In fact, much of the planning for the 9/11 attacks took place in Western Europe.

“This does not mean that we should stop pursuing terrorists. On the contrary, we must continue the multi-pronged effort to disrupt, dismantle and destroy their ability to harm the United States. We must continue to track and block terrorist financing across the globe, increase intelligence activities focused on terrorists, increase diplomacy to rally our allies to our cause against terrorism, and, if necessary, use our armed forces to attack terrorist targets wherever they may be, a function quite distinct from using the military to secure a nation so that it can be rebuilt. Rebuilding Afghanistan is beyond both our capability and our mandate to prevent terrorists from harming the United States.

“I applaud the President for proposing an exit strategy and timetable for the removal of troops from Afghanistan. Nevertheless, I am concerned that the Afghan government will not be able to meet its benchmarks and that an already prolonged war will continue into the foreseeable future. I believe that a short and definitive timetable for withdrawal is the only way to prevent further loss of life and that a refocused mission aimed more directly at the terrorists themselves is the best way to proceed.”