House Democrats Showing some Spine on Afghanistan War

Every once in awhile, Nancy Pelosi really surprises me. Less often than not, it's for the better. However, this is one of those instances.

Pelosi told the Huffington Post today that there will be a "serious drawdown" of American troops from Afghanistan in the summer of 2011, citing rampant corruption among Hamid Karzi's government at the incredible expense of US taxpayers She has even wielded the threat of using the House's power of the purse to stop it. This is all following news broken by the Washington Post the other day, informing us that Karzai's government has "repeatedly derailed corruption investigations of politically connected Afghans".

And House Democrats weren't done there. Also today, Democrats blocked $3.8 billion in reconstruction funding, citing concerns about corruption in Afghanistan. You heard me: Democrats actually don't want to give taxpayer dollars to corrupt Afghani political figures and warlords. From the article:

"On Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she recently traveled to Afghanistan and found the corruption staggering. "I was just there for Mother's Day, in Afghanistan, that weekend, and traveled into the country even more remotely than Kandahar," Pelosi said in an interview in her office. "And the corruption issue, it's problematic. And you know what? A lot of it is our money. "This is about systemic, huge money," she said."

The move was inspired by a Wall Street Journal article the other day that opened:

"More than $3 billion in cash has been openly flown out of Kabul International Airport in the past three years, a sum so large that U.S. investigators believe top Afghan officials and their associates are sending billions of diverted U.S. aid and logistics dollars and drug money to financial safe havens abroad."

Did that sink in? $1 billion American taxpayer dollars have gone in the front door and immediately out the back, right in Afghanistan's international airport every year for 3 years.

It seems that at least in the House, Democrats are finally starting to feel the winds of change in American public opinion towards the now 9-year-long war in Afghanistan, now the longest armed conflict that the United States has ever been involved in. The war has become an incredible burden on American taxpayers: $280 billion to date with no real end in sight (the number passes $1 trillion if you also include the costs of the war in Iraq).

Also, it doesn't help the war hawks that more and more bad news keeps coming in from the front lines. The Kandahar offensive is moving much slower than originally anticipated. CIA Director Leon Panetta said yesterday that there are probably less than 100 al-Qaeda members in Afghanistan at this time. And I'm sure you all heard about a certain general of ours who recently being relieved of his command after a nonchalant interview he and his staff gave Rolling Stone. It's finally getting harder for lawmakers to justify this stupid war that we lost back in 2003 when we invaded Iraq.