Brad Polumbo reports on the split between Republican voters and Republican Senators on ending the US military involvement in Afghanistan:
Leopard 2A6M in Afghanistan
Applied to the Middle East, the America First framework is intuitive — our military misadventures in countries like Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan have cost the U.S. tremendously yet failed to further our interests. Once the party of hawks and idealists, Republican voters are now firmly in the America First camp. According to The Intercept, 81% of 2016 Trump voters support removing troops from Afghanistan.
Unfortunately, this shift in views has not been represented in Congress. Most Senate Republicans just explicitly voted against ending the war in Afghanistan.
On Wednesday evening, Sen. Rand Paul, a libertarian-leaning Kentucky Republican, introduced an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would have brought our troops home from Afghanistan, given those soldiers who served a bonus, and repealed the authorization of force Congress passed in 2001. But in a 60 to 33 vote, the Senate shot it down, with only three Republicans in addition to Paul — Sens. Mike Lee, Mike Braun, and Steve Daines — backing the amendment.
“Our amendment [would] finally and completely end the War in Afghanistan,” Paul said on the Senate floor. “Over 4,000 Americans have died in Afghanistan and over 20,000 have been wounded. It’s time to bring our soldiers home.”
“It is not sustainable to keep fighting in Afghanistan generation after generation,” he continued. “In fact, we now have soldiers who were born after 9/11 serving in Afghanistan.”
“We’ve been there for 20 years,” the senator said. “How can we characterize withdrawal after 20 years, after we defeated the enemy, as ‘precipitous’? It’s crazy. The American people say, ‘Come home,’ and this is your chance.”
“Afghanistan 2010 43” by david_axe is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
