McGOVERN WANTS OBAMA TO CONSIDER A DIFFERENT APPROACH TO AFGHANISTAN

Thanks to the Witherspoon Society, I discovered that TruthOut offers "Calling a Time Out" by George McGovern which was orginally printed in the Washington Post. Excerpts:

As you settle into the Oval Office, Mr. President, may I offer a suggestion? Please do not try to put Afghanistan aright with the U.S. military. To send our troops out of Iraq and into Afghanistan would be a near-perfect example of going from the frying pan into the fire. There is reason to believe some of our top military commanders privately share this view. And so does a broad and growing swath of your party and your supporters.

I have believed for some time that military power is no solution to terrorism. The hatred of U.S. policies in the Middle East - our occupation of Iraq, our backing for repressive regimes such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, our support of Israel - that drives the terrorist impulse against us would better be resolved by ending our military presence throughout the arc of conflict. This means a prudent, carefully directed withdrawal of our troops from Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and elsewhere. We also need to close down the imposing U.S. military bases in this section of the globe, which do so little to expand our security and so much to stoke local resentment.