Fears Become Reality for
By Daniel Weintraub
San Francisco Chronicle
December 20, 2009
In the fear-filled, nationalistic fervor after the
terrorist attack on the
2001, Congress rushed to approve President George W.
Bush's decision to attack Afghanistan, the country
where the terrorist leaders had trained for their
suicide voyage.
A resolution giving Mr. Bush the authority to act raced
through Congress just three days after the attack.
Nearly every member of the House of Representatives and
the Senate voted for it. Only one member rose to oppose
the measure: Representative Barbara Lee, Democrat of
Ms. Lee said she worried that the United States, like
so many other world powers before, would become
hopelessly entangled in a war it could never win. And
she thought the resolution for which she was being
asked to vote would give too much power to the
president to wage a dead-end war without an official
declaration from Congress.
Eight years later, at least in her eyes, many of Ms.
Lee's worst fears have come to pass. The
remains mired in a war in which victory seems ill-
defined and ever more difficult to achieve.
But now a president Ms. Lee deeply admires has replaced
one she almost always opposed. And Barack Obama is
doubling down on Mr. Bush's gambit, pushing to escalate
the military presence in
Ms. Lee said in an interview this month that she was
not surprised by Mr. Obama's decision, but that she was
disappointed. She was an early supporter of his, even
though as a candidate he said he supported the war in
"He said during the campaign that he was going to get
out of
is chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus. "I
agree with him 90 percent of the time. But you can't
agree all the time."
Ms. Lee has a lot more company on this issue than she
used to. A resolution she introduced in October to
block any financing for an expanded military presence
in
are Representatives Pete Stark, Michael M. Honda and
Lynn Woolsey, all Democrats from the Bay Area who voted
for the war resolution in 2001.
Ms. Woolsey, who is from
Foreign Affairs Committee, is taking a lead role on the
issue and has said she believes that a majority of
House Democrats will oppose Mr. Obama's plan. Even
Speaker Nancy Pelosi of
supporter of the war and a stalwart supporter of Mr.
Obama, is expressing concern about the mounting cost of
the war and has said her Democratic colleagues are
eager to vote on a resolution to limit or end the engagement.
The shift toward Ms. Lee's position among her Bay Area
colleagues mirrors a broader shift in the electorate.
Although no independent local polling was done on the
Afghanistan issue in 2001, a Field Poll in the spring
of 2002, about six months after the invasion, found
that 59 percent of Bay Area voters thought Mr. Bush was
doing a good job in the fight against terrorism. But in
a Field Poll this October, more than half of Bay Area
voters said they thought the troop levels in
back, not expanded.
"I am calling for a timeline and an exit strategy," Ms.
Lee said, "and no additional funding for increased
troop levels. I am going to lead the fight to deny the
funding. Congress holds the purse strings. I think we
can do this differently."
To those who say the
Afghanistan to fight the Taliban, Ms. Lee counters that
the
extremists as Afghanis turn to them to help fight the
occupation. And to those who argue that the United
States must support the country's fledgling democratic
government, Lee says the corruption in that regime only
hurts
"I respect the commander in chief and his position,"
Ms. Lee said. "I just don't believe there is a military
solution in
________________
Daniel Weintraub has reported on
and policy for more than 20 years.
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