The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote this afternoon on the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
This morning, the Senate version of the Afghanistan war supplemental was brought up in the House under "suspension" rules, which require a 2/3 majority to pass. This expedited procedure is generally used for measures considered "uncontroversial," which is odd, to say the least, since the war in Afghanistan is anything but uncontroversial, with the most recent evidence being the release by Wikileaks of secret documents on the war, which the New York Times reported "offers an unvarnished, ground-level picture of the war in Afghanistan that is in many respects more grim than the official portrayal." [...] If 90% of the Members who voted for the McGovern-Obey-Jones amendment on July 1 vote no this afternoon on the war supplemental, the measure will fail. [...] Also on the House calendar today is H.Con.Res. 301, a "privileged resolution" introduced by Reps. Dennis Kucinich, Bob Filner, and Ron Paul, which invokes the War Powers Act to force a debate and vote on the deployment of U.S. forces in Pakistan. As Representative Kucinich points out, what U.S. forces are doing in Pakistan has never been authorized by Congress. The 2001 authorization of military force targeted those who planned and carried out the September 11 attacks and those who harbored them. It was not a blank check to attack anyone we don't like, or anyone our friends don't like. U.S. forces in Pakistan are targeting people who did not, as far as we know, plan or participate in the September 11 attacks, and against whom no evidence has been presented that they harbor those who did. Whether one thinks the enterprise worthy or not, U.S. participation in a war against the internal foes of Pakistan has never been authorized by Congress. There's nothing in the 2001 authorization of military force about a barter agreement in which we attack people in Pakistan that the Pakistani government doesn't like in exchange for permission to attack people in Pakistan that we don't like. You can urge your Representative to vote no on the war supplemental (HR 4899) and yes on Rep. Kucinich's resolution against the presence of U.S. troops in Pakistan (H.Con.Res. 301) by using the toll-free number established by FCNL: 1-888-493-5443. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/house-votes-today-on-afgh_b_660770.html http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/7/27/122924/013 http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/658 -- Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org [email protected] Urge Congress to Support a Timetable for Military Withdrawal from Afghanistan http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/feingold-mcgovern _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
