Bi-partisan Letter to Obama: No Military Solution in Afghanistan, Bring the Troops Home

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Congressman Walter Jones (R-NC) were joined by 40 Members of the House of Representatives in sending a letter to President Obama urging him to speed up the return of all U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

"We are calling on President Obama to recognize that there is no military solution in Afghanistan, and the longer we keep our troops there the longer we delay the progress of an Afghan-produced political solution," said Congresswoman Lee, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus Peace and Security Task Force.

The latest poll indicates that 59 percent of likely voters want U.S. troops to withdraw within a year. Last week, the Senate adopted an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act offered by Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) to require President Obama to submit a report detailing how U.S. troops will be quickly withdrawn from Afghanistan.

"Now that the President has accomplished every goal that was originally set in Afghanistan, it is time to bring home our brave men and women in uniform," Lee continued. "After ten years and $460 billion invested in an unstable country with untrustworthy leadership, it is past time to end this war. The decade long war has already cost $444 billion of taxpayer dollars and taken the lives of 1,848 members of the armed services. Our troops have done everything we have asked of them, but they cannot be tasked with building up a modern nation state. It is time to bring our troops and tax dollars home.