Afghanistan Back in the Picture

With the media’s relentless focus on jobs and the economy — as well as the Royal Wedding — it’s easy to lose sight of something much more important: American service men and women fighting and dying in Afghanistan.

A couple of events brought their sacrifice roaring back into focus for me last week. A good friend from New Mexico posted poignant Facebook pictures of a reunion with her Marine husband upon his safe return from an especially violent tour of duty. A couple of days later, Rep. Martin Heinrich sent a letter to President Obama asking him to keep his promise to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in July.

The two events were completely unrelated, but they each reminded me that while most of sit here safely in America, others of us are dying nobly in foreign lands to achieve policy goals that only seem to get murkier.

A senior official in the Obama White House told reporters last week that Obama is sticking to his commitment to begin bringing troops home in July. The official, who declined to be named, said we have already seen “the beginning of a transition from international security lead to Afghan lead and provinces over the course of this year.”

The official also said “the beginning of United States forces drawdown (will happen) this summer and that would lead ultimately to a full Afghan lead on the security side by the year 2014.”

Heinrich’s letter to the president was notable because he was the only member of New Mexico’s congressional delegation (which was then all Democratic) to give his full-throated support to Obama’s decision to deploy 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in December 2009. The congressman, who visited troops in Afghanistan a year ago, applauded the military’s effort there in his letter to Obama but wrote that “challenges remain that no amount of American blood or treasure will completely solve.”

“We have spent over $450 billion in Afghanistan since the start of this war,” Heinrich wrote to Obama. “Our youngest soldiers now serving in some of the most dangerous places on Earth were just 8 years old when our nation was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001. It’s time we start bringing our troops home.”

Of course, it’s worth noting that Heinrich is running for the U.S. Senate seat that Sen. Jeff Bingaman will relinquish upon his retirement next year. And that’s essentially what former Rep. Heather Wilson — a Republican candidate for the same Senate seat — did when I asked her about Heinrich’s letter.

“Our mission in Afghanistan and the security of the United States are too important to be used to score political points with liberal activists,” Wilson said in an e-mail. “When it comes to troop levels in Afghanistan, we should be listening to the advice of our commanders in the field.”

Heinrich will no doubt be miffed to learn that Wilson accused him of supporting troop withdrawal to shore up political support on the left, but as I recently noted in another column, the campaign has already begun, so it’s no surprise.

I also asked the newest contender in the New Mexico Senate race — Democratic state Auditor Hector Balderas — what he thought about withdrawal from Afghanistan. He agreed with Heinrich.

“I agree that we need to bring our troops home from Afghanistan as soon as possible,” Balderas said. “We need to continue our focus on disrupting, dismantling and defeating the Taliban and al-Qaida through increased military pressure. With the progress we’ve made on that front and in training Afghan military forces, and by beginning the drawdown of our troops this summer, I believe we will meet the administration’s deadline of ending our combat mission there within three years or sooner.”

For the record, Sens. Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall, as well as Rep. Ben Ray Lujan — all New Mexico Democrats — also support the call for a drawdown of American troops in Afghanistan beginning in July.
Rep. Steve Pearce, the New Mexico congressional delegation’s only Republican, said the July deadline didn’t matter.

“The deadline is irrelevant. The bigger question is our commitment to winning,” Pearce said. “We should not risk lives if our intent is not to win.”
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Responding to my column on former Gov. Gary Johnson’s presidential bid and continuing athletic adventures last week, a reader pointed out that Mount Washington in New Hampshire — home of the Tuckerman Ravine ski slope — no longer holds the record for the world’s highest wind speed.

The record now belongs to Barrow Island, Australia, which saw a 253-mile-per-hour wind during Tropical Cyclone Olivia in 1996. Mount Washington’s 231-mile-per-hour wind — recorded in 1934 — is the second-highest ever recorded, but remains the highest observed by man as opposed to instruments.

Email: mcoleman@abqjournal.com