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Provoking Discussion on Afghanistan

The contest for the 2012 US Senate contest is already heating up between Democrats Susan Bysiewicz and Rep. Chris Murphy. The two traded barbs over their Afghanistan policy this week on the heels of Mr. Murphy’s trip to that country to visit with troops and assess the situation.

Amid the kerfuffle, however, I wondered about the race’s third candidate, State Rep. William Tong. The Hartford Courant picked up the case and got some answers:

Reached this morning, Tong’s campaign issued the following comment via email: “It is time that we stand with President Obama and begin the process of ending our 10-year long commitment in Afghanistan starting with a substantial reduction in our front line combat troops, beginning this summer,” said Tong, a state representative from Stamford. 

It is going to be a long 2012 cycle.

Shooting War in Afghanistan, Political Battle in CT

This is what it looks like when two knife fighters duel.

US Rep. Chris Murphy and former Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz traded barbs this week in the first direct sparring of the 2012 US Senate campaign over the war in Afghanistan.

Ms. Bysiewicz favors “immediate withdrawal” while Mr. Murphy, who is just returned from a trip to Afghanistan, favors withdrawing troops “this summer”.

The two candidates are racing to outflank each other the issue but they may have some unusual company on the way as Congressional Republicans grow tired of the conflict:

A newfound restlessness about the decadelong war in Afghanistan has reached the highest levels of the House Republican leadership, sparking serious concerns about war funding and murmurs about troop withdrawal, a sign that the GOP may be undergoing a shift in thinking about overseas intervention.

Amid the political jockeying and policy shifts, one has to wonder about the race’s newest candidate, State Rep. William Tong. Called the ‘Asian Obama’ by some of his backers, it remains to be seen if Mr. Tong can bring a gun to the knife fight.

Afghanistan War Pushed Aside by Economy

Virtually every candidate for office during the recently concluded elections talked incessantly about jobs, jobs, jobs as their top priority. In a nation where the unemployment rate is 9.6% , it was infinitely reasonable to do so.

But it should be of great concern that amid the millions of dollars spent on television commercials, radio ads, and glossy mailers, barely a word was mentioned about the ongoing war in Afghanistan. That our leaders spent so little time talking about Afghanistan during the campaign does not bode well for their attention to the issue once it is time to govern.

Democratic candidate Richard Blumenthal and Republican opponent Linda McMahon were practically everywhere during the last few months asking for the vote. A review of Senator-Elect Blumenthal’s campaign YouTube page shows at least 14 advertisements for television or radio. Of those, not one mentions the war in Afghanistan or America’s policy toward that conflict .

Mrs. McMahon’s first television advertisement began airing on September 23, 2009 and since that time she spent more than $46 million on her campaign. Her YouTube page reveals that of the at least 37 advertisements for the web or for television, more mentioned the War in Vietnam (at least two) than the war in Afghanistan (zero) .

A soul-crushing 475 American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan between the start of her advertising blitz and the end of the 2010 elections .

But it is hard to just blame the politicians for this sad state of affairs. According to an August 2010 survey by Gallup, only four percent of respondents cited the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as their top issue. 30% said that the economy in general was their top priority, while 28% mentioned jobs and the unemployment rate . When voters stop caring about certain issues, it becomes more difficult to get candidates to talk about them.

As one of the longest wars in America’s history, it isn’t surprising that people would become desensitized to the ongoing violence in Afghanistan. Nonetheless, Americans look to their elected leaders to craft a strategy that will untangle our soldiers from a mission in Afghanistan that appears more and more pointless each day. The Afghan government is as corrupt as it is ineffectual, the Taliban is resurgent and Osama bin Laden remains at large.

America is in need of a new leadership on the Afghanistan War. Hopefully one of the recently-elected officials will provide it despite the issue’s absence during the campaign.

This article was originally published on Tuesday, November 16, 2010 in the Norwich Bulletin