Barack Obama’s support for expanding the war in Afghanistan is becoming the latest in a serious disappointments for Democratic voters, threatening to split the party in two, between right-leaning establishment leaders and the progressive grassroots. Democrats in Congress who were campaigning for Obama a year ago are now speaking out against his plans to send tens of thousands of additional soldiers to fight in Afghanistan.

Among the Democrats now in revolt over Obama’s Afghanistan policy is James McGovern, who represents the 3rd district in Massachusetts. McGovern’s opposition to an increase in American military forces in Afghanistan is based many concerns, including the following:

- Sending additional soldiers to Afghanistan makes an eventual withdrawal even more difficult than before
- There are only an estimated 100 Al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan. It shouldn’t be necessary to have 100,000 American soldiers to combat just 100 fighters.
- The cost in American lives will be unacceptable.
- The cost in federal dollars is unacceptable, especially during a lengthy economic crisis.
- The beginning of a decrease of the levels of American soldiers in Afghanistan will only begin in the middle of 2011, meaning that the war there will continue well beyond then, even if the war goes according to the most optimistic predictions.
- Economic and political assistance for Afghanistan can take place in the place of military escalation.
- Original congressional authorization was for targeting of people responsible for the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 – not a prolonged military occupation and nation-building mission.

McGovern’s most pointed criticism was against Hamid Karzai, the Afghan President who has enforced many Taliban-style oppressive laws and a massively rigged national election. McGovern said,

“President Karzai is corrupt and incompetent. He cheated in the most recent election. By most estimates, 30 percent of his votes was rigged. I don’t want any more American service men or women to risk their lives for his corrupt government; and I am a little bit stunned, quite frankly, by the quick and inexplicable pivot by the administration from rightly denouncing Karzai’s behavior to now embracing him as our dear friend. I think our support for Karzai actually discredits us with the Afghan people. We have seen that it is exceedingly difficult to train Afghan troops, many of whom are not only illiterate, but unable to add or subtract.”