Cloward Confronts Garamendi Flip Flop on Afghanistan
The 10th congressional district of California is progressive, not inclined to accept open-ended wars costing billions of dollars and thousands of human lives. Yet, John Garamendi, the new U.S. Representative for the district, just voted last week to allow the war in Afghanistan to continue without any timetable – after the war has been going on already for almost nine years.
Challenger Jeremy Cloward, a candidate with the Green Party, has issued a statement decrying the hypocrisy of Garamendi’s opposition to an end to the war in Afghanistan. Cloward stated:
“John Garamendi says that it is time to ‘draw down’ our military involvement in Afghanistan. But when recently given an opportunity to do so through approving a bill proposed by Representative Kucinich of Ohio, Garamendi chose to vote no. This is further proof that the Democratic Party is not only unwilling to move the country forward consistent with the majority of the people’s wishes but is actually voting inconsistent with their own publicly stated positions.”
Representative Garamendi has declared that he is opposed to increasing the number of soldiers fighting in Afghanistan on more than one occasion. It’s clear, however, that the status quo isn’t working in Afghanistan, either. The rational alternative to escalating the war in Afghanistan is the withdrawal of American soldiers, but that’s an alternative that Garamendi has refused to grapple with.
