Today, Democratic presidential candidate Darcy Richardson issued the following statement calling for an immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan:
Following closely on the heels of a widely-publicized incident in which NATO troops burned copies of the Koran at a military base in Kabul last month, Sunday’s bloody rampage by a U.S. soldier in the city of Kandahar – a tragic incident eerily reminiscent of the My Lai Massacre in South Vietnam in March 1968 – has furthered damaged the already deteriorating relations between Afghanistan and Washington and again calls into question the U.S. mission in that war-torn nation.
It is clear, as President Hamid Karzai said in the aftermath of yesterday’s horrific incident, that the Afghan people view the killings of sixteen civilians, including nine children, as an intentional act that “cannot be forgiven.” That sentiment was made even clearer in the resolution approved Monday by the lower house of the Afghan parliament, a sharply-worded statement condemning yesterday’s attacks. The traumatized citizens of that country have “run out of patience with the arbitrary actions of foreign forces,” members of the Afghanistan parliament stated in denouncing Sunday’s atrocity.”
It is long past time to reassess the entire NATO mission in Afghanistan – a war that President Obama escalated sharply after taking office in 2009 without ever clearly articulating a coherent explanation of our mission there – and begin the immediate and full withdrawal of U.S. troops from that country.”