By Harold Egeln
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

BROOKLYN — Two Democratic congressmen whose districts include substantial parts of Brooklyn have voiced widely different views on President Barack Obama’s decision to deploy an additional 30,000 troops to fight in Afghanistan.

In support of the plan that would boost U.S. troop strength to 100,000 is freshman Congressman Mike McMahon, a centrist Democrat serving Staten Island and southwest Brooklyn and a House Foreign Affairs Committee member.

Opposing the troop surge is Congressman Jerrold Nadler, a liberal Democrat serving western Manhattan and mid-Brooklyn including Borough Park, Coney Island and parts of Sunset Park and Gravesend.

Both issued public statements after Obama made his policy speech at West Point last week. He accepted his Nobel Peace Prize Thursday in Oslo, Norway.

On Tuesday evening at a holiday party in Dyker Heights, the Fort Hamilton Army Base commander, Col. Stephen Smith, told of troop readiness here for deployment. Among the divisions in the state set for deployment is the Army’s 10th Mountain Division from Fort Drum in Jefferson County, according to Pentagon officials. Others are still secret.

Col. Smith said that the troops at Fort Hamilton will be ready to go if they are deployed, and added that this country “has learned the lessons of Vietnam.�

How Effective Is Troop Surge?

“I am not concerned that the U.S. and its allies will be able to end the 35-year civil war in Afghanistan, nor is it our responsibility,� said Nadler. “We shouldn’t send additional troops to prop up a corrupt government which neglects its own people’s needs. It is simply not justifiable to sacrifice more lives and spend more money on the war.�

Nadler noted his vote in favor of the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan after the terrorist attacks here as one “with moral clarity and singular focus� to destroy al-Queda sites and disrupt the Taliban. He calls for “rethinking our policy,� since, in his opinion, having U.S. troops in the country “has become counterproductive� and is no longer in sync with national interests.

“We are bogged down amid a longstanding civil war between feuding Afghans of different tribes, classes and regions whose goals have little to do with our own,� Nadler said. “Moreover, our very presence has fueled the rising insurgency and emboldened those who oppose an occupation of any kind.� The decision to support the Afghan government, he added, alienates the Afghan people.

But McMahon praised Obama’s plan. “The president has thought long and hard about how to stabilize Afghanistan and Pakistan so we can eliminate terrorist safe havens and stop nuclear weapons from getting into the hands of those who seek to do us harm. While sending more Americans to war is undoubtedly a serious decision, failing to support our troops who are currently deployed is certainly not the right solution.�

In supporting U.S. troops, McMahon called for ensuring success in their mission. “We must stabilize this region that has fanned the flames of radical hostility and extreme terrorist ideologies that led to the horrors of Sept. 11. Afghanistan should never again be the launching pad for terrorist activities.�

Saying the mission to disable the main terrorist threat has been accomplished, leaving “fewer than 100 al-Queda in Afghanistan,� Nadler called for a stronger “multi-pronged effort� using intelligence services, along with severing financial supports for terrorists. “In reality, terrorist plots can be hatched anywhere, in any nation including our own. In fact, much of the planning for the 9/11 attacks took place in Western Europe.�

Tribal civil war has been occurring in mountainous Afghanistan since the mid-1970s. The Soviet-Afghan War from 1979 to 1988 failed for the former Soviet Union, which withdrew its troops under public pressure. The U.S. attacked the country in late 2001 after it was found that some of the terrorists who masterminded the deadly terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center Towers used Afghanistan as a base.

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