Afghan war was blunder, AOC sez
Hits 9/11 response in backing anti-Israel pol
New York’s high-flying Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dropped a startling social media bomb Tuesday, arguing that not only was the post-9/11 war on Afghanistan a “mistake,” but that “non-intervention” might have been an appropriate answer to the terrorist attacks.
Ocasio-Cortez was defending Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from another member of Congress who had tweeted that Omar’s “questioning support for the U.S.-Israel relationship is unacceptable.”
Omar, whose remarks have been deemed anti-Semitic by some and have prompted the House to plan a vote condemning such comments, is highly critical of U.S. Israel policy.
Ocasio-Cortez has risen to Omar’s defense, arguing that simply questioning U.S.-Israel relations should not be counted as anti-Semitism. By way of example, she pointed to the outcry back in 2001 when Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) was the only member of Congress to vote against an authorization for the use of military force against Al Qaeda and Afghanistan — and that was deemed “unacceptable.”
“All of Congress was wrong, including both GOP & Dem Party, and led my generation into a disastrous + wrong war that virtually all would come to regret, except for the one member who stood up: Barbara Lee,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.
Noticing that she mistakenly wrote the Iraq war instead of Afghanistan, she corrected herself and added, “But honestly we shouldn’t have been in either, and we should end the AUMF [authorization for use of military force] now while we’re at it.”
Asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper what she would have supported after 9/11, Ocasio-Cortez offered three vague options.
“I think that our decision to enter unlimited engagement in Afghanistan, particularly through the AUMF + Congress’ abdication of power + decisionmaking w/ passage of the AUMF, was a mistake,” she tweeted. “Other options: targeting the network itself, limited engagement, non-intervention.”
The congresswoman did not elaborate on the first two options, which were to at least some degree already being deployed against Osama Bin Laden and his network.
Challenged on not intervening, she said that didn’t mean doing nothing.
“It means not invading an entire nation without end,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. “Doesn’t mean ‘do nothing,’ it means perhaps we could have leaned more on the larger role of other agencies (intelligence, state dept, diplomatic teams, etc) before Congress decided to invade a nation without a concrete end plan.”
The only member of the New York City delegation who answered was the only one who fought in Afghanistan, Rep. Max Rose (D-N.Y.).
He agreed with his colleague that American forces need to come home — but not that sending them was any kind of mistake.
“I believe it’s long past time we end the war in Afghanistan, but I strongly disagree with the idea that the invasion was wrong on moral or national security grounds.” said Rose, who served as an infantry officer in the war zone in 2012 and 2013.
“After our city and country were attacked we were very clear with the Taliban — either they give up Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, or we would come and get them ourselves,” he said. “They chose to protect Osama Bin Laden, and they rightfully paid the price.”