Budget Shows Lawmakers More Invested in Afghanistan Than Rhetoric Indicates

Soldiers from the Afghan National Army (ANA) march along a street during an exercise in Poll-e-Matack, north of Kabul on Tuesday. A US spending bill would send billions more to equip and train the Afghan troops. (JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images)

Soldiers from the Afghan National Army (ANA) march along a street during an exercise in Poll-e-Matack, north of Kabul on Tuesday. A US spending bill would send billions more to equip and train the Afghan troops. (JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images)

Debt ceilings. Fiscal cliffs. Government shutdowns. Nuclear options.

With those kinds of noisy debates driving most weeks on Capitol Hill, one could be excused for wondering if lawmakers already have washed their collective hands with the Afghanistan war. But when searching for an answer, as the old saying goes, just follow the money.

That’s what your correspondent was doing when scrolling through the war-funding section of a massive omnibus spending measure released late Monday evening. If you think Congress is done with Afghanistan, think again. Dollar signs rarely lie.

Lawmakers are still spending American treasure there — in the billions of dollars. Just look at one section titled “Afghanistan Security Forces Fund,” which is slated to get $4.7 billion (with a B) in fiscal 2014.

Those funds would be used, as they have for nearly a decade, “the provision of equipment, supplies, services, training, facility and infrastructure repair, renovation, and construction, and funding” for Afghanistan’s security forces.

Lawmakers also are poised to approve spending up to another $199 million on unspecified “infrastructure projects in Afghanistan.”

That puts our running total in the war-funding section at roughly $4.9 billion alone.

Far-right Republican lawmakers want to remove all US troops from Afghanistan and pivot not to Asia but toward a policy of complete isolationism. Liberal Democrats would rather that nearly $5 billion to bolster social safety net programs or sure up America’s infrastructure.

After each chamber votes, take note of how many members from each of those factions votes for the omnibus measure. Both parties remain heavily invested in Afghanistan remaining somewhat stable — and something other than a safehaven for al-Qaida. Numbers don’t lie, even if politicians do.

John T. Bennett

John T. Bennett

Bennett is the Editor of Defense News' CongressWatch channel. He has a Masters degree in Global Security Studies from Johns Hopkins University.
John T. Bennett
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