Saying it’s time for Republicans to do more than “take pot shots at ACORN,” freshman Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz will call on President Barack Obama on Monday to bring U.S. troops home from Afghanistan.
Chaffetz’s push for a troop withdrawal — to be unveiled in a speech at the Hinckley Institute of Politics in Salt Lake City — runs counter to the position of House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio and other leading Republicans in Congress. But it also reflects the divisions within the conference about the question of Afghanistan. Chaffetz told POLITICO the issue “has been probably the most difficult one as a freshman in the minority.”
“So much of this is easy, black and white, but Afghanistan is very different and very difficult,” he said.
Chaffetz said he thinks he will “suffer” for the decision and that it would be safer for him politically to stay the course he’s been on.
“I can take pot shots at [Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now] all day long, and I’m good at it,” Chaffetz said. “But even though I am probably going against where the party is on this traditionally, I just think we need to stand up and support the notion that it is time to bring our soldiers home.”
Earlier this year, Chaffetz traveled to the region and said that, since then, he’s “become more engrossed in my conviction it is time to bring our troops home.”
“I am opposed to nation building, and I quite frankly don’t see or understand what victory looks like,” he said. “I believe, as most people do, that our military can do everything we want them to do. ... But we’re asking them to fight a war that is not very well-defined. And we are asking them to do so with one hand tied behind their back.”
Chaffetz said the House GOP is divided over whether to “go big or go home” and acknowledged that the “go home” contingent is probably in the minority.
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