Is Alan Grayson onto something?

This Friday, Congressman Alan Grayson (D, FLA) made the bold move of challenging the target of the recent sequester with the suggestion that instead of cuts to domestic programs that will result in heavy loss of jobs we take aim abroad by simply ending our military objectives in Afghanistan. As he lamented, the crippling cuts to programs intended to alleviate the burdens of affording food and oil to heat American homes, would save us roughly the same amount of money as would pulling our troops out of the seemingly unwinnable war in Afghanistan (how would we know if we won anyway? Check out this interesting article on our changing objectives.).

Even though Grayson's proposed bill-- to end the war in 30 days time, unless President Obama felt that would endanger the lives of U.S. servicepeople-- was blocked by Republicans before it could go to a vote, it still raises a couple of interesting points. One is, if our elected Republicans are so willing to make spending cuts or really do anything that would keep us from raising taxes on the wealthy, why block the bill from even entering into debate? Even if it could not garner the support it would need to pass, even if it didn't turn out to be a good idea, it would at least force the people whose JOBS it is to debate issues of national financial policy to actually do so. Who knows, maybe even something really crazy would happen and someone might actually come up with another idea from listening to the discussion...

The second question Grayson's idea brings to mind is What exactly is going on in Afghanistan? With no more Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden lurking about, our fight against "terrorism" (whatever that means in this case) has become faceless, and this has had terrible effects on the collective American psyche. Sure, some might be able to sleep better knowing that those two particular men are no longer a threat, but what does their absence really guarantee? They did not personally carry out any attacks against Americans, yet we still seem more at ease without them. Has the assumed threat really changed? Young people are still being recruited into militant Islamist organizations to carry out the dirty work, and there's little evidence to suggest that our being there is doing all that much more to stop it than would energy put into reducing the circumstances that lead these fighters to their demise. Unfortunately, we still have troops on the ground risking their lives and little American attention being paid to them. I don't know if Grayson is onto something or not, but at least he's reminding us that there are other alternatives and bringing our forces back home is one of them.