Lynn C. Woolsey: “It is now mid-June and we are just weeks away from the July date the President promised for a drawdown of American…”

“It is now mid-June and we are just weeks away from the July date the President promised for a drawdown of American troops from Afghanistan. But so far, so far, there appears to be little movement towards the kind of redeployment that the moment actually calls for and that the American people are insisting on. {time} 1010 In fact, Mr. Speaker, Defense Secretary Gates, on his way out the door, endorsed a ``modest'' drawdown, even though the President has promised something significant. This is not a moment that calls for modesty. This is a moment for boldness and true leadership. This is a moment to break out of the war default posture--the posture that we've been in for going on 10 years now. The longer this war goes on, the bloodier it becomes. We were told last year that fatalities would be unusually high in 2010 as the surge troops begin penetrating the Taliban strongholds. But it turns out there's no sign that casualties are tapering off, and we're on pace for an equally deadly 2011. We lost more troops in March, April, and May of this year than we did during the same months of 2010. And let's not forget--because I don't think it's talked about nearly enough--that it's not just uniformed members of the U.S. military being put in harm's way by this conflict. The United Nations said over the weekend that there were more civilian casualties in May than in any single other month of this war.…”