Updated on
Summary
The House of Representatives on Wednesday roundly defeated a resolution demanding President Barack Obama withdraw all US forces from Afghanistan, in a key election-year test for his war strategy.Lawmakers routed the resolution in a 356-65 vote that saw 60 of Obama's Democratic allies and five of his Republican critics cast ballots to call home all US forces from what he has called the central front against extremism. The measure demanded Obama pull US forces out of Afghanistan 30 days after the bill becomes law or, if he decides that is too dangerous, by no later than December 31. A January, public opinion poll by an international television channel found 52 percent of the US public opposed the war and 47 percent supported it, but 61 percent approved of Obama's decision to deploy another 30,000 US troops in a surge aimed at turning the tide against the Taliban militia, with 38 percent opposed. The study had an error margin of plus or minus three percentage points. The resolution invokes the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which aimed to curb presidential war-fighting authority after years of fighting in Vietnam despite the absence of a formal declaration of war. The Congress authorized the use of force in Afghanistan shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington carried out by Al-Qaeda militants which killed nearly 3,000 people.
