Friday, December 4, 2009

'Make Sure They Can Never Attack Us Again'

By Brian Friel  

Rep. Michael McMahon, D-N.Y.

Rep. Michael McMahon, D-N.Y., came out in support of President Obama's Afghanistan strategy this week despite misgivings among his Democratic colleagues about increased troop levels.

The freshman congressman from Staten Island argues that the strategy refocuses the country on the fight against the forces that attacked New York on Sept. 11, 2001. McMahon is the first Democrat in more than two decades to represent his district, which was won by Republican presidential candidate John McCain in 2008.

A member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, McMahon spoke with National Journal after praising Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates at a panel hearing on the strategy on Dec. 2. Edited excerpts follow.

NJ: Was it President Obama's effort to reconnect the Afghanistan mission on 9/11 that helped garner your support?

McMahon: He didn't have to make that connection for me. I live with those memories in my mind every day. Having to watch our country lose its focus, take its eye off the ball as Mrs. Clinton said, has been very painful for me, and painful for the people of New York.

You come to my district, every street corner there's a sign memorializing someone who lived there, and someone who died. And Osama bin Laden, as far as we know, the guy who did it, is still alive. So we have a sacred trust to make sure that never happens again and that's what the president is dealing with.

It is painful. This president and this Congress and this congressman from Staten Island and Brooklyn, New York, doesn't want to send soldiers to war. There are two young soldiers from my district, one from Iraq and one from Afghanistan, at Walter Reed right now. One lost four limbs. Another lost a leg. We had [Veterans Affairs Assistant Secretary] Tammy Duckworth, who lost two legs, in my district speaking to the veterans.

The toll is clear, the cost is clear, but it's a mission that has to be completed because these terrorists have one goal in their eyes and that is to kill more Americans. We've got to put an end to it and that means bringing the rule of law to Afghanistan.

NJ: Do you think there could be too much of an emphasis on nation-building in Afghanistan and not enough on going after al Qaeda?

McMahon: The problem is if you don't at least create some stability, then when we leave we'll create another vacuum just like we did in 1989. The issue would repeat itself. We have to go after al Qaeda, destroy them and then stabilize the nation enough.

I think there has to be a regional solution as well. The neighboring countries have to be much more involved. Uzbekistan or Tajikistan can be unraveled just as we've seen in Afghanistan now. Does anyone think if the Taliban came back in power in Afghanistan that they would stop in Afghanistan? They would go to the next country and the next country.

NJ: Do you have concerns about the timeline?

McMahon: That's a distraction. Having a discussion about the timeline or unrelated issues is just a distraction in my mind. The timeline is good because it lays out a framework. President Bush also laid out timelines and the Republicans didn't complain about it then. The point is to do what the mission is, which is to destroy, destabilize al Qaeda and make sure they can never attack us again.