US lawmakers want American military pullout from Pakistan

US troops set out on patrol close to Afghanistan-Pakistan border.


Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=136028§ionid=351020401


Two US Congressmen have proposed a bill demanding the withdrawal of all American troops from Pakistan, where they have been "operating in secret."

Ron Paul, a Texas Republican and Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich introduced the bill late Thursday in a bid to "nip in the bud an expansion of US ground presence in Pakistan,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

"We have known that US forces have been operating in secret inside the territories of Pakistan without congressional approval," Kucinich said, adding that the covert operations are a violation of the 1973 War Powers Resolution.

"The 1973 War Powers Resolution introduced after the Vietnam War only allows the president to send US armed forces into military operations abroad if Congress approves the decision or if the United States is under a serious threat or attack."

According to Paul, there has been a significant increase in US military operations in Pakistan and the use of unmanned drone attacks since US President Barack Obama's inauguration.

"This increasing US military activity in Pakistan has little to do with protecting the United States and in fact is creating more enemies than it is defeating" while "Congress is sitting quietly on the sidelines. This must stop," AFP quoted Paul as saying.

The House of Representatives plan to enforce the resolution, which was initially proposed by Kucinich in March, as early as next week.

The US has repeatedly attributed the volatile tribal areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border as a global headquarters for al-Qaeda, claiming the area is used as a base to launch attacks on US-led forces in Afghanistan.