BOISE — Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and arguably the most influential foreign policy voice in Congress, Saturday returned home to Idaho, only to find himself under growing public pressure from veterans and even his own party to end America’s ground troops presence in the Middle East.
Initiated by a group of veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars in the heavily Republican state, whose efforts have quickly spread to other states, the Idaho Republican Party’s state central committee Saturday approved two resolutions urging Risch to support President Trump’s efforts to withdraw U.S. troops from the Middle East, hold public hearings to spotlight recent revelations of “constant lies” by U.S. government officials and corruption by military contractors in Afghanistan, and return to a doctrine of deploying U.S. troops for long-term combat duty overseas only after Congress has approved a formal declaration of war as provided by the Constitution.
The resolutions were approved after Risch spoke to Republican committee members, expressing his strong support for President Trump’s fatal drone strike last week on Iranian terror chief Qassem Soleimani.
“We hope Senator Risch is starting to hear us loud and clear, now that his own party has formally added its voice to ours,” Afghanistan war veteran Dan McKnight of Meridian, Id., founder of BringOurTroopsHome.US, said after the vote.
Continue reading “Idaho Republican Party Passes Antiwar Resolutions”