I checked around The Hill but saw nothing about the House of Representatives voting today to tell the president to order the troops home from Pakistan. By a 222-196 margin, the House said the following:
SECTION 1. REMOVAL OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES FROM PAKISTAN.
Pursuant to section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution (50 U.S.C. 1544(c)), Congress directs the President to remove the United States Armed Forces from Pakistan–
(1) by no later than the end of the period of 30 days beginning on the day on which this concurrent resolution is adopted; or
(2) if the President determines that it is not safe to remove the United States Armed Forces before the end of that period, by no later than December 31, 2010, or such earlier date as the President determines that the Armed Forces can safely be removed.
See, this is embarrassing. Someone leaks something to the New York Times and suddenly everyone starts pretending to be commander-in-chief. Wake me up when they order our troops home from Iraq or Afghanistan. You don’t make good laws when you act in kneejerk fashion. Our relationship with Pakistan is probably our most complex relationship with a foreign country. Most congresspeople don’t have the slightest clue what’s going on between our two countries. And they weren’t voting after having been briefed by the State Department, our intelligence agencies, or the White House. They just reacted to a bunch of outdated classified information from low level sergeants in Afghanistan. Maybe we should pull our troops out of Pakistan, but you need a little information before you go passing resolutions that impact a very sensitive relationship.
Still, isn’t it fascinating how the media can ignore anti-war sentiment but can’t get enough Tea Party?
Update [2010-7-27 19:13:52 by BooMan]: I jumped the gun on this. The vote described above was merely on the the resolution to allow a vote. The actual vote failed by a 38-372 margin (as it should have).