Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ron Johnson says our troop deployments shouldn’t be used as a political tool.
The Oshkosh businessman says military deployments are something he might question as a Senator, but not in a way that “grandstands” on the issue. He says serious concerns should be addressed quietly until a consensus is reached, rather than having a small minority of Congress “making a bunch of noise” and undermining the efforts of the troops.
Johnson is running against incumbent Democratic Senator Russ Feingold, a vocal opponent of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Feingold supports withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, while Johnson believes there must be a good reason to be there. Johnson says President Obama must see something in the intelligence that prompted him to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan last month.
Feingold has argued Al Qaeda has a very small presence in Afghanistan, so fighting there does little to protect U.S. security.