Manchin to Obama: Withdraw Troops from Afghanistan

  U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin is opposing President Barack Obama’s plan to keep 9,800 American troops in Afghanistan after 2014.

In a letter Monday, the Democratic senator urged the president to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year.

Manchin’s letter says the war has consumed 12 years, cost untold billions of dollars, and ended the lives of more than 2,000 Americans.

Manchin says regardless of when American support of the Afghan state ends, it will remain, in his words, a “corrupt narco-state unwilling to abide by international norms or support American interests.”

In a plan announced last month, Obama calls for the current 32,000 in Afghanistan to draw down to 9,800 by the start of next year. The rest of the troops would be withdrawn by 2016.