Today, in what I hope will become the first of a series, Josh Mull and I interviewed a challenger running for federal office who’s rethinking the war in Afghanistan.

Tommy Sowers is the Democratic candidate for Missouri’s 8th district, currently being held by Republican Jo Ann Emerson. He’s a veteran who served in Kosovo and Iraq. Yesterday, he published a widely read op-ed in the Huffington Post entitled "Who Will Pay for the Afghan Military? The Question Congress Must Answer Now."

Josh and I were impressed with the clarity of thinking in the op-ed and we wanted to talk with Sowers about how he developed his views, what he was hearing on the ground and how he’d provide leadership in Congress. Josh will have more on the interview later, but for now, what follows is a lightly edited transcript.

The Seminal: How did you develop your views on the war in Afghanistan? What led you to write this op-ed?

Tommy Sowers: I’ve been mulling this piece for quite some time. It has to do with buddies I know who are in Afghanistan and their reports on how the so-called joint operations are going over there. The reports aren’t glowing right now. And I’m looking at this as a guy running for Congress, as a guy straight out of teaching the Constitution, as a guy frustrated by Congress delegating too much power to the executive. I wrote about this issue when the Afghanistan surge was being contemplated, asking, "Why is Congress mute on Afghanistan?" In this type of economic environment, paying $400 a gallon for gas would be the first thing people would look at to fix. It reminds we of the $300 staplers of 80s.

So I started doing the math, looking at the [CION] ratio, which should be one security officer per five civilians, or 1:50 in some cases, and you quickly realize realize you need 582,000 Afghans trained. We’re not doing that, we’re talking about training 400,000. So the initial question is, "Will that be enough?"

Then you look at the GDP numbers, and which country spends the most of their GDP on the military. The top country is Oman at 15%, and they’re oil wealthy. Afghanistan is not.

I’m trained as a strategic planner, and in the military you train to think through what happens after you accomplish the objective so you’re not sitting there wondering what to do next. It’s troubling that in this war, these basic questions are left unanswered.

The Seminal: You bring up Congress’s lack of independence from the executive branch on the war. What kind of leadership would you provide in Congress? Would you vote against funding or vote for something like the McGovern amendment to institute a timetable?

Tommy Sowers: Let me give you the principles I’ll operate on. First, supporting the troops is not just sending more. Supporting the troops is only sending them in when it’s in our national interests, and only on a mission that can be accomplished and accomplished in a timeframe where they can go home. That’s what I’ll be pushing for in Congress.

I’ve had the mission to kill terrorists, and I know the challenges of training forces first hand. I’ve seen so many briefings where training units are rated as to their readiness, red, yellow or green. These metrics are qualitative at best. It’s time for new blood.

The question comes up as to why, nine years into the war, it’s taken Congress this long to assert their authority. Today, we have the lowest number of veterans in Congress since World War II. Critiquing the executive or military is something Members of Congress don’t want to do, because they feel they don’t have experience to do it. But I do.

The Seminal: Tell us about the town halls you’re going to, about supporters asking, "Why are we in Afghanistan?" What are they saying specifically?

Tommy Sowers: It’s not just supporters. The 8th is an interesting district. It’s rural, the poorest district  in America. But it’s not red.

First, across the country, districts like this carry the burden of the war in a visceral way. When I’m in a room, I ask folks if they are veterans or if they’re related to people currently serving – it’s almost the entire room. So, on a very personal level, these people are asking, "What are we accomplishing over there?" A lot of families ask their own family members that are over there this question.

Second, on a fiscal level, this district has suffered under Republican incumbent rule in terms of infrastructure. There’s great concern about the debt, and people ask, "Why are we spending so much money over there?"

The Seminal: How do the metrics you mentioned earlier relate to the timeline? Should Congress defer to military assessment on when and how to withdraw? Or will you be bringing own view, going more towards set timeline?

Tommy Sowers: There’s almost a universal maxim in the military: The military wants more. I’m not going to cast stones, I wanted more when I was deployed. I had a 10 man team, and I fought hard for 2 more. I don’t fault the military for asking for more – I fault Congress for not determining strategic objectives.

This is the end result of not officially declaring war since World War II. We didn’t have a debate in Congress. We waited for the executive to decide. It may be 10 or 15 years and hundreds of billions of dollars without people having a vote.

I’m going to demand a debate. We owe that to the troops – they need to know their nation cares enough to define an objective.

The Seminal: Can you talk a bit about how the politics of this issue will play in your district? Where does your opponent stand?

Tommy Sowers: My opponent sits on the NATO parliamentary assembly, so you’d think she’d have an interest in the issue, but I’m not certain she’s even visited Afghanistan. The only thing I’ve heard from her is we need to do everything over there – more troops, more money. That’s what you get with a former lobbyists trying to influence military policy.

I was uncertain how an op-ed like the one I wrote would play in the district. But overwhelmingly, this is what people on the ground in Missouri are saying. We shouldn’t be spending resources like this, resources are finite. $400 per gallon for gas is $400 we can’t use to secure our borders, fight terrorists where they are, and pay down the debt.

There’s an important difference your readers should understand: I’m a secure our nation sort of guy, an ass-kicking Democrat. I think we should pursue and kill and capture terrorists where they are. That’s the problem in Afghanistan, we’re pursuing them where they were. For every special forces team tied up training an Afghan police force that one day won’t be paid is a special forces team that can’t operate in Yemen, Pakistan or Somalia.

The Seminal: About Yemen, what do you think of the strategy? Are special forces and air strikes effective?

Tommy Sowers: My strategy is informed by history. We are fighting an ideology. I’ve seen first hand when I had price on my head in Iraq. But there’s ways to fight this war much more intelligently.

Look back to the history of the cold war, how did we combat that? We contained, we deterred, we used trade, aid, proxies. And we occasionally sent guys like me to kill and capture the real bad folks. Overall, we let the system collapse in on itself.

What gets lost in discussion of Iraq, much of western Iraq was controlled by Al-Qaeda, which is fundamentally a corrupt ideology. The tribes finally said they didn’t want thugs raping their daughters and killing their sons after they got a taste of Al-Qaeda rule. The ideology collapsed on itself.

The Seminal: Thanks for taking the time to talk to us, Tommy. Good luck!

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