When Pres­i­dent Oba­ma announced on June 22 that U.S. troops would begin to with­draw from Afghanistan this year, the nation’s anti­war orga­ni­za­tions and activists were almost uni­ver­sal­ly unit­ed in their dis­ap­point­ment over the mea­ger plan’s lim­it­ed scope.

Polls have shown that, for the first time ever, a majority of Americans favor a withdrawal from Afghanistan 'as soon as possible.'

Ten thou­sand troops are set to be home by the end of the year, and anoth­er 23,000 by fall 2012, yet Pres­i­dent Obama’s plan still leaves more than twice as many troops in Afghanistan at the begin­ning of 2013 – about 70,000 – than when he took office in Jan­u­ary 2009. Anti­war groups are pleased a draw­down is begin­ning, but they’re not cel­e­brat­ing Obama’s final with­draw­al date of 2014. They want a more rapid end to the longest war in Amer­i­can his­to­ry – a war cost­ing tax­pay­ers $10 bil­lion per month.

“The peace movement’s posi­tion is to bring the troops and con­trac­tors home ASAP, not in anoth­er year and a half,” says David Swan­son, co-founder of Warisac​rime​.org (pre­vi­ous­ly After​down​ingstreet​.org). ​“Arguably the only coher­ent posi­tions are that and mas­sive esca­la­tion. Any­thing in between looks like a polit­i­cal calculation.”

“The Respon­si­ble End to the War in Afghanistan Act,” intro­duced by Rep. Bar­bara Lee (D‑Calif.) in Feb­ru­ary, would do just what Swan­son and anti­war groups like CODE­PINK, Vet­er­ans for Peace and U.S. Labor Against the War advo­cate. If enact­ed, it would end all fund­ing for mil­i­tary oper­a­tions except that which pro­vides for the ​“safe and order­ly with­draw­al” of all U.S. troops, per­son­nel and Pen­ta­gon contractors.

When mem­bers of Con­gress have pushed for a full with­draw­al from Iraq dur­ing the last half decade, polit­i­cal oppo­nents often retort­ed that it would be unwise and unsafe to ​“defund the troops.” Lee’s leg­is­la­tion was craft­ed to quell this crit­i­cism. ​“This is a very wise­ly writ­ten piece of leg­is­la­tion that basi­cal­ly funds a with­draw­al,” says Paul Kawi­ka-Mar­tin, polit­i­cal and pol­i­cy direc­tor of the nation­al orga­ni­za­tion Peace Action.

Rep. Lee’s bill has been endorsed by a vari­ety of groups and has 61 co-spon­sors in the House. Pas­sage of the bill still looks far­fetched, but anti­war activists believe that the shift­ing polit­i­cal cli­mate – dri­ven in large part by the country’s fis­cal cri­sis – gives the anti­war move­ment an oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­tin­ue to pres­sure law­mak­ers and the White House for an accel­er­at­ed withdrawal.

Polls have shown that, for the first time ever, a major­i­ty of Amer­i­cans favor a with­draw­al from Afghanistan ​“as soon as pos­si­ble.” With increased focus on fed­er­al spend­ing as an elec­tion year approach­es, there is like­ly to be grow­ing bipar­ti­san pres­sure to stick to the planned with­draw­al – or even bring troops home from Afghanistan more quick­ly. Indeed, in a July 5 New York Times edi­to­r­i­al, Sens. Jeff Merkley (D‑Ore.), Rand Paul (R‑Ky.) and Tom Udall (D‑N.M.) called on the pres­i­dent to bring home all com­bat troops by the end of 2012.

“When his­to­ri­ans end up look­ing at what hap­pened around this inflec­tion point, pub­lic opin­ion will def­i­nite­ly be one of the issues, and polit­i­cal pres­sure from NGOs and mem­bers of Con­gress,” Kawi­ka-Mar­tin says.

Swan­son plans to attend a nation­al anti­war action in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., on Octo­ber 6, the 10th anniver­sary of the inva­sion of Afghanistan, the goal of which is to ​“stop the war machine.”

The action – which by ear­ly July had been endorsed by a long list of groups includ­ing Pro­gres­sive Democ­rats of Amer­i­ca, the Unit­ed Nation­al Anti­war Com­mit­tee and the Green Par­ty – calls for a sus­tained non­vi­o­lent occu­pa­tion of Free­dom Plaza (adja­cent to the Nation­al Mall) until ​“resources are invest­ed in human needs and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion instead of war and exploitation.”

“The plan for Octo­ber is not to make phone calls, but to take inspi­ra­tion from Egypt, Tunisia, Madi­son and else­where, where peo­ple are actu­al­ly phys­i­cal­ly get­ting in the way,” Swan­son says.