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That four U.S. Army soldiers lost their lives
in an ambush in Niger should spark a reckoning. While U.S. news outlets
flood us with reports on President Trump’s alleged insults to a widow
who lost her husband and the congresswoman who defended her, and probe
the tactical details of the ambush, the real question is: What are U.S.
soldiers doing in combat in Niger and elsewhere across Africa? Under
what authority do they operate? Is national security served by risking
soldiers’ lives in what appears to be an expanding and enduring shadow
war in Africa?
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, claimed that he had no idea there were 1,000 U.S. soldiers in Niger, but he has no qualms about the mission. But after briefings by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, he boasted
that “You’re going to see more actions in Africa, not less. You’re
going to see more aggression by the United States toward our enemies,
not less; you’re going to have decisions being made not in the White
House but out in the field.”
The senator shamelessly flaunts Congress’s utter dereliction of its
fundamental constitutional responsibility to declare war. The Founders
gave Congress that power because they were worried about the executive’s
penchant for wars that ended up impoverishing the people. As James Madison wrote to Thomas Jefferson,
“The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments
demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested
in war, & most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care
vested the question of war in the Legislature.”
Today, however, Congress is barely more useful than an appendix, its
constitutional powers abandoned, its independence defiled. U.S. forces
in Niger and elsewhere in Africa — as well as the Middle East and
elsewhere — operate under the ridiculous claim that the Authorization
for the Use of Military Force, passed immediately after the 9/11 attacks
that sanctioned action against groups and nations that participated in
that attack, somehow applies 16 years later to missions against
organizations that didn’t even exist when those attacks took place.
Congress and the American people are woefully uninformed about much
more than the 800-plus troops in Niger. The United States is escalating
what William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy, terms a “shadow war” on the African continent. According to Vice’s Nick Turse,
U.S. troops are now conducting 3,500 exercises, programs and
engagements per year on the African continent, according to the U.S.
military’s top commander for Africa, Gen. Thomas Waldhauser. That, Turse
notes, is “an astounding 1,900 percent increase since the command was
activated less than a decade ago.”
Few legislators, much less American citizens, have any notion that
U.S. troops are engaged in nearly constant missions and stationed on a
growing number of bases, both enduring and temporary, across the
continent. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), a fresh voice on the House Armed
Services Committee, says that we have combat troops in action in 17 countries without congressional debate.
These expanding conflicts are, of course, in addition to the wars in
Afghanistan (now entering its 17th year), Iraq, Syria, Yemen and
elsewhere. U.S. intervention has helped to destabilize that region
and likely has generated far more terrorists than it has deterred or
killed. Are we now committing to endless wars without victory across
Africa?
If so the risks are clear. The United States will be drawn ever more
deeply into local and regional conflicts. The reaction will fuel
terrorist recruitment. The money flowing in would likely feed
corruption, as it has in the Middle East. Strengthened military and
security forces can overwhelm vulnerable civilian governments. Already,
U.S.-trained officers overthrew Mali’s elected government in 2012 and seized power in Burkina Faso in 2014.
In country after country, the United States will be blamed for acting
or for not acting. This is a recipe for wars that never produce victory
and never end.
This week,
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee began hearings on whether the
Senate should “update” the AUMF or exercise its discarded war powers.
Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.) and Republican Sen. Jeff Flake (Ariz.),
not exactly favorites of the Trump White House, have introduced a new war powers resolution
that would authorize military force against the Islamic State (just as
they are almost completely routed) with a three-year limit. Most members
of Congress, however, are loath to act. They are both fearful of
putting restrictions on the military and reluctant to write yet another
blank check to the executive in a metastasizing war on terrorism.
We need legislators willing to assume the responsibility that the
Constitution assigns them. We need in-depth hearings on the war on
terrorism, hearings that probe our purpose and strategy, and measure the
consequences — intended and unintended. Are we prepared to ignore our
own Constitution and shred international law, claiming the right to
attack anywhere at will? And if so, how do we avoid the blowback that is
likely to be far more dangerous than the terrorist bands we are
chasing?
Terrorism is designed to terrorize. The 9/11 attacks reduced a
terrorized Congress into surrendering its powers. In the resulting
vacuum, our national security state has claimed a charter for
intervention across the globe. That intervention has destabilized a
swath of the world from Afghanistan to Libya. And now we’re turning up
the heat on Africa. Surely we need a sober reassessment before we end up
reaping what we sow.
This article was from The Washington Post and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@newscred.com.
