This is the new reality of war: As long as the White House doesn’t admit the United States is at war, we’re all supposed to pretend as if that’s true. This ruse is not just the work of the president. Members of Congress, who return to work this week, are just as guilty as Barack Obama in letting the public think we’re Definitely Not at War, from Afghanistan and Somalia to the new war with Isis in Iraq and Syria and beyond. Thirteen years on, the near limitless war authorization Congress passed for the Afghanistan war remains in place, with no sign that Congress wants to even debate revoking it. This is what will allow US troops to continue fighting, despite the mission supposedly being “formally” over. Just a month before Obama made his farcical announcement last week, he signed a secret order to ensure US troops continue to engage in combat missions against various “militant groups” in Afghanistan for all of 2015. Another place the United States is Definitely Not at War? Pakistan, where, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the US conducted multiple drone strikes between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, killing at least nine people. We don’t know who died, but the Associated Press assured us they were “militants”, despite the US government’s definition of “militant” having been manipulated beyond comprehension. Another six “militants” were reportedly killed in a drone strike in Pakistan on Sunday, the targets apparently having nothing to do with al-Qaida – they often never do, as we learned from new Snowden documents published by Der Spiegel over the holiday break. (There was yet another American drone strike in Somalia on 30 December.) The US Congress, of course, has steadfastly refused to attempt to place any real legislative limits on drone strikes, even those that have killed American citizens – which, as various scholars have been screaming for years, represent an unconstitutional violation of the Fifth Amendment. Meanwhile, the Defense Department quietly announced a few days before Christmas that, later this month, another 1,300 troops will deploy to Iraq in its ever-expanding undeclared war on Isis. A Pentagon spokesperson emphasized these are Definitely Not Combat Troops, despite the US government’s current definition of “combat” being so narrow that it’s “rejected by virtually every military expert” – not to mention that the troops already in Iraq are already under “regular” fire, according to CNN. The US continues to launch airstrikes against Isis and various other groups in Syria as well. As the new Congress opens in Washington on Tuesday, it once again has the opportunity to formally debate and actually vote on the war against Isis, a constitutional obligation from which America’s politicians shamefully slunk away, preferring instead to campaign for re-election – free of difficult decision-making. Now, almost five months in to a war the administration freely admits will last for years if not decades, hardly anyone seems to care what legal experts across the political spectrum believe: this war is without precedent – and it’s illegal without Congressional approval.
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 16:43:06 +0000
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