ENG 102-1105
Prof M Judd
University of Nevada, Reno
Spring 2018 15M18
James Langelle
A Deadly Game of Truth or Dare
On February 19th of this year, the New York Times published “An Endless War,” its findings on the ambush in Niger that resulted in the deaths of four American servicemen last October. The lengthy article includes not just whatever details of the actual firefight have been made available to the public thus far, but select biographies of some of those who were killed. What is also found in the text are quotations by members of Congress as well as the current and previous presidents of the United States.
There is an unwritten rule that is often times applied when someone, or a group of someones have their backs against the wall; that rule is, to close ranks. It simply means that everyone watches out for everyone else and Washington politicians are no different, even though on the surface there appears to be constant squabbling and bickering between members of opposite political parties. A second rule for the political elite is to deny knowledge of information and if necessary, avoid lying by not telling the truth.
As case in point is Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) who serves on the Armed Services Committee. When interviewed a short time after the ambush on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Senator Graham had this to say,
“I didn’t know there was 1,000 troops in Niger,”
The anchorman on NBC, at least according to the evidence available in the Times article, makes no mention of any follow-up inquiry to the senator, but does mention that there are only 800 American soldiers in Niger.
“This is an endless war without boundaries, no limitation on time or geography,” Mr. Graham continued, adding, “We don’t know exactly where we’re at in the world militarily and what we’re doing.”
Forgive me for drawing a conclusion without any evidence to back it up that the senator, who is on the Armed Services Committee, doesn’t know where our soldiers are deployed. It does support the theory of not telling the truth to avoid lying, since the senator conveniently gets the number wrong. It is also worth noting that Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), also claimed no knowledge of the Niger deployment, an example of the ranks closing.
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) characterized the development in Niger by saying,
“What we have today is basically unlimited war — war anywhere, anytime, any place on the globe,”
There appears to be very little anybody is willing to do about it. Although Senator Paul makes a sweeping criticism of America’s far-flung military exploits, nowhere in the article does he suggest any legislative action to curtail the ambitions of the Oval Office. In fact, as the Times points out, it wasn’t the post-911 legislation used by former President Obama to commit troops to Niger, but the War Powers Resolution of 1973, a 45 year old piece of legislation from the last century to justify troop deployment into global hotspots. The initial deployment was for just 40 soldiers to assist the French in Operation Serval, to drive militants out of Mali in 2013.
Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), in keeping with the cautious guarding of each others’ backs in Congress, offered very little in the form of direct action to halt the indiscriminate sending of soldiers to their deaths in faraway places,
“If we’re going to have people who are in harm’s way and we know we are putting them in a dangerous situation, there ought to be a more thorough discussion of it.”
For now it seems that escalation to fight a shadowy enemy someplace that doesn’t even show up on Google Earth is the truth or dare of the current administration, with very little, if any authorization from Congress, and even less willingness to question that authority.