"I'm convinced the United States should not get dragged back into another prolonged ground war in the Middle East. That's not in our national security interests and it's not necessary for us to defeat ISIL," President Obama said in his press conference last week about his formal request to Congress for an Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). He’s absolutely correct.
We’ve been continually fighting wars in the Middle East for so long, most college-aged students cannot remember what peace is like. We’ve spent almost 7,000 lives of U.S. service men and women, as well as more than $6 trillion on these wars. And for what? Terrorism hasn’t been defeated — it’s just adopted new leaders and new names.
I agree with Obama; it’s time that the United States learned its lesson and stopped getting pulled into conflicts that have no relation whatsoever to its national security interests. That’s why I oppose the AUMF he requested.
This isn’t the first time Obama has baited the people of the United States with attractive promises, only to switch them for something completely different once the legislation he was championing for was passed. In this particular instance, the President has stressed that this 2015 AUMF is nothing like the 2002 AUMF passed after the Sept. 11 attacks, which was the basis for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He points to a line in the current AUMF, which would set it to automatically expire in three years, as preventing another drawn out conflict.
There are two main problems with that argument. First of all, I doubt the soldiers who will actually be the ones carrying this thing out think three years in a combat zone is anything less than drawn out. We’re not talking about three years to get a master’s degree, we’re talking about three years of war — three years of hell. It took less than a year from the landing of coalition forces at Normandy to defeat the Nazis, but apparently President Obama thinks three times as long to fight the 30,000 members of ISIS will be anything but “drawn out."
Secondly, I’ll bet my life that (if passed) this AUMF lasts more than the 3 years Obama has promised; according to actual language in the AUMF it can be reauthorized, and that reauthorization has no deadline. Considering the last AUMF was passed more than a decade ago and is still being reauthorized today, I see no reason why we should expect anything different from this one.
Obama was elected back in 2008 because the American people were fed up with pointless, expensive wars. The American people believed then-Sen. Obama when he said that he would end the violence, stop the spending and bring our troops home. This request for an additional AUMF is an unfortunate reminder that, as on too many other issues, Obama’s rhetoric about ending the failed War on Terror have failed to match up to his policies.
I guess “if you like your peace, you can keep your peace” can go in the scrap heap with the rest of President Obama’s campaign promises.