Peter1469
03-30-2018, 10:27 PM
The Pentagon’s Secret, Permanent Wars (https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2018/03/30/the_pentagons_secret_permanent_wars_113263.html)
The Pentagon has not been telling Congress about all of its combat activities. That violates our Constitutional principles. Remember Nigeria where 4 SoF troops were killed in a long running gun battle with Islamists? And there is more.
Two months after the lethal ambush in Niger that killed four (http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-missing-soldier-found-20171006-story.html) American troops in October, U.S. forces were involved in another skirmish in the central African nation with militants linked to the Islamic State. If this story sounds unfamiliar, that’s because it was first reported (https://www.military.com/daily-news/2018/03/15/us-nigerien-troops-kill-isis-militants-2-months-after-deadly-ambush.html) last week, fully three months after the battle.
Pressed for an explanation of the delay at a Defense Department briefing Thursday (https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript-View/Article/1467771/department-of-defense-press-briefing-by-pentagon-chief-spokesperson-dana-w-whit/), chief Pentagon spokesperson Dana White offered a stunning justification: U.S. “troops are often in harm’s way, and there are tactical things that happen that we don’t put out a press release about,” she said. “We also don’t want to give a report card to our adversaries. They learn a great deal from information that we put out.”
In other words: The military will decide (https://www.military.com/daily-news/2018/03/16/after-new-ambush-niger-pentagon-defends-withholding-news-attack.html) whether Americans find out what the military is doing in their name.
White cast the secrecy as a matter of security, a characterization that is misleading at best: This is not a case of the public demanding notice before every troop movement in a known warzone. It is not analogous to announcing D-Day in advance. This is a secretive intervention in a nation where the military has no legal authority to act. It is a blatant disregard for the Constitution’s assignment of war powers to Congress (http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/04/trumps-dangerous-expansion-of-executive-war-powers-000387) and the Pentagon’s accountability to civilian leaders and the citizenry. It is reckless executive war-making concealed from the public eye.
The extent to which the DoD has kept Congress in the dark about its extensive operations in Niger (and 49 of the other 53 (http://observer.com/2017/12/us-military-has-presence-in-50-of-54-african-countries/) nations on the continent of Africa) became evident in the aftermath of the October ambush. Congressional leaders like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) pleaded ignorance (http://reason.com/archives/2017/10/31/out-of-africa) of the entire intervention—a project that never should have begun without their explicit sanction. (Like the mission creep across the greater Mideast, interventions in Africa are shoved into the jurisdiction of the 2001 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Military_Force_Against_Te rrorists#Text_of_the_AUMF) Authorization for Use of Military Force that preceded the invasion of Afghanistan, a move that strains its scope beyond all reason, as U.S. forces are fighting in nations unrelated to the 9/11 attacks to which the AUMF responded.)
Since then, Graham, Schumer, and their colleagues have done nothing to constrain the Pentagon in Niger or even to investigate its value to American defense. Graham has conceded (http://thehill.com/opinion/international/358304-ad-lib-policy-is-neither-strategic-nor-defensive) the ISIS forces in Niger do not “have the capability to attack the United States,” and yet he has no apparent objection to putting U.S. troops in their line of fire indefinitely. U.S. action in Niger and surrounding countries has continued unabated as Congress is unwilling to demand—and the Pentagon has made clear it is unwilling to supply—the most basic information about why Washington appointed the U.S. military the perpetual police officer of Africa.
Congress is suppose to oversee military operations from a high level and for accountability.
The Pentagon has not been telling Congress about all of its combat activities. That violates our Constitutional principles. Remember Nigeria where 4 SoF troops were killed in a long running gun battle with Islamists? And there is more.
Two months after the lethal ambush in Niger that killed four (http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-missing-soldier-found-20171006-story.html) American troops in October, U.S. forces were involved in another skirmish in the central African nation with militants linked to the Islamic State. If this story sounds unfamiliar, that’s because it was first reported (https://www.military.com/daily-news/2018/03/15/us-nigerien-troops-kill-isis-militants-2-months-after-deadly-ambush.html) last week, fully three months after the battle.
Pressed for an explanation of the delay at a Defense Department briefing Thursday (https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript-View/Article/1467771/department-of-defense-press-briefing-by-pentagon-chief-spokesperson-dana-w-whit/), chief Pentagon spokesperson Dana White offered a stunning justification: U.S. “troops are often in harm’s way, and there are tactical things that happen that we don’t put out a press release about,” she said. “We also don’t want to give a report card to our adversaries. They learn a great deal from information that we put out.”
In other words: The military will decide (https://www.military.com/daily-news/2018/03/16/after-new-ambush-niger-pentagon-defends-withholding-news-attack.html) whether Americans find out what the military is doing in their name.
White cast the secrecy as a matter of security, a characterization that is misleading at best: This is not a case of the public demanding notice before every troop movement in a known warzone. It is not analogous to announcing D-Day in advance. This is a secretive intervention in a nation where the military has no legal authority to act. It is a blatant disregard for the Constitution’s assignment of war powers to Congress (http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/04/trumps-dangerous-expansion-of-executive-war-powers-000387) and the Pentagon’s accountability to civilian leaders and the citizenry. It is reckless executive war-making concealed from the public eye.
The extent to which the DoD has kept Congress in the dark about its extensive operations in Niger (and 49 of the other 53 (http://observer.com/2017/12/us-military-has-presence-in-50-of-54-african-countries/) nations on the continent of Africa) became evident in the aftermath of the October ambush. Congressional leaders like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) pleaded ignorance (http://reason.com/archives/2017/10/31/out-of-africa) of the entire intervention—a project that never should have begun without their explicit sanction. (Like the mission creep across the greater Mideast, interventions in Africa are shoved into the jurisdiction of the 2001 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Military_Force_Against_Te rrorists#Text_of_the_AUMF) Authorization for Use of Military Force that preceded the invasion of Afghanistan, a move that strains its scope beyond all reason, as U.S. forces are fighting in nations unrelated to the 9/11 attacks to which the AUMF responded.)
Since then, Graham, Schumer, and their colleagues have done nothing to constrain the Pentagon in Niger or even to investigate its value to American defense. Graham has conceded (http://thehill.com/opinion/international/358304-ad-lib-policy-is-neither-strategic-nor-defensive) the ISIS forces in Niger do not “have the capability to attack the United States,” and yet he has no apparent objection to putting U.S. troops in their line of fire indefinitely. U.S. action in Niger and surrounding countries has continued unabated as Congress is unwilling to demand—and the Pentagon has made clear it is unwilling to supply—the most basic information about why Washington appointed the U.S. military the perpetual police officer of Africa.
Congress is suppose to oversee military operations from a high level and for accountability.