Afghanistan: We Need a Debate, Not a Decision

It's in the news that Obama's decided to send another 40,000 troops to Afghanistan, which is what his generals requested.

I think that was the wrong decision, but more importantly for this small-d democrat, exactly how come it's his decision?  How about the rest of us - don't we get a say?  This is a freakin' democracy.  Or at least, that's what they say.

Sure, there's an AUMF left over from 2001 that gives Obama the legal authority to keep on doin' over there.  But damn, that piece of paper is old now.  Eight years, two long wars/occupations later, several thousand American lives and uncounted Iraqi and Afghani lives down the tubes, along with trillions of dollars of cash, maybe that piece of paper still has legal authority. 

But it certainly lacks any moral authority anymore.  We were in another time then - we'd just been on the receiving end of a catastrophic attack, and we needed to track down the people responsible for it.  It's hard to say where the American people are on Afghanistan anymore, but we need to have a good, healthy debate about what we're trying to do over there - can it be done? Do we want to do it?  Do we want to spend our money some other, better way?  Do we want to give our overworked troops a chance to recover from the burden of fighting more, bigger wars at one time than we really had the troops for?

I don't want to listen to Obama tell us what he's decided.  I want him to treat the previous AUMFs as if they're expiring next year, and he needs our backing as a country to continue our foreign wars.

I think we ought to tell him, 'No, it's time to bring the troops home,' but even if the American people debate this, and choose to come down on the side of more war, at least we'll have been in the loop.  Right now, we aren't: this thing just keeps on going of its own momentum, without anyone asking us.

In a more perfect world, there'd be a Constitutional amendment saying that all declarations of war expire after five years, and ditto for all Congressional authorizations to use military force by whatever name, forcing the President to ask Congress for a new vote if s/he wants to continue the war.  Five years seems more than reasonable - we defeated Hitler and Tojo in 3.7 years; any war where we can't achieve our aims in 5 years, we probably can't do so at all.  And even if we can, it's time to pull the public back in to the discussion, so the politicians are forced to ask: do we want to?

Comments

[oddjob]

The White House is forcefully denying reports that President Obama has settled on the number of troops to send to Afghanistan.

[oddjob]

In a more perfect world, there'd be a Constitutional amendment saying that all declarations of war expire after five years, and ditto for all Congressional authorizations to use military force by whatever name, forcing the President to ask Congress for a new vote if s/he wants to continue the war.

I like this idea.

[Ron E.]

There already is a Constitutional requirement for Congress to declare war. It's been completely ignored for decades. Adding another one wouldn't make much difference.

I guess the answer is Congress can debate the additional troops (if the reports are accurate) when the next appropriations bill for Afghanistan is voted on.

[low-tech cyclist]

Ron - while the Constitution expressly gives Congress the power to declare war, there's no Constitutional requirement that Congress must declare war before troops are sent into harm's way overseas. So they're not ignoring a Constitutional requirement.

But it's a moot point: I stand a much better chance of getting a pony for Christmas than seeing this idea make it into the Constitution during my lifetime.

My problem with the debate over an appropriations bill is that it's not inherently on the same level as an AUMF, because there are new appropriations bills each year for our wars. There's not going to be a meaningful debate over the next one unless the Dems have the appetite to take on their President over the war, which they won't.

[oddjob]

Ron, there's a very, very, very long-running debate about just what the difference (if any) there is between the president's ability to declare war (which the president clearly does not have), and the president's ability to make war. Whether the president is clearly proscribed from authorizing military actions when war has not been declared is a subject of debate and always has been.

[litbrit]

ltc, as I understood it, once Congress approves the use of military force, the decisions to supplement said ongoing use of force--with more and more money, and more and more troops--are, at that point, in the hands of the Commander in Chief, in concert with the advice of his generals etc.

I may have this completely wrong, since in matters of war, I tend to be more knowledgeable about the weapons themselves (and their manufacturers) than the politics behind the authorized use thereof. Sir C, what say you?

As for our investing yet more blood and treasure in Afghanistan, I have a strong sense of the real reason behind this U.S. occupation. It has nothing to do with bringing freedom to the Afghanis and even less to do with fighting terror and "protecting American lives"--those are what sell, however.

[oddjob]

once Congress approves the use of military force, the decisions to supplement said ongoing use of force--with more and more money, and more and more troops--are, at that point, in the hands of the Commander in Chief, in concert with the advice of his generals etc.

I know this is not true in all circumstances. Our involvement in Vietnam was finally ended not by the President, but by the Congress forbidding any further money be spent on it in any way (troops & all). This was when Ford was president, so the involvement was already very small, but it wasn't zero. Congress made it zero.

[Crissa]

Congress can certainly decide to truncate a military venture.

But it is a small-d democratic decision. We elected Obama. And he's doing what he said he would do.

I don't see your complaint, really. If it were the way you wanted, we would've been in far more random 'wars' from nationalistic desire to attack or defend various things. You think you could fight against a populist zeal to use nukes on whatever country happened to have some nutcase go on a shooting rampage?

[low-tech cyclist]

litbrit: Congress does have to appropriate the money, but other than that, you're right: an AUMF is forever. And of course, once there are troops on the ground, Congress will fund them.

For instance, Bush didn't need to ask Congress for permission when he began the 'surge.' He just sent more troops, and effectively dared Congress not to fund them.

This is why we need declarations of war, AUMFs, etc. to have a limited lifetime. There needs to be a point at which the question is really, "do we need to keep on doing this?" as distinct from, "do we keep funding the troops that are already in the war zone?" which comes with its own answer.

oddjob, you're right that our involvement in Vietnam would have ended at the end of FY 1975 due to Congress' pulling the plug on aid to the Thieu government in late 1974, if the North Vietnamese army hadn't made it a moot point first.

But by then, we hadn't had combat troops over there since we withdrew after the peace treaty of January 1973. So Congress didn't pull the plug on our combat role in Vietnam; Nixon's 'peace with honor' (yeh, riiiight) did that.

The cessation of aid did make it clear to the North Vietnamese, I'm sure, that we wouldn't have the stomach to jump back in if they were to invade South Vietnam in force. (But we'd been trying for 20 years to teach the South Vietnamese to be able to defend themselves, and it just wasn't gonna happen.)

Crissa - I don't see how a time limit on AUMFs and declarations of war would cause us to get into more wars; the mechanisms by which we get into wars would be no different than they are now.

And sure, we elected Obama and he's doing what he said he'd do, but I'd hate to think that electing a President implicitly meant giving approval to his entire agenda.

Besides, (1) Obama hardly suggested last year that a rnewed focus on Afghanistan would mean an additional 70,000 troops there. In 2008, there were worries that Afghanistan was slipping away, but our troop strength there was negligible compared to Iraq, so even a renewed focus on Afghanistan as we withdrew from Iraq presumably meant substantially fewer troops overall in that part of the world.

And (2) now that we're focusing on Iraq, people's opinions about it have changed, as they often do when they actually think about something a bit. It really isn't clear, at this point, what we hope to accomplish there, whether it's doable, and whether it's worth it to us.

Electing Obama didn't mean we'd signed on to 'go big' in Afghanistan. If we're going to do that, we need to have that discussion first.

[oddjob]

It really isn't clear, at this point, what we hope to accomplish there, whether it's doable, and whether it's worth it to us.

Just as it wasn't to the British after WWI and for almost exactly the same reasons, but it wasn't until 1950 that they extricated themselves, and then only by installing a dictator.

[hair salon london]

President Obama is taking too long on Afghanistan Decision..

[Mary]

Eikenberry says don't send any more troops

Obama rejects all Afghan war options

President Barack Obama does not plan to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

Who knows what he's actually going to do -- small build-up, no build-up, or -- hope against hope -- an orderly withdrawal -- but it looks as if he's not just accepting whatever large number is presented to him.

[low-tech cyclist]

Mary - while that's good news, I stand by my point that it should not be up to him.