Endless war: Trump and the fantasy of cost-free conflict

[rug]

As America marks Memorial Day, politicians should spare us the saber-rattling and reserve some space for silence

by Ben Fountain
Saturday 28 May 2016 06.00 EDT

Jack Satan’s the greatest of gods
And Hell is the best of abodes.
’Tis reached through the Valley of Clods
By seventy beautiful roads.

- Ambrose Bierce, from A Sole Survivor

Memorial Day is upon us, our 15th since the dawning of the Era of the AUMF, and you’d think smart people would have learned a few things by now. Is it a war yet? Or still the same damn movie that’s been playing in America since 2001, that revenge-and-war-porn blockbuster where the USA kicks some serious bad-guy ass. Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Syria and on it rolls like a 15-year-old beater with 200,000 miles on the engine and balding tires, “it” being the AUMF, the Authorization to Use Military Force of 14 September 2001.

All these years later it’s worth revisiting this document, the act of Congress whereby President George W Bush was empowered to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

What a long, strange trip it’s been, and all on the same set of wheels. Granted, we did get an upgrade with AUMF 2.0, the Iraq invasion authorization of 2002, but they’re basically one and the same model. How many of us are still driving the same car we had in the early aughts? But like siblings handing down the family junker, Bush drove that AUMF hard for eight years and passed it on to Obama, who promised to end two wars and will probably leave us with three. Come next January he’ll be handing the keys to the next in line, and off we’ll go with a brand new driver at the wheel.

This trip we’re on, awhile back it started looking like a closed loop more than anything resembling progress from point A to point B. Invasions, occupations, air campaigns and blizzards of drones have led to levels of chaos that only madmen and prophets could have imagined when all this started. Just two of this season’s presidential candidates – Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul – seriously questioned the the hard-military tactics of the past 15 years. Everybody else seems to be running around in a 2002 time warp, back when deploying the world’s most powerful military was supposed to bring peace and democracy to a maddeningly conflicted region. Gas on the fire. It failed, and a lot of people died. In this, the fourth presidential election of the Era of the AUMF, the debate hasn’t been about war per se – whether it’s necessary, whether it’s an effective means to an end – but rather, a difference of degree: will we have more of the same, or much, much more of the same?

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/28/donald-trump-endless-war-memorial-day