The Obama administration will request congress pass an authorization for use of military force to cover the war with ISIS. The powers requested will be limited, but if history has shown us anything such limitations don't mean much. Indeed, we have already committed to another war in Iraq without congressional authorization.
We have spent twenty five of the last fifty years at war. On March 8, 1965, United States Marines were dispatched to South Vietnam to begin the ground war in that country. Troops left a decade later. Today, American troops still find themselves fighting a fourteen year old conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan in what promises to be a third Gulf War. If history tells us anything it is that America can continue fighting to satisfy the ego of its leaders long after any reasonable chance of victory on the battlefield has been lost.
To protect ourselves and our children we went to war after the September 11th attacks. That was fourteen years ago. The four year olds we went to war to protect will now be asked to fight the continuing war in the Middle East. I fear that before this nations knows peace again we will ask the ultimate sacrifice from those who were not yet born in 2001. The children we sought to protect have become the soldiers we send into battle. We are raising a generation that has known nothing but war all of their lives.
To defend our freedoms, our has become a nation that tortures. We have kidnapped foreign nationals and confined them in secret prisons, we have set up a system of constant and omnipresent digital monitoring of the worlds communications - including that of our own citizens. We have given our security services the ability to read our (e-)mail on the basis of national security letters issued with little if any judicial review. To do so we have allowed our government to obtain the form of blanket warrants that our founders tried to prohibit. We have used drone strikes to execute foreign nationals based solely on the meta-data generated by their cell phones. What we have done to fight this endless war has become a greater threat to this nation's national security than the terrorists we sought to combat.
The war in the Middle East cannot be won. If we prevail against ISIS, we will simply find ourselves faced with a similar group with a different name. War can, almost certainly, continue as long as the egos of our leaders demand it. There is no hope of victory. We can no longer determine what victory is. If victory is an end to the wars and a return to peace and defeat is an end to the wars and a return to peace then what is it we are fighting for? How is ISIS any different from any other totalitarian state in the world?
Our nation is crumbling. The need for lives and treasure to fight this endless forever war has wrecked our economy, society and armed forces. If today we faced a conflict with a major power, we would be unable to prosecute it. What we have allowed to happen to our roads, our bridges and ourselves no fleet of foreign bombers could ever hope to achieve. By continuing the hopeless fight in the Middle East we weaken our nation and make it less secure.
When winning and losing both mean the same thing it is time for war to end. Twenty five years of war shows the America possesses the will to continue fighting against all reason. The question is do we have the courage to seek peace. For this reason, I oppose granting an authorization of use military force in Iraq and Syria.
