Wind down unauthorized engagements
Decisions about sending our men and women in uniform to war are the most solemn that elected representatives make. That is why the Constitution’s framers created a system where Congress and the president work together to determine how U.S. forces are deployed — instead of vesting that power with one person.
But that constitutional system is being strained. Republican and Democratic presidents have stretched Congress’ 2001 authorization of military force to its breaking point. The result: nearly two decades of war, waged in a manner that Congress never intended.
I voted for the 2001 authorization. None of us in Congress believed we were voting for military action 18 years later, in Syria or the myriad other countries where U.S. forces are in harm’s way. And today, we are sending soldiers into Afghanistan who weren’t even born when the war began.
After losing thousands of lives and spending $6 trillion, the results of the war on terror have been, at best, mixed. Our armed forces have served valiantly. Terrorist leaders are dead. But from Iraq to Syria to Yemen, the Middle East is as unstable and dangerous as ever. A recent analysis found that there are four times more Islamic militants today than on 9/11.
We apparently have not learned from our mistakes. The same voices that barreled us into Iraq are pushing us toward war with Iran and making us complicit in Saudi atrocities in Yemen.
Unrelenting “mission creep” is overburdening our military and military families. As budgetary pressure and a training and maintenance backlog grows, endless war is distracting from pressing national security threats — namely, our eroding military advantage over major adversaries.
We must wind down these unauthorized engagements responsibly, through diplomacy — not with reckless action like the president’s in Syria.
But we must cease going “in search of monsters to destroy,” as John Quincy Adams said, in places where the American people have not authorized war.