Why Do We Fight? Don’t Ask

 

The forever war is allowed to continue in as many places as it does for as long as it has because virtually no one in a position of authority wants to demand an end to it.

by Daniel Larison Posted onAugust 10, 2021

Derek Davison commented on the three U.S. strikes in Somalia that have taken place in the last few weeks, and noted that there is hardly anyone asking why the US is engaged in hostilities in Somalia in 2021:

There’s no questioning why al-Shabab, whose current ambitions don’t extend beyond Somalia and whose reach extends no further afield than neighboring Kenya, should be regarded as a threat to the United States. There’s no questioning why the 2001 AUMF is still on the books at all some 20 years later, when everyone involved in planning and carrying out the September 11 attacks is either dead or in hiding. There’s no questioning the absurdity of claiming the right “self-defense” in reference to another country’s military in a battle in which no American personnel were at risk. All of that is just How It Is, apparently, and there’s no sense wasting our beautiful minds on the subject.

The other wars that the US is currently involved in are like this. Once the US gets involved in a conflict, it never fully extricates itself. It doesn’t matter if the original reason for this involvement made any sense, and it doesn’t matter if there is no real legal authorization for it. It doesn’t matter that it has nothing to do with defending the United States, because once the military is involved somewhere it can claim to be defending itself without having to account for why they are there.

Read the rest of the article at SubStack

Daniel Larison is a weekly columnist for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.

https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2021/08/10/why-do-we-fight-dont-ask/