Niger: Finally, A War John McCain Doesn't Love

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Mises

Niger: Finally, A War John McCain Doesn't Love

10/26/2017Ilana Mercer

News first broke about America's Niger misadventure on October 4. "The real news here is that the US has forces in Niger, where they're conducting covert operations," this writer tweeted out. "Hashtag America First."

Official media ignored the ambush of the American Special Forces, until the story gained anti-Trump traction. No word came from John McCain. Three weeks hence, the senator from Arizona is making history. McCain, who has never encountered a war he wasn't eager to prosecute, is questioning the folly in Niger.

The senator from Arizona can run but can’t hide from the pollution he has left along his political path. Republicans wisely rejected war in Kosovo; McCain jettisoned party loyalty to call for bombs from above and "more boots on the ground." At the prospects of war with Iran, McCain burst into song, "Bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb-Iran." The possibility still makes this war ghoul smile. Before that, McCain promised a 100-year war in Iraq.

Senator McCain's jingoism has encompassed Syria, Georgia, Mali, Nigeria, and China. Where the US could not effect regime change, as it did fecklessly in Afghanistan and Libya—   

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Why Conscription Won’t Stop Unnecessary Wars

By DANIEL LARISON • October 27, 2017, 8:56 AM

Brian O’Brien rejects the idea that bringing back conscription would keep the U.S. out of unnecessary wars:

This reasoning arose during the Iraq War when it was proposed that a draft might have stopped the invasion because young people would have felt personally at risk of being deployed and would have protested. Because there was no draft, that fear wasn’t there and there was no uprising as during the Vietnam War when massive demonstrations were held across the nation.

O’Brien makes a compelling case that the U.S. fought longer, bloodier wars when it had conscription than when it has not had it. The U.S. did not stay out of wars of choice during that same period. While there is a certain logic behind the assumption that policymakers with draft-age children would be less inclined to support a foreign war, it still doesn’t keep those wars from happening. Even if we could bring conscription back tomorrow, prevailing assumptions about the U.S. role in the world and the definition of our “vital interests” would remain unchanged. The U.S. would end up fighting even more unnecessary wars with the increased manpower available to the government.     http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/why-conscription-wont-stop-unnecessary-wars/