WASHINGTON — There’s a very 2001 feel to President Obama’s request for authorization to use military force and the nauseating sense that we’ll be at war indefinitely.
Although we haven’t suffered a catastrophic hit as we did on 9/11, we’ve been witness to atrocities — vicious promissory notes on debts to be collected — that are tailor-made to evoke an emotional response from our allies and us. It doesn’t much matter at this point who started it or what prior actions may have contributed to present circumstances. We are faced with fresh horrors that demand present actions. Or, do they?
As proposed, the new authorization would allow the commander in chief to use military force against the Islamic State, without geographical restrictions, but only for three years and not for “enduring offensive ground combat operations.” Translation: We’re coming to get you, Islamic State, but we’ll be in and gone before you know it.
Both Democrats and Republicans have found aspects of the authorization with which they disagree, but at least they’re talking to each other. Even so, Americans are justified in wondering whether this crowd is up to the task and whether we’ve learned anything from previous wars. As Afghanistan taught us, it doesn’t make much sense to tell the enemy our schedule. What’s three years in the context of a centuries-old grudge?
To this point, a Libyan terrorist group has announced its goal of destroying Rome. That’s so Middle Ages, but the men in black apparently didn’t get the memo about time marching on and are still seething at Pope Urban II. Here we are reveling in 40 years of “Saturday Night Live,” and they’re chopping off people’s heads.