With little more than a note to Congress, President Obama
announced Friday morning that he has ordered the deployment of
approximately 100 armed US soldiers to the west African country of
Niger.
President Obama has order US soldiers to the west African nation of Niger. (AP)
According to the
Associated Press,
Obama's letter stated that the mission would be to conduct
"intelligence sharing" with French troops stationed in the neighboring
country of Mali who have joined that country's army in a fight with
Toureg fighters in the north.
As AP notes:
The U.S. and Niger signed an agreement last month spelling out legal
protections and obligations of Americans who might operate from the
African nation. But U.S. officials declined at the time to discuss
specific plans for a military presence in Niger.
The announcement of "boots on the ground" in Niger comes just weeks after
reports surfaced
that the US was in negotiations to establish an airbase in the country
so that a portion of its drone fleet could operate in the region.
Events in Mali that led to the current violence followed on the
US/NATO intervention in Libya in 2011. The cumulative effect, however,
has been a growing chorus of western officials who say that west Africa
is now the new front on the "war on terror" and the increased military
presence, from Libya, then Mali, and now Niger, suggests that the
buildup in the region is just beginning.
In the era of executive authority—almost entirely enabled by the
annually renewed Authorization for Use of Military Force enacted after
the events of 9/11—the question remains, at what point will Congress
reassert its right to control declarations of war and at what point will
the US public begin to question a "war on terror" that can deploy US
soldiers in a foreign nation with the quick delivery of a simple
presidential note?
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