It is interesting how comfortable Americans seem to have become with war without end.
We are now so complacent that our president can apparently call in a new war while on spring break in Rio.
The start of hostilities was so unremarkable, meanwhile, that all three major TV networks Saturday cancelled their evening news broadcasts in favor of college basketball coverage.
On Saturday, as the U.S. began dropping 122 Tomahawk missiles on Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi’s military, President Barack Obama was seeing the sights on Brazil’s coastline.
We have now, apparently, dispensed with the solemn Oval Office address to the nation explaining the start of new wars.
No press conference. No questions. No consultation with Congress — just one of those little weekend wars.
The president explained that he continued with his trip in order to emphasize that other nations are in charge of this war.
Which would be nice if it were true, but it is not.
This has been almost totally a U.S. war from the start. Now, as it moves forward, our so-called allies are resisting efforts by the U.S. to hand over day-to-day operations they promised to accept.
This war seems to be shaping up like our other two wars, a grand illusion of global coalition, followed by the U.S. picking up 90 percent of the combat, expense and bloody sacrifice.
What was even more shameful was the way the three major TV networks chose to pretend the war wasn’t even happening
Their Saturday evening newscasts disappeared amid the all-important NCAA basketball playoff games.
That probably accurately reflects the dominant interests of the American people. With a totally professional military, only a small portion of the U.S. people have spouses, children or relatives in harm’s way.
By and large, the same soldiers, sailors and airmen simply revolve from one combat zone to another, one deployment on top of another.
Perhaps what’s most frightening about our latest war is how little we know about our new friends in Libya and where this is going.
Last summer, these same people were cheering the return of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi. He’s the guy who planned the bombing in 1988 of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland.
At the peak of the Iraqi insurgency, more jihadists per capita traveled to join al Qaeda in Iraq from Libya than from any other country, according to CNN World.
The U.S. originally got into this Libyan affair because of our “unique” ability to make the skies safe for a no-fly zone.
In plain English, we are the only country with enough million-dollar missiles and billion-dollar stealth planes capable of handling three wars at the same time.
But all that fire power comes at a cost. At a time of massive budget deficits, the U.S. spends more on its military than the next 14 largest nations combined.
That is, of course, on top of the horrific cost in terms of lives lost, disabling injuries and psychological trauma to our warriors.
President Obama can, of course, explain that he acted to avert a crisis and possible humanitarian tragedy.
But we live in a world of perpetual crisis and tragedy. At some point, the U.S. must allow other people to sort out their scraps, particularly nations that are perpetually hostile to our interests.
We should not have been in this war. Now we should find a way to leave it as quickly as possible.
rrhoades@sunjournal.com
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