VIEWPOINT
BY JA K E K LONOSKI
Dispatches
LET THE PEOPLE LEAD THE WAY
M
y nerve held until I landed in San
Antonio. But with my family a
single two-hour fl ight away after 10
months deployed and two weeks of
traveling, I panicked. Racing to an
airport gift shop, I searched madly for something to
win over my daughter when I arrived home.
Though unsure at seeing me, pure joy greeted the
stuffed brown horsie. Defi nitely the best $8.99 I ever
spent.
From winning over my daughter to the initial
dreamlike days with my wife, from a morning beach
run without armed protection to hearing screeching
tires and not grabbing a sidearm, the initial days back
from Afghanistan were euphoric.
The euphoria faded unpredictably. Watching my
daughter at play and imagining the fate of the three
Afghan girls who sold pashminas outside our base.
Sharing stories with civilian friends and falling into
the awkward pause after they ask, “So, did you kill
anybody?” Checking the news and realizing an
Afghan soldier gunned down a general I occasionally
briefed.
It is easy to lose yourself in the dark moments.
Fortunately, the same day I touched down in the
U.S., my Oregon bar exam books arrived, providing
focus during the weeks that followed. Still, on the
morning of the bar exam in the Jantzen Beach Red
Lion, I had to remind myself to smile and nod after a
nervous examinee exclaimed, “I don’t think I’ve ever
been more terrifi ed!” The memory of forcing myself
into the earth while squeezing rounds from a service
pistol as bullets whizzed overhead crowded out the
polite reaction.
It can be awkward to sit with peers after going
through such divergent life experiences. I recall
joining a law student committee and listening to a
potential law school hire discuss his background as a
State Department legal advisor during the 2011 Libya
operations.
“The challenge,” he explained knowingly, “was
fi nding the legal distinction between the ongoing
operations and ‘hostilities’ requiring Congressional
approval. The intra-governmental struggles between
the State Department and the White House Offi ce of
Legal Counsel over potentially illegal actions were
epic.”
Having participated briefl y in the Libya mission,
I interjected, pointing out that when an F-15 crashed
on a bombing mission outside Benghazi and the
personnel recovery team went in to recover the two
pilots, it hadn’t seemed like a challenge to understand
what hostilities were.
In the silence that followed, I realized I might have
done better if I’d simply belched loudly.
War, leaders declared after World War I, is too
serious to be left to the military. Having gone back
and forth between uniforms and law books, I have
concluded it is also too important to be left to lawyers.
Watching the fallout from the Libya operations and
the politicization of its consequences, clearly more
than smart legal arguments are needed to ensure
sending in troops or drones is a wise decision.
After the torture of the Bush years, President
Obama campaigned on a platform of restoring limits
on executive power. But as American forces return to
Iraq again, on the President’s unilateral orders, one
remembers the evolution of Thomas Jefferson. Once
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A ugust 21, 2014 • eugeneweekly.com
AFGH AN GIRL S
a vociferous voice for limited executive power, the
views from the presidency transformed him. When
purchasing the Louisiana Territory from France over
the inaction of Congress, an act outside the explicit
presidential powers, Jefferson wrote, “It is the case
of a guardian, investing the money of his ward . . .
saying to him when of age, I did this for your good.”
Two centuries later, faced with exigent crises,
leaders continue to believe that the American polity
has not reached maturity.
It is hard to disagree after watching the bewildered
response to President Obama seeking Congressional
authorization to act in Syria following the use of
chemical weapons. Further in the past, President
Clinton’s request for military authorization to prevent
a 1999 genocide in Kosovo resulted in a mind-bending
tie vote in the House of Representatives.
Clinton cites America’s failure to act during
the slaughter of the 1994 Rwandan genocide as
his greatest regret in offi ce, a regret that drove his
1999 actions. There can be little doubt that a failure
to prevent the ongoing genocide against religious
minorities in Iraq would be similarly appalling. But
in a vibrant democracy, the moral feelings in the Oval
Offi ce, no matter how admired the occupant, should
not dictate military intervention.
Diverse, if isolated, voices in Congress seek
to show there is air left in the tires of American
democracy. Senators ranging from fi rebrand Ted
Cruz and libertarian-leaning Rand Paul to former
Democratic Party chairman Tim Kaine and Oregon’s
own Jeff Merkley have demanded that Congress
asserts its proper role in military deliberations.
With most of America disengaged from these
decisions — perhaps a result of the all-volunteer
military’s distance from the general public —
change seems unlikely. Even today the legitimacy
of American bombs dropped on enemy fi ghters and
American advisors steering the combat operations of
allied forces is again open to question.
I never served in Iraq, but the discord following
the Afghan presidential election, the vibrancy of the
Taliban in Pakistan, and the survival of al-Qaeda
leaders in that nation make clear that American
PHOTO BY JAKE KLONOSKI
involvement in Central Asia will continue for years
to come as well. Watching the label of “terrorist”
become the new “communist,” justifying American
strikes around the world, one senses entry into an age
of permanent confl ict.
Since returning, the most common questions I’ve
heard are, “What do you think is going to happen
next? And what should we do now?” People seem
eager for special knowledge from someone who has
been “on the ground.” But honestly, I can offer little
more than questioners can uncover themselves with
minimal research. Instead, I fi nd the value of service
in Afghanistan is the feeling of responsibility that
fl ows from knowing the people we seek to help and
sharing in the sacrifi ce that makes that help possible.
That responsibility is not something that should
be felt only by servicemembers, or by government
leaders. After all, your tax dollars pay for the bombs
we drop and your civic participation — through action
or inaction — enables decisions on when American
blood is spilled, where we spill the blood of others,
and if the killing of innocents goes unchallenged.
I am proud to have served in Afghanistan, and
would proudly don a uniform to protect the Yazidi
of northern Iraq. But examining the last decade of
national debates it seems national consensus, formed
through constitutional process and civic debate, is
critical to making American military power a long-
lasting, positive force in the world.
With my wife soon to have our second child,
America again joins the clash of arms in Iraq. With
so many children already having lost so much, I often
wonder what this new baby will endure.
Coming home to Oregon, the birthplace of the
Oregon System, the land of Mark Hatfi eld and Wayne
Morse, where civic virtue is a public nature, I cannot
help but hope that a truly participatory American
body politic is possible. If there is one place that can
blaze a trail for the nation, through barren wastelands
of apathy and yawning ravines of factionalism, it is
Oregon. Growing up in this community gave me the
faith to serve at the ends of the earth, leaving everything
behind, for the promise of a world made better for my
children. Please help that promise come tru e.