November 1, 2017
Page 13
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O PINION
When Soldiers Die in Wars We Don’t Know About
What on earth
are we doing in
Niger?
p eter C erto ,
In our military-re-
vering culture, it’s a
strange thing for a
president to start a
war of words with
the grieving families
of slain soldiers.
Strange, yes. But from Donald
Trump’s campaign season feud
with the parents of Humayun
Khan, who died protecting fel-
low soldiers in Iraq, to his recent
feud with the mourning widow of
La David Johnson, who died on
patrol in Niger, it’s no longer sur-
prising.
At root in the latest spat is a
comment Trump made to La Da-
vid’s widow Myeshia Johnson:
by
“He knew what he signed up for.”
Myeshia thought that remark was
disrespectful — she later said it
“made me cry.”
Beyond
insensitive,
though, there’s a good
chance it simply wasn’t
true.
Why, after all, should
La David have expected
to die in a dusty corner of
Niger — a Saharan coun-
try most Americans (and,
one suspects, their presi-
dent) couldn’t find on a map? And
where the U.S. isn’t actually at
war?
If you were surprised to learn
the U.S. has nearly a thousand
troops in Niger, you’re not alone.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a South
Carolina Republican who serves
on the Armed Forces Committee,
told NBC he “had no idea.” Nei-
ther did Chuck Schumer, the Sen-
ate’s top Democrat.
Well, the surprises may keep
coming.
The New York Times notes that
the U.S. now has “over 240,000
active-duty and reserve troops in
at least 172 countries and territo-
ries.” Count it again: 172 coun-
tries, out of 193 UN member
states.
Most of us remain at least dim-
ly aware that we still have thou-
sands of troops in war zones like
Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as
in Cold War outposts like Japan,
South Korea, and Germany. But
what about the 160-plus others?
And where are the nearly 38,000
troops whose location the Penta-
gon lists as “unknown”?
We catch an occasional glimpse
of this global footprint when a
U.S. service member dies some-
place surprising — as Ryan Ow-
ens did earlier this year in Yemen,
and a Navy SEAL did several
months later in Somalia. More
rarely we catch darker reminders
still, when our wars abroad come
home in the form of terrorist at-
tacks. But mostly the American
people remain every bit as in the
dark as Graham and Schumer.
Americans like to imagine our-
selves as citizens of a democracy
that rejects the colonial ambitions
of Old World powers like France
and the UK. And yet we’ve de-
ployed troops to literally most of
the planet, and our leading law-
makers — tasked by the Consti-
tution with the exclusive right to
declare war — don’t even know
about it.
Worse still, Congress appears
to be abetting its own irrelevance.
Earlier this year, House Speak-
er Paul Ryan quietly killed an
amendment by Democrat Barbara
Lee that would’ve revoked Con-
gress’ post-9/11 Authorization of
Military Force, which has been
used as a fig leaf of legality for
this global war making. And last
month the Senate voted 2:1 to re-
ject an amendment from Republi-
can Rand Paul that would’ve done
the same.
Odds are, the real victims from
our post-9/11 wars live in coun-
tries we seldom see or hear about.
But as veteran and Army strategist
Danny Sjursen writes, “the poten-
tial, and all too pervasive, deaths
of American service members de-
mand a public hearing” too. Espe-
cially when 16-plus years of war
doesn’t appear to have made the
world any safer.
When our soldiers kill and die
in fruitless wars we don’t know
about and can’t end, we’re not a
democracy anymore — we’re an
empire. And perhaps a fading one
at that.
Peter Certo is the editorial
manager of the Institute for Policy
Studies and the editor of Other-
Words.org.
A Digital Revolution Powered by Black Millennials
A megaphone
for justice,
awareness and
change
m arC h. m orial
The presence and
influence of black
millennials on our
shared digital frontier
can neither be denied
nor dismissed. From
viral memes that catch celebri-
ties at their best—and worst, to
trending hashtags like #Black-
LivesMatter and #OscarsSoW-
hite with the power to spark
social awareness and compel
offline action, black millennials
are digital pioneers. They have
eagerly and creatively adopted
the medium, using its emerging
technologies as a megaphone for
justice, raising awareness and ef-
fecting change.
Statistically, black families
continue to remain less likely
than white families to have ded-
icated Internet access at home
and are more likely to access
the internet from their mobile
phones.
According to the latest Niel-
sen reporting on the online pres-
ence and participation of black
millennials, “Young, Connected
and Black: African-American
Millennials Are Driving Social
Change and Leading Digital Ad-
by
vancement,” 91 percent of Af-
rican Americans report owning
a smartphone—this comes only
second to Asian Americans who
report 94 percent smartphone
ownership—and 91 percent of
African Americans also
report that they access the
Internet through mobile de-
vices.
Tech-savvy
African
Americans, particularly the
more than 11 million iden-
tified as black millennials
are influential, leading us-
ers of mobile technology and
platforms, and voracious con-
sumers and creators of digital
content. They are also uniquely
positioned to usher the move-
ment for social justice into the
digital age and have done so one
hashtag, meme and social cam-
paign at a time.
From Ferguson to the Oscars,
we have witnessed the power
of e-amplified activism and its
ability to exert its influence and
pressure to effect change beyond
the world wide web. It is clear
that civil rights, activism, and
large-scale national conversa-
tions will exist more and more at
the curve of technology. In com-
parison to previous generations,
black millennials earn more,
spend more and are experiencing
increased educational advance-
ments. We must ensure that this
progress and the narrowing of
our nation’s digital divide con-
tinues unabated.
The National Urban League
understands that our world is in-
creasingly global and networked.
We believe that being left out of
the digital revolution, whether
you are an activist fighting for
equality or attempting to access
employment opportunities, is a
detriment to our communities
and, ultimately, our nation.
Committed to economic em-
powerment, we have consistent-
ly called for the expansion of
high-speed broadband to urban
and rural America, including as
recently as in our Main Street
Marshall Plan. At this year’s an-
nual conference we convened a
Hackathon, challenging partici-
pants to create apps that address
racial and social justice. We also
featured Tech Connect, a space
to explore the complex intersec-
tions between tech, race and so-
cial change.
We have not only committed
to talking about the digital econ-
omy, and the digital space as a
tool in the fight for social justice,
but we actively prepare people
for it. As black millennials forge
ahead on the digital frontier, we
acknowledge and celebrate their
collective strength and power—
and recognize the decidedly ana-
log roots of their movement.
Despite attempts to restrict
communication among enslaved
Africans, these men and women
used their ingenuity and creativ-
ity to communicate in the beat
of a drum, the clap of roughened
hands and the moans of spiritu-
als. With these early tools they
were able to communicate sor-
row, joy and revolution.
Today, the tools are differ-
ent and more powerful, but the
impulse to use what we have to
raise awareness, evoke discus-
sion and trigger action remains
the same. To access the new dig-
ital economy and to take advan-
tage of the power of technology
to impact our lives, we must con-
tinue to ensure access and pro-
mote STEM education.
We applaud those leaders and
young professionals in our com-
munities who are rising to the
occasion and using digital ad-
vances to bring online pressure
to bear on our offline realities.
Marc H. Morial is president
and chief executive officer of the
National Urban League.
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