Four Soldiers Killed in War

[Angry Dragon]

I have noticed that some of the reports on the soldiers killed in Niger, were killed in a war. Others say we are at war.
I am trying to remember when we declared a war in that region.
Can someone help me out here??

[Not Ruth]

1. It is a war, not our war, the US has not been at war since 1990, when WW2 ended

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Final_Settlement_with_Respect_to_Germany

The Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany (German: Vertrag über die abschließende Regelung in Bezug auf Deutschland), or the Two Plus Four Agreement (German: Zwei-plus-Vier-Vertrag; short: German Treaty), was negotiated in 1990 between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic (the eponymous "Two&quot , and the Four Powers which occupied Germany at the end of World War II in Europe: France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In the treaty the Four Powers renounced all rights they held in Germany, allowing a united Germany to become fully sovereign the following year.

[Angry Dragon]

3. THANK YOU

[Angry Dragon]

6. How about Iraq and Afghanistan??

[Not Ruth]

9. We never declared war

Same as Vietnam and Korea

http://outsidethewire.armytimes.com/2014/06/17/how-many-times-has-the-u-s-declared-war-see-all-11-declarations/

[Wellstone ruled]

2. Caught that reference by Kelly.

Must be one of those special undeclared War's that has not been made public.

[Angry Dragon]

4. I am glad that I was not imaging things

[Wellstone ruled]

18. Well,it sure started a shit storm with McCain

and Senator Reed.

[Takket]

5. The generic catch all blanket of the war on terror

[Angry Dragon]

7. That thought did enter my mind

[captain queeg]

8. I think WWII was the last time we declared War

Interestingly enough, back they we had a secretary of war, overseeing the war dept. That changed after WWII and we switched to the secretary of "defense". Of course everything we do in in defense of the US....

By the way, this Secretary of Defense is the 3rd in line for presidency after VP and the Secretary of State? Just saw that on Wiki. I thought the speaker of the house was before secretary of state. Anybody know for sure?

[Angry Dragon]

10. I believe it goes

Vice President
Speaker of the House
Senate pro-tepore(sp)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_line_of_succession

[Baconator]

13. Military frantically Googling where Defense Secretary is in presidential order of succession

WASHINGTON — Millions of members of the U.S. military are frantically Googling where the Secretary of Defense sits in the line of succession to President of the United States, sources confirmed today.

The more than two million Google searches for terms such as “where is SecDef in succession order” and “can SecDef be promoted to president” came just hours after it was learned that retired Marine Gen. James Mattis would be named to lead the Department of Defense.

...snip

If confirmed, Mattis would need to simultaneously take out the Treasury Secretary, Secretary of State, President pro tempore of the Senate, the Speaker of the House, the Vice President, and the President, in order to assume the highest office in the land.

According to sources, he already has a plan to do just that, which he wrote in 2003. He later stashed the plan in the drawer of his nightstand, on which his concubine places a breakfast shake mix of Jack Daniels and Creatine each morning. A person familiar with the plan said that Mattis mostly uses his bare hands, though he often carries multiple guns, knives, and sharp sticks on his person.

https://www.duffelblog.com/2016/12/military-frantically-googling-defense-secretary-presidential-order-succession/

_______________-

I know I googled it.

[captain queeg]

17. WTF? The Onion or something?

First I assumed you were talking about Al "I'm in charge" Haig

[metalbot]

26. Duffleblog is the military equivalent to The Onion. nt

[Baconator]

11. I'm not sure who you are talking about...

Who said it?

The government? Media? Folks here?

In any case... No, we aren't at war in Niger.

Foreign Internal Defense against various asshole groups. We've been at it for a few years now and it came about during the Obama years I believe.

[Angry Dragon]

12. Trump admin mostly

news reports
statements
videos .....etc

[Baconator]

14. Then they are speaking in a layman general way...

.. and not in a precise or legal way.

Still dumb...

[Angry Dragon]

15. We pay them to be precise

They attack Dems for ANY misstep

[Baconator]

16. Again... I don't know who or what you're talking about specifically...

[Angry Dragon]

19. Again.... I have read news articles, videos etc mentioning they were killed in a war

I asked what war
The war talk was from the government officials
if I had a link I would post it
I have just heard it mentioned

[Angry Dragon]

21. Thank you for the response

I put the question out there because
#1 I had never heard of Niger
#2 Did not know we had troops there
#3 Did not know the war on terror led there

as someone said above the war on terror is just a catch all phrase to cover ANY troop movement
much like National Security covers things the government wants to hide

[Angry Dragon]

27. it is what they use

war on drugs
class warfare

I do not like any of these phrases

[smirkymonkey]

34. My Brother is - well, was, he just retired a month ago - an F-16 pilot in the Air Force.

He has been deployed a number of times (4 or 5) and most of the time we knew where he was going except for one. That time, all we knew is that he was going to be somewhere in Africa, but he couldn't tell any of us where he was. I am not even sure if he could tell his wife (she is a Lt. Colonel in the AF as well) but even if he did, she couldn't say anything either. I am now wondering if that is where he went.

I guess we will never know. I am just grateful that he came back alive. I am so sorry for those four soldiers who didn't make it and my heart aches for their families. That is always your greatest fear when a love one is deployed.

[B2G]

22. We are not at war there. This might help.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/10/18/politics/niger-american-troops-drones/index.html

Snip:

American troops have been in Niger for years

The US has previously acknowledged it has troops there. But it's never gone into much detail.

In 2013, the White House announced that then-President Barack Obama had deployed 100 military personnel to Niger.

"This deployment will provide support for intelligence collection and will also facilitate intelligence sharing with French forces conducting operations in Mali, and with other partners in the region," Obama said in a letter to the House speaker.

Since then, the number of US troops in the nation has risen to about 800.





[Angry Dragon]

24. then why are some in the admin. calling it a war??

[B2G]

25. I haven't heard that said.

Maybe you could post a reference?

[Angry Dragon]

29. here

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/15/sahel-niger-us-special-forces-islamists

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/10/14/afric-o14.html

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/18/politics/niger-american-troops-drones/index.html

http://taskandpurpose.com/niger-army-special-forces-war/

and I have read and heard the Trump admin. use the word

[B2G]

32. These are references to the 'war' on terror.

The CNN aticle you linked explains our role and when it started.

[Angry Dragon]

35. then we need to declare war

[B2G]

36. Against which country?

Every one where terrorists operated from?

[Angry Dragon]

37. why not??

[metalbot]

31. It depends on your definition

You keep repeating in the thread that you've seen many videos and articles saying that our soldiers were killed in a war. If you'd post a link to just one of them in which the administration officials are referring to it as a war, then we could have a much more meaningful discussion.

Part of this is going to depend on your definition of "war". If guerrillas are ambushing military convoys a few times a year, and the military is in the field looking for those guerrillas, does that constitute a "war"? Niger would probably not say that they are currently "at war". Cambodia and Thailand are certainly not at war, but sometimes their soldiers shoot at each other. North and South Korea are technically at war, but nobody really considers them to be at war, though periodically they do shoot at each other. India and Pakistan are not at war, but periodically shoot at each other in Kashmir. We didn't technically go to war in Vietnam at all, but it sure felt like a war to millions of Vietnamese and Americans.

Nobody in the administration is saying "we are at war" in Niger. They may be saying broadly that these soldiers died in part of our broad war efforts against ISIS inspired terror militias. We have soldiers operating in similar capacities in probably a dozen different countries. All of these are at some risk for escalation, and oddly enough I think that the members of congress who are calling for investigations into the incident are inadvertently going to escalate things.

If you hold hearings on this type of incident, it's going to tell you basically that:

1. US special forces soldiers need to be in the field with the people they are training
2. We did not have in place the air power to properly support those soldiers in the field
3. We should make sure we have air power next time
4. If you're going to have air power in a country like Niger, that means a land base
5. If you are going to have a land base in Niger, then someone needs to guard the base
6. Once you have people guarding the base, you are going to have people launching mortar/missile/artillery attacks at the base
7. When you are being hit with mortar/missile/artillery fire, you need to send out patrols to make sure that people can't keep attacking your base
8. We are going to ignore the fact that 1-7 is how we ended up in a "real" war in Vietnam

[Angry Dragon]

33. That I can not do

As I said I heard it in some videos and read in some articles
watched and read much ..........sorry

[lanlady]

28. Not a war. We're just exercising our god-given right

to trample all over the national sovereignty of any country we choose.

[Angry Dragon]

30. from what I have heard that is not the case here