So I Guess We're at Not-War in Africa Now, Too

We're officially at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we're officially at not-war in Libya, Pakistan, and Yemen. And now we're officially at sorta-war in Africa, where President Obama has deployed a combat team "to go into Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, subject to approval from each of those countries," in order to assist in the fight against Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army.

Sure. Why not.

At the above link, David Dayen's commentary is pretty much bang-on what I'm feeling about this latest military operation care of the president who promised to reduce our military presence around the globe:

I'm sure Joseph Kony is a horrible person, among all the horrible people in the world. The question is whether it's worthwhile or wise for the United States to be constantly policing the world, sending out US troops and spending US money to do it. Second, this is really what was at stake with the Congressional debate over Libya. Some Constitutionalists argued that the President didn't have the unilateral right to commit the US military to action in Libya, and in fact the House never passed any resolution authorizing force even after the fact. But nobody took the next logical step to try to shut down the US contribution to the NATO mission.

This furthers a long, slow decline whereby the President becomes a unitary executive in matters of foreign policy, even though Congress has explicit rights regarding war powers. If Congress fails to use them, it only emboldens the executive, who then feels free to inform Congressional leaders after the fact that he deployed troops to central Africa.

…to be clear, we have logistical military personnel in probably every country on Earth. The problem here, as I see it, is the degradation of war powers under the Constitution.

Of the people, by the oh whatever.