Tag: AUMF

The recent missile strike against Syria could have significant implications for the United States going forward, considering various ongoing proxy wars.

Members of both the House and Senate struck down President Obama’s veto of a bill that would permit family members of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia. The overwhelming bi-partisan support for still-grieving families served as a humiliating rebuke for both Obama and Saudi Arabia, America’s closest ally in the Middle East, which has recently come under increased scrutiny despite an entrenched alliance that deepened after 9/11.

Fifteen years after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, America's War on Terror has expanded drastically, and with it, the interpretation of the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF), which gave the president the initial power to mobilize US Armed Forces against those responsible. Yet, America is no closer to ending that open-ended war than when it began, and its endless state is prompting serious questions about the legality of the recent initiatives waged against ISIS, and whether safeguards are in place to prevent a single person—President Obama or his successors—from committing America to perpetual warfare.

American political history suggests that somewhere along the way our national superego awakens to suppress the worst of our urges. We relegate fringe candidates to their proper place in history and gravitate to the more centrist message.

Nathan Michael Smith, an US Army Captain, is suing President Obama because he believes the war against ISIS is unconstitutional. The war, which began in August 2014, has never been authorized by Congress. But Obama remains adamant that he has the legal authority to fight ISIS, citing authorizations from 2001 and 2002 related to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

"If this is worth fighting ISIS, and I believe it is, it's worth having Congress do its job."

It’d hardly be a surprise if a large chunk of the American public had no idea Congress last week debated President Barack Obama’s authorization for a war he’s already fighting.

"We have to condition the American people: This is going to go on for a long time. It’s terrible to say but that’s the reality. They’re not going to go away easy.”

The Obama administration is using a 13-year-old law authorizing combat against Sept. 11 perpetrators to target ISIS.

"It’s about love at the center of it that leads to a protest, that leads to a critique, leads to a resistance, leads to solidarity,.."