Speaking before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the administration officials—State Department Deputy Legal Adviser Mary McLeod and Defense Department General Counsel Stephen Preston—declared that the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) was not required for any of the drone attacks, troop deployments and other war operations carried out by the Obama administration.
For more than a decade, the AUMF has been a catch-all justification for all the illegal and unconstitutional activities of the Bush and Obama administrations—military invasions, indefinite detention (including at Guantanamo Bay), torture and drone assassination. Congress is currently considering revising or ending the AUMF as part of an effort to shift these operations onto a more permanent foundation.
A report in Rolling Stone on the hearings noted: “When asked by Senator Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) ‘what could [the president] not do without the AUMF,’ Preston didn’t have an immediate answer. Kaine then asked if the US could continue to hold detainees at Guantanamo Bay if the AUMF were repealed. Preston dodged; McLeod added that the US can continue to detain prisoners ‘as long as we’re in an armed conflict with Al Qaeda.’”
“I think it would be fair to say that with or without an AUMF, to the extent that it grants authority for use of military force against al Qaeda, and the Taliban, and associated forces in which we’re in armed conflict … the president does have constitutional authority to act,” said Preston.
Asked whether the executive could unilaterally attack any country that it declares is “harboring” terrorists, without Congressional approval, McLeod replied, “We would have to think about whether individuals in that state or in that government of that state actually posed an imminent threat.” That is to say, the executive would have an internal deliberation and decide on whether to wage war based on its definition of “imminent.”
McLeod added that in the administration’s view it had the authority to wage war against Syria without Congressional authority based on the spurious allegations of chemical weapons use (in an internal civil conflict) last year. In the Syrian civil war, it was the United States, and not the Syrian government, that was directly allied with Al Qaeda and its “associated forces.”
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/05/22/aumf-m22.html
A Baffling Hearing on Endless War
John Knefel
May 21, 2014 3:52 PM ET
The Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), passed by Congress in the days following the attacks of September 11th, 2001, is a 60-word resolution granting the president the authority to use force against the "nations, organizations, or persons" who carried out those attacks, or nations that harbored such groups. It has served as the underlying legal rationale for nearly every military and intelligence operation by the U.S. for more than a decade; one journalist has called it "the most dangerous sentence in U.S. history." Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California) is reportedly preparing to introduce a measure to force the AUMF's expiration. And at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing today, two top executive branch officials – top Pentagon lawyer Stephen Preston and Mary McLeod, a high-ranking State Department legal advisor – struggled to justify the law's continued usefulness.
Much of the hearing was a thick tangle of legalese, leading members of the committee to express their frustration with the lack of clear answers. Ranking Senator Bob Corker (R-Tennessee) called the hearing a "bizarre discussion" and repeatedly criticized the two witnesses for their confusing responses, at one point calling the hearing "not particularly gratifying."
What happens to justice in a perpetual war? Read our story and find out
The witnesses indicated that the Obama Administration believes it has the authority to take military action against "imminent threats" under the president's inherent self-defense authority, and appeared to minimize the role of Congress in determining where and when the president can use military force. When asked by Senator Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) "what could [the president] not do without the AUMF," Preston didn't have an immediate answer. Kaine then asked if the U.S. could continue to hold detainees at Guantanamo Bay if the AUMF were repealed. Preston dodged; McLeod added that the U.S. can continue to detain prisoners "as long as we're in an armed conflict with Al Qaeda."
While Preston said that he was "not going to tell you there are not differences" between the AUMF and the president's constitutional authority to protect the country, both witnesses struggled to clearly distinguish exactly what those differences might be. Preston wouldn't discuss the terrorist groups the administration currently considers itself at war with, saying "that would have to take place in a classified setting.
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/a-baffling-hearing-on-endless-war-20140521#ixzz32TIlrB00
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