More On The AUMF + Bush’s Justifications
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in General Politics, The War On TerrorismA pretty interesting editorial has come out recently that points out a very important distinction in the AUMF (authorization to use military force) that Bush has said gives him absolute authority.
So, on September 12th, 2001, the White House asked for this language to be in the AUMF. Basically, an authorization to…
“deter and pre-empt any future acts of terrorism or aggression against the United States.”
Now, people, I understand that it was probably just a reaction, but that language could be used to justify ANYTHING. I understand that’s where their minds were at a day after this horrible thing happened, but that’s why we have checks and balances.
Also understandably, the Congress thought that wording was too broad, so they revised the statement to read…
authorize “all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons [the president] determines planned, authorized, committed or aided” the attacks of Sept. 11.
They did this for a couple reasons. First, they wanted to make sure that Bush and company went after Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. In other words, get the people who were responsible for this and for terrorism in general.
But as the author of the piece, Tom Daschle, points out, the White House tried to change the wording of the AUMF in the 11th hour…
Just before the Senate acted on this compromise resolution, the White House sought one last change. Literally minutes before the Senate cast its vote, the administration sought to add the words “in the United States and” after “appropriate force” in the agreed-upon text. This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas — where we all understood he wanted authority to act — but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens. I could see no justification for Congress to accede to this extraordinary request for additional authority. I refused.
Here’s what that would have looked like:
the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force in the United States and against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001….
Why this is extremely important is the White House knew that Congress didn’t want to give them the authority to do the kinds of things they’re now saying that the AUMF gave them.
Frankly, I don’t believe that Bush thought the AUMF gave him these broad powers, especially given this revelation. It just doesn’t add up.
This entry was posted on Friday, December 23rd, 2005 and is filed under General Politics, The War On Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
December 23rd, 2005 at 3:11 pm
So they asked for something, got turned down. Then said what they asked for was implied.
No thinking person can say that holds water.
December 24th, 2005 at 2:53 am
“It just doesn’t add up.” No, it doesn’t. On the other hand, Bush has an MBA. The philosophy of the MBA is that the manager is interchangeable and can handle any situation (of course it helps to exude confidence even if the manager hasn’t the slightest idea what he’s talking about).
That fits Bush’s background and the behavior of some of his advisors. These are guys who managed to ‘wing it’ early in their lives and they were very successful at getting away with it. Despite indifference and incompetence, Bush has had the advantage of always having someone to bail him out of trouble (currently, that’s Karl Rove’s job). That, in addition to the ideological albatross crippling Bush’s vision, is the fundamental philosophy guiding the Iraq War: wing it. And we’re paying the price for a long series of incompetent ad hoc decisions designed to fix last month’s problems. And an additional price for a Republican Congress that refuses to hold this president accountable.
January 20th, 2006 at 2:28 am
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