[Peace-discuss] Rep. Lee Introduces Bill to Repeal AUMF

Tue Sep 6 23:30:15 CDT 2011

*Congresswoman Lee Introduces Bill to Repeal the Authorization to Use Military 
Force*
By David Swanson
http://warisacrime.org/content/congresswoman-lee-introduces-bill-repeal-authorization-use-military-force

Congresswoman Barbara Lee, like Jeanette Rankin before her, bravely stood alone 
in Congress against a vote for war, the vote in 2001 for the so-called 
Authorization to Use Military Force, a Constitutionally dubious passing of the 
war decision buck to President Bush and his successors.  A majority of Americans 
now believes that the Afghanistan War that followed that authorization never 
should have been begun and should, in fact, be ended.  So, the Congresswoman, 
along with initial cosponsors Jones, Woolsey, Grijalva, Conyers, and Honda, is 
offering us a second chance, a chance to get our response to 9-11 right, to 
restore war powers to the Congress, and to impose the will of the people on that 
body.

Congresswoman Lee has sent her colleagues this letter, which we should each send 
them ourselves by email, fax, phone, carrier pigeon, and by nailing it to their 
cathedral doors:

    "Dear Colleague:

      "Please join me as an original cosponsor of the 'Repeal of the
    Authorization for Use of Military Force Act of 2011.'  This legislation
    repeals the joint resolution providing overly-broad authorization to the
    President to use all necessary and appropriate force against those involved
    in attacking our nation and to prevent any future acts of international
    terrorism against the United States.
      "This broad authorization of force has had far-reaching implications which
    shake the very foundations of our great nation and democracy. It has been
    used to justify warrantless surveillance and wiretapping activities,
    indefinite detention practices that fly in the face of our constitutional
    values, extrajudicial targeted-killing operations, and an ever-growing and
    indefinite pursuit of an ill-defined enemy abroad.
    "We must repeal this authorization for use of military force, end the wars
    in Iraq and Afghanistan, and re-focus our energy and efforts into those
    actions which truly improve our national security, including developing
    emerging economies and diplomatic efforts.  Please join me as an original
    cosponsor of this legislation to remove this overly-broad blank check for
    war anytime, anywhere.
    "For more information or to cosponsor this measure, please contact Teddy
    Miller in my office at _teddy.miller at mail.house.gov_
    <mailto:teddy.miller at mail.house.gov> or 5.2661.
    "Sincerely,
    Barbara Lee
    Member of Congress"

The legislation itself is shorter than the above letter, powerful in its 
simplicity, approaching in fact the populist wisdom of the long-forgotten 
Kellogg-Briand Pact, and offering far more than a technical readjustment within 
a government rotten to its core.  At the risk of revitalizing the utterly 
discredited and poisonous notions of hope and change, I would suggest that this 
bill offers the nearest possible approximation of the time-altering repeal, not 
of a law, but of the past decade of collective insanity and self-righteous 
mass-murder.  Read this carefully:

    To repeal Public Law 107--40.
    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
    Ms. LEE of California introduced the following bill; which was referred to
    the Committee on _______
    A BILL
    To repeal Public Law 107--40.
    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
    States of America in Congress assembled,

    SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
    This Act may be cited as the ''Repeal of the Authorization for Use of
    Military Force''.

    SEC. 2. CONGRESSIONAL FINDING.
    Congress finds that the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law
    107--40; 50 U.S.C. 1541 note), signed into law on September 18, 2001, has
    been used to justify a broad and open-ended authorization for the use of
    military force and such an interpretation is inconsistent with the authority
    of Congress to declare war and make all laws for executing powers vested by
    the Constitution in the Government of the United States.

    SEC. 3. REPEAL OF PUBLIC LAW 107--40.
    Effective 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the
    Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107--40; 50 U.S.C. 1541
    note) is hereby repealed.

The AUMF is to be repealed here for two reasons: because Congress is 
Constitutionally bound to decide matters of war and cannot legally hand off that 
responsibility to its executive, and because Congresswoman Lee's tearful 
predictions when she stood alone against this madness a decade ago, and was 
subsequently obliged to hire security protection, have been proved right; the 
Authorization has been used and abused to an ever greater extent as an 
aggrandizement of executive power and a justification for the erosion of our 
civil liberties.  This proposal comes on the heels of a successful public push 
by RootsAction.org, the ACLU, and others to strip out of the 2012 Defense 
Authorization Act language that would have radically expanded, rather than 
repealed, the 2001 AUMF.
Of course, the sponsorship of this proposal by a handful of Congress Members, 
any number of them capable of losing their spine at the command of their 
parties' leaders, does not suggest the likelihood of quick passage.  But it does 
give a somewhat floundering peace movement a point around which to rally, 
educate, organize, and pressure.  Rather than joining Congressional progressives 
in lobbying the 12-member Super Congress, even for top priorities like ending 
the wars and moving the money to human needs, rather than focusing purely on 
appealing to an all-powerful president to end particular wars (important as that 
is), we have an opportunity here to shift the country away from both the idea of 
presidential war making and the idea, recognized now even by the /Washington 
Post/, of war without end, war as normality, with peace having become the state 
of affairs requiring particular justification.
As popular movements begin to bring nonviolent resistance to Washington, D.C., 
including this October ( http://october2011.org ) perhaps one appropriate 
measure would be the shutting down of the congressional offices of each member 
who has not yet joined the good Congresswoman from Oakland on this bill -- a 
step I'm sure she would never recommend to us and which it is not her role to 
recommend to us, but a step which morality requires of us as clearly as the 
blood of our innocent victims is crying out from continents day after day.

-- 

David Swanson is the author of "War Is A Lie"

http://rootsaction.org

http://warisacrime.org

http://davidswanson.org <http://davidswanson.org/>

http://facebook.com/pages/David-Swanson/297768373319

http://twitter.com/davidcnswanson

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