[Peace-discuss] 10th anniversary of dubious military authorization

[C. G. ESTABROOK]

10th anniversary of dubious military authorization

By Michael Ratner, September 17, 2011
Ten years ago this Sunday, Sept. 18, the United States set itself on a  
destructive course.

That was the day President Bush signed the bill that Congress had just  
passed called the Authorization for Use of Military Force.

Ten years later, America’s use of military force is still going  
strong, with wars from Afghanistan to Pakistan, from Iraq to Yemen,  
and from Libya to the Horn of Africa.

Under this law, the president has unlimited power to use force against  
anyone in the world — that’s any nation, organization, person,  
associated forces and so forth who the president determines was in any  
way involved in the attacks of 9/11.

There’s no geographical limit. And there’s no time limit.

The president has that power forever. He (or someday she) can try to  
use it to support an entire domestic spying initiative contrary to  
established law, as we first learned in 2005.

That’s when it became known that Bush was authorizing the National  
Security Agency (NSA) to break the law that required warrants for the  
monitoring of the phone calls and e-mails of individuals and  
organizations inside the United States. At the time, it was a scandal  
for the NSA to be searching for evidence of terrorist activity minus  
the court-approved warrants required for domestic spying under the  
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.

Now, thanks to congressional amendments to the law in 2008, that  
previously unlawful activity has legal backing.

Like Bush before him, President Obama claims that the Authorization  
for Use of Military Force gives him the right not only to make war and  
kill people, but also to capture anyone he suspects of terrorism  
anywhere in the world and imprison them forever without trial.

Similarly, the Obama administration uses the authorization to defend  
its policy of using targeted killings against suspects in the so- 
called war on terror even if they are way outside a war zone — in  
addition to American citizens, such as in the case of Anwar al-Awlaki.

Obama ran for president on his record as a constitutional law  
professor and promised to return transparency and lawfulness to  
America’s governing structures. Now, unforgivably, he is embracing  
summary executions.

The Authorization for Use of Military Force was always an invitation  
to presidential abuse of power. We should withdraw it right away.

Michael Ratner is president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional  
Rights. He can be reached at pmproj at progressive.org.

http://www.progressive.org/military_authorization.html


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