In Consortium News,John Kiriakou, former CIA officer turned whistleblower, warns of a Senate bill that he says “gives Trump carte blanche for war.”
He’s talking about Senate Resolution 59, introduced by Senators Bob Corker (R-TN), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Tim Kaine (D-VA). The measure is intended to “provide an updated, transparent, and sustainable statutory basis for counterterrorism operations” against ISIS, Taliban, and al-Qaeda. Corker and Kaine want to give legal sanction to wars the U.S. has been waging unsuccessfully since 2001.
The first thing to note is that Sen. Resolution 59 is a non-binding measure. It is not legislation. So the the threat that is poses is not quite so dire as Kiriakou suggested. I don’t see anything in the resolution that justifies the imprisonment of war critics, as he fears. But he’s right to call attention to the key constitutional issue about wars that waged behind a shroud of official secrecy.
The current legal basis for U.S. military action in Syria, Iraq, and Africa, depends on a 2002 Authorization for the Use of Military Force against the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks, who have long since been dispersed or killed and who have no connection with ongoing wars in Syria, Iraq or Africa.
Indeed, in Syria, the followers of al-Qaeda, known as the al-Nusra front, and the United States are not at war. They are both fighting against the Assad government. In other words, the AUMF of 2002 now authorizes the United States to fight on the same side as the ideological heirs of the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks. This twisting of language is the abdication of accountability.
In “War Without End,” a splendid piece about U.S. soldiers serving in Afghanistan and and Iraq in the Times Sunday magazine, C.J. Shivers of the New York Times, notes the obvious:
The policies that sent these men and women abroad, with their emphasis on military action and their visions of reordering nations and cultures, have not succeeded. It is beyond honest dispute that the wars did not achieve what their organizers promised, no matter the party in power or the generals in command.
So why authorize more of the same, asks Kiriakou?
He notes that Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC), the former chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and Barbara Lee (D-CA) protested the resolution in a May 15 letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“The Corker-Kaine proposal would further limit congressional oversight of our perpetual wars. Replacing one blank check with another even broader one is a recipe for disaster,” they wrote.
While conceding that some sort of military authorization is probably necessary, Jones and Lee added that any new bill must include a sunset clause; it must repeal the AUMFs of of 2001 and 2002, which also had no sunset clauses; it must be mission-specific; and it must be transparent.
On June 15, an amendment, proposed by Reps. Lee, Jones, Peter Welch (D- VT), to repeal the 2001 AUMF won 146 votes, but failed because 274 members voted against it.
The lopsided vote confirms that a majority of Congress has abdicated its constitutional duty to declare war. Reps. Jones and Lee are outnumbered by colleagues who still prefer to defer to the White House and the armed services, despite 17 years of failure and no prospects for any kind of victory. Given this record, President Trump already has carte blanche for war.
Source: Giving Trump Carte Blanche for War – Consortiumnews
