My piece on the new AUMF proposal in Congress is up:
For critics, the bill would quietly sanction a "forever war" that has no clear military objective and that targets individuals with no ties the 9/11 attacks. Supporters counter that bin Laden's death doesn't negate the threat from al-Qaeda franchises and affiliated terrorist groups, and that the proposal would merely put the administration on firmer legal ground for what it is already doing. "This simply better aligns the original AUMF authority with the current threats and the current operations," says Josh Holly, Communications Director for the U.S. House Armed Services Committee.
Chris Anders, an attorney for the ACLU, says the legislation and the way in which it is being introduced, is unprecedented. "Congress is declaring war for the first time in 70 years, and it's being tucked away in the chairman's mark of a national defense authorization act as section 1034 of the bill," Anders says. "There's never been in AUMF or a declaration of war that's been tucked into another bill, these are monumental decisions the country makes."
So a couple of thoughts about this -- one, this should be something that Congress passes on its own. I also would prefer that it would be less nebulous than it is now -- I don't like the idea of simply expanding this kind of authority in a manner that just lets the president attack whomever he wants. It's really odd that after all the complaints about there being no declaration of war for operations in Libya, Congress is really just outsourcing its authority here.
Spencer Ackerman has some good thoughts from Karen Greenberg:
Greenberg doesn't dispute that the war on al-Qaida goes far beyond bin Laden. But before voting on an expansion of the war — beyond al-Qaida — “we need to absorb first what the death of bin Laden means,” she says. “We need to stop and think and re-think. The idea that we're going to keep reacting and not have a thoughtful time out is just unacceptable.”
Sure. Something like this has been floating around since the last administration. Although it's obvious the threat of terrorism hasn't ended, why not take a moment and rethink what we're doing before we just proceed as though nothing's changed?
Ben Wittes and Marcy Wheeler have more.
