Obama's major foreign policy speech today: he will establish rules for using drones in
his assassination program; and he wants congress to revise the Authorization
for Use of Military Force (AUMF) to authorize the U.S. government to use force
in "many" smaller battlefields, instead of just Afghanistan. Very sneaky, scary, horrifying
proposal. The AUMF limited the war to
al Queda and those who attacked us on 9/11.
A revision would expand it to authorize permanent war any place in the
world.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-outlines-new-rules-for-drones/2013/05/23/1b5918e6-c3cb-11e2-914f-a7aba60512a7_story.html?hpid=z1
A few days ago, an Obama administration official publicly
stated that the government's plan was to continue the U.S. Wars Against the
Middle East for an additional 20 years -- 30 years total. Today's speech hid the lead. Lots of promises to rein in the
assassination program, to release some prisoners from Guantanamo, but the lead
for this speech is today Obama is officially requesting congress to revise the
AUMF which was passed by Congress immediately after 9/11, and authorized war
against those who had attacked us on 9/11.
It's obvious that the AUMF has been stretched way beyond what was authorized
originally. Those who attacked us on
9/11, as far as we know, were al Queda, and al Queda was almost wiped out
before the U.S. helped strengthen them by sending money and weapons to the al
Queda affiliates in Libya and Syria.
Nonetheless, the AUMF is out of gas, and the wars must end. Everybody involved in the 9/11 attacks has
been killed, and it's time to end these wars.
Now what Obama wants Congress to do (and what most of Congress wants to do) is to revise the AUMF to say that the president has the authority to wage war against any individual anywhere, in any country, bomb any country, any time, if he thinks that person might be a threat to the U.S. This would eliminate the constitutional checks on war, would eliminate the ability of citizens to oppose wars, because the war would simply never end.
Our constitution does not give the president the authority
to take this country into war. Instead,
it specifically states that only congress has the authority to declare
war. Further, the only war authority
given to the federal government is to provide for the common defense, which
means they must defend this country.
They were not given authority to start wars of aggression against other
nations, or to go search the world to try to find a possible enemy, then start a war wherever that person
happens to live. Permanent war means a
permanent elimination of our civil rights as citizens.
This is Obama's biggest move, and the most dangerous one to
our nation. Everybody needs to oppose
this and write your senators and representatives to demand that they do not
revise or amplify the AUMF, but instead end the wars, end the AUMF, and bring
our troops home.
