OBAMA ASKS CONGRESS TO AUTHORIZE WAR THAT’S ALREADY STARTED
As the U.S. continues to bomb the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, President Obama asked Congress today to approve a new legal framework for the ongoing military campaign.
The administration’s draft law “would not authorize long-term, large-scale ground combat operations” like Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama wrote in aletter accompanying the proposal. The draft’s actual language is vague, allowing for ground troops in what Obama described as “limited circumstances,” like special operations and rescue missions.
The authorization would have no geographic limitations and allow action against “associated persons or forces” of the Islamic State. It would expire in three years.
Speaking at New York University School of Law this afternoon, Harold Koh, the State Department’s legal adviser until 2013, said that the Obama administration is currently on shaky legal grounds, tying the airstrikes to a law passed days after 9/11.
Koh said that stretching the law like that is inconsistent with Obama’s stated goal of bringing the U.S. off of “perpetual wartime footing.” Acting without a new authorization from Congress “doesn’t promote the end of the ‘Forever War,’” Koh said.
Since August, the U.S. and other nations have carried out more than 2,300 airstrikes, according to data released by the U.S. military and compiled by journalist Chris Woods.
The administration currently justifies those airstrikes by invoking self-defense and the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force. Passed one week after the September 11th, 2001 and just 60 words long, that law in broad language gave the White House the power to go after anyone connected to the 9/11 attacks.
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