Tuesday, July 14, 2020

AUMF has been used in 41 American wars

Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Sheldon S. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly wiki edit

Rep. Barbara Jean Lee
UC Berkeley graduate, Army Peacemaker of One Barbara Jean Lee is the U.S. Representative for California's 13th congressional district now in her 12th congressional term, which started in 1998, as a member of the Democratic Party.

She gained national attention in 2001 (when George W. Bush played the part of president) as the only member of Congress to vote "no" on the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF), a catchall bill abused to start more wars than any other piece of legislation.

She stated that she voted no, not because she opposed military action, but because she believed the AUMF, as written, granted overly-broad powers to wage war to any president at a time (9/11) when the facts regarding the situation were not yet clear.

The Bush Crime Family (Roger Stone)
She "warned her colleagues to be 'careful not to embark on an open-ended war with neither an exit strategy nor a focused target'" [12].

It has no end date, no time limits, and keeps getting reaffirmed essentially without opposition as if some off-planet power were pulling strings, using the USA as the war arm of the planet, enriching it's military-industrial complex.

Rep. Lee explained:

"It was a blank check to the president to attack anyone [simply accused of possibly being] involved in the September 11 events — anywhere, in any country, without regard to our nation's long-term foreign policy, economic and national security interests, and without time limit. In granting these overly broad powers, the Congress failed its responsibility to understand the dimensions of its declaration. I could not support such a grant of war-making authority to the president; I believe it would put more innocent lives at risk. The president has the constitutional authority to protect the nation from further attack, and he has mobilized the armed forces to do just that. The Congress should have waited for the facts to be presented and then acted with fuller knowledge of the consequences of our action" [13].

This vote made nationwide news reports and brought about a large and extremely polarized response, with the volume of calls gridlocking the switchboard of her Capitol Hill office.

Although it appears to have reflected the beliefs of the majority of her constituents, the majority of responses from elsewhere in the nation were angry and hostile, some referring to her as "communist" and "traitor."

Many of the responses included death threats against her and her family [for being anti-death] to the point that the Capitol Police provided round-the-clock plainclothes bodyguards [13]. She was also criticized by politicians and in editorial pages of conservative-leaning newspapers, for example John Fund's column in The Wall Street Journal [14].

Don't worry about me. I'm an artist. Right, Deli Llama? - Yes, Dubya.
She was awarded the Seán MacBride Peace Prize by the International Peace Bureau in 2002 for that vote.

In her speech she quoted the Rev. Nathan D. Baxter, dean of National Cathedral: "As we act, let us not become the evil that we [claim to] deplore" [15].

On June 29, 2017 the House Appropriations Committee approved Rep. Lee's amendment to repeal the 2001 authorization for the use of military force that was the foundation of the U.S.'s post-September 11 military actions.

The amendment, if passed, would have required that the 2001 authorization for the use of military force be scrapped within 240 days [16].

Rep. Lee has initiated several attempts to repeal the authorization, but as of 2020 she has not been successful. More

"History has proven her right": Barbara Lee's anti-war push succeeds...
Jan. 10, 2020 Longtime pro-peace dissident California Representative Barbara Lee's name wasn't on the resolution... In the end, only eight moderate Democrats voted against the resolution. ...The repeal of the 2002 AUMF — which has justified Pentagon strikes in... More

No comments: