Dangerous Powers
A KEY SENATE COMMITTEE QUESTIONS THE PRESIDENT’S AUTHORITY TO BYPASS CONGRESS IN THE WAR ON TERROR.
by Robert Scheer
Finally, even that old hawk John McCain woke up to the fact that Congress had betrayed its Constitutional obligation after 9/11 by granting President George W. Bush and those who’d come after him unlimited executive power to take the nation to war. In panic over the devastating attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, what had seemed like a good idea in 2001 has been interpreted by Presidents Bush and Obama as authorization for a never-ending war against terrorism, free of any Congressional oversight.
In May of this year the Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing where highranking Defense Department officials asserted that the United States could wage war anywhere and anytime the president desired.
In response, Senator McCain (R-Arizona) warned: “This authority…is no longer applicable to the conditions that prevailed, that motivated the United States Congress to pass the authorization for the use of military force that we did in 2001. For you to come here and say we don’t need to change it or revise or update it, I think is, well, disturbing.”
What McCain was referring to was the fact that he and almost everyone else in Congress caught in the grip of post-9/11 hysteria had hastily voted to betray the essential wisdom of the separation of powers enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Without any serious debate over the historic consequences, the House of Representatives and Senate approved the “Authorization for Use of Military Force.” Basically a blank check, the 60-word paragraph stated: “That the president is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”
With that mandate, Congress destroyed the wall between the executive and legislative branches that the authors of the Constitution had so prudently enshrined in Article I, Section 8, Clause 11, which reserves to Congress the power “to declare War.” The president’s duty as commander-in-chief is to conduct that war and not to decide whether it should be undertaken.
But this past May, McCain and his colleagues were rudely reminded of the awesome power they had surrendered to the president as the aforementioned Defense Department officials calmly affirmed the obvious reality that President Barack Obama was no more obligated than George W. Bush to seek Congressional permission before taking the nation to war. The senators seemed genuinely shocked to be told of the consequences of Congress’s irresponsible action 12 years earlier.
The abrupt moment of truth for McCain and others at that Senate committee hearing came when Pentagon officials told the senators that the “Authorization for Use of Military Force” allowed the United States to now invade Syria or any other spot on the globe where the president could claim that terrorists were active.
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) had a question for Michael Sheehan, the assistant secretary of Defense who oversees special operations: “Would you agree with me, the battle field is anywhere the enemy chooses to make it?”
Not mincing his words, Sheehan replied, “Yes, sir, from Boston to FATA [Pakistan’s federally administered tribal areas].” He went on to testify that this power to intervene anywhere without Congressional approval would be needed for “at least ten to 20 years.”
“This is the most astounding and most astoundingly disturbing hearing that I’ve been to since I’ve been here,” bristled Maine’s independent Senator Angus King. “You guys have essentially rewritten the Constitution today. … Under your reading, we’ve granted unbelievable powers to the president, and it’s a very dangerous precedent.”
Dangerous indeed, as an almost-unanimous Congress should have realized when, blindly surrendering to fear, our nation’s law makers—including John McCain—thoughtlessly subverted the core meaning of the Constitution that they had solemnly pledged to uphold. It is time for Congress to make amends by annulling that dangerous carte-blanche authorization before a president takes us into the next dumb war.
