The Republicam Congress Should Send Back to President Obama A New Authorization For the Use of Military Force

The Republicans Should Give President Obama a Real Military Force Authorization – Not the One the President Wants. President Obama sought authorization from Congress for the use of military force (AUMF) against ISIS, ISI, IS at the same time he claims he doesn’t need a new AUMF. He believes he has the Republicans stuck on the horns of a dilemma. He sees a Win-Win for the Democrats and a Lose-Lose for the Republicans. He knows the public will not support a political party, which fails to back a President when military force is necessary to protect the American people. The AUMF he seeks is so limiting that it could fail, making Republicans partners in the disaster. He believes the Republicans will lose either way. The Republicans should throw the dilemma back on him. He has outsmarted himself on the AUMF. The President argues the 2001 and 2002 AUMF’s presently give him the authority he needs to wage his limited war against ISIL The 2001 AUMF was broadly worded while the 2002 Resolution authorized the War against Iraq. He seeks to rescind the 2002 AUMF and replace it with a weak one, which would be limited to three years. It would allow air and special forces operations, but prohibit an “enduring offensive ground combat operation,” whatever that undefined, ambiguous term means. His proposed AUMF lists a number of aggrieved ethnicities and religions suffering under ISIL, but he leaves out the Jews in the list of victims. This omission is either intentional or Freudian. Either way it reflects the latent anti-Semitism of the Obama Presidency. The Peacenik Wing of the Democratic Party opposes the President’s proposed language as granting too much power to the President to wage war, but many influential Democratic Senators think it’s too weak. The President wishes to impose an artificial deadline, as he did with the Iraqi and Afghanistan wars. Wars are over when both sides agree or one side unilaterally withdraws. The Iraqi War never ended. The premature withdrawal is drawing America back in. If the Congressional Republicans are wise, they will turn the table on the President on a bi-partisan basis by approving an AUMF broader and stronger than the President wants. The revised AFUM should provide for the use of all necessary force as long as necessary. Put the President on the horns of the dilemma. If he vetoes it, then he and the Peacenik Democrats will pay at the 2016 polls. If he signs it, then the country wins. The Republicans should include an open-ended period, allow for the use of any necessary force with no time limit. The new AUMF should include riders, such as maintaining the fleet of A-10 Warthogs and restrictions on the release of additional prisoners from GITMO. Of course, the President will not use the broad authority to wage war against the radical Islamic terrorists if he signs the Bill, but his successor will. The AUMF is about the future – just not his future.