End the Endless Wars
Senator Dianne Feinstein
SF Office: (415) 393-0707
DC Office: (202) 224-3841
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Senator Kamala Harris
SF Office: (415) 981-9369
DC Office: (202) 224-3553
Sacramento Office: (916) 448-2787
LA Office: (213) 894-5000
San Diego Office: (619) 239-3884
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Speaker Nancy Pelosi
SF Office: (415) 556-4862
DC Office: (202) 225-4965
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Rep. Jackie Speier
San Mateo Office: (650) 342-0300
DC Office: (202) 225-3531
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Call Script
My name is __________. I am a constituent, and my zip code is _______. I am a member of Indivisible SF.
The Trump administration is threatening to start new wars against Iran and Venezuela using outdated AUMFs that were signed in the aftermath of 9/11. He is cutting Congress out of their Constitutionally mandated war powers and perpetuating endless war.
Therefore I urge the [ MOC] to:
[HOUSE]
Repeal the 2001 AUMF by co-sponsoring and voting for HR.1274.
Forcefully declare that military action in Venezuela is illegal without congressional authorization.
Reject the claim that AUMFs grant the President authority to strike against Iran.
[SENATE]
Repeal the 2001 AUMF by introducing and supporting legislation similar to HR.1274.
Forcefully declare that military action in Venezuela is illegal without congressional authorization.
Reject the claim that AUMFs grant the President authority to strike against Iran.
[Feinstein only] I also ask Sen. Feinstein to-sponsor and support S.J.Res.37 to halt unauthorized U.S. involvement in Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen.
Context
After the 9/11 attack in 2001, Congress enacted Authorizations for Use of Military Force (AUMF) to retaliate against Al Qaeda and to wage war in Iraq. But Congress never intended those AUMFs to be open-ended blank checks for presidents to unilaterally wage war across the globe in violation of both the Constitution and the War Powers Act of 1973. Yet now, 18 years later, they are still being used as the legal pretext for American combat operations in close to 20 nations around the world. Boys and girls who were born after those AUMFs were adopted are now fighting the endless wars they spawned.
For almost 18 years we've been mired in endless wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and many other nations. Now Trump & the Republicans are escalating their covert intervention in Venezuela by threatening armed intervention -- a new war. And they also now claim they have legal authority for military strikes against Iran which would inevitably cause yet another war. It's time for Congress to assert its Constitutionally-mandated war powers. It's time to end the endless wars.
Now the Trump administration is threatening to start new wars against Iran and Venezuela. It's time for Congress to call a halt to all of these endless wars.
Background:
Immediately after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, Congress enacted an AUMF that instructed the President "...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, ..." At the time, the AUMF was commonly understood to authorize military action against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and possibly Libya and Somalia. No where else.
In 2002, Bush-II convinced Congress to enact an AUMF authorizing military force to overthrow the government of Saddam Hussein. This led to the Second Iraq War and U.S. military operations that continue in Iraq to the present day. The 2002 AUMF has also been used as the legal justification of the American military presence in Syria.
According to a report by the Congressional Research Service published in 2016, the AUMFs have been cited 37 times in connection with military actions in 14 countries and on the high seas. Since that report was written in 2016, they have continued to be used as the legal basis military intervention around the world with U.S. military personnel deployed and equipped for combat in: Afghanistan, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Libya, Niger, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, Turkey, Uganda, and Yemen. And in ACLU v. NSA the AUMF has also been cited by the Department of Justice as its authority for engaging in electronic surveillance of Americans without obtaining a warrant form the special court as required by both law and the Constitution.
These armed interventions against an ever-increasing number of organizations, factions, and clans circumvent both the Constitutional mandate that only Congress can declare war and the War Powers Act which was enacted to prevent another undeclared war like Vietnam -- which the AUMF wars have now become at great cost in lives and treasure. It is morally indefensible and clearly illegal for a president to unilaterally deploy American troops into harms way for years on end without broad Congressional and public debate and support.
Now some of the war hawks in the Trump administration – possibly Bolton – seem to be signaling that they're thinking of claiming that the AUMF provides a legal basis for U.S. military strikes against Iran without further congressional authorization. Military strikes against Iran would be a huge, and catastrophic escalation with unforeseeable consequences. Meanwhile, Trump is asserting his willingness to intervene militarily in Venezuela to overthrow the current government and install one that he favors which is exactly the kind of unilateral presidential adventurism that the War Powers Act was enacted to prevent. U.S. military intervention in Venezuela will have its own repercussions, not the least of which will be a new flood of refugees like those now fleeing the political and economic crises in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala. Crises that to some degree were caused by previous American military and covert interventions that destabilized those nations.
Those who support continued use of the AUMFs argue that they have contained the spread of terrorism and made America safer. Yet when the AUMFs were passed the targets were Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan (neither of which has been eradicated). Now we're fighting in more than a dozen different nations against an ever-growing list of enemies many of whom have come into existence because of, rather than in spite of, our military-first diplomacy-never policies. Many military and diplomacy experts now argue that widespread drone strikes, secret ground attacks, and targeted assassinations, all hidden from public debate and shielded by the AUMF from Congressional oversight, have inflamed anti-American sentiment and resulted in enlarging and expanding terrorist organizations rather than weakening or containing them.
References
Presidential References to the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, Congressional Research Service, 5/11/16
The 2002 Iraq AUMF Almost Certainly Authorizes the President to Use Force Today in Iraq (and Might Authorize the Use of Force in Syria), LawFare, 2/13/14
Here's why authorization to use military force is so important, The Hill, 12/4/17
US at War in Seven Countries, DefenseOne, 3/15/18
Map of Current U.S. Counterterror War Locations, Watson Institute Brown Univ, as of end of 2014.
About that Trial Balloon on Using the 9/11 AUMF to Authorize U.S. Strikes on Iran, Just Security, 2/21/19
Trump, in risky gambit, ratchets up pressure on Venezuela as tensions flare at the border, Washington Post, 2/23/19