Why would you seek a war authorization that specifically limits what you can do in fighting a worldwide, psychopathic enemy? But that’s exactly what Obama wants Congress to do. He wants to say his refusal to do everything possible to defeat the cancer of ISIS and Radical Islam is due to his hands being tied by the Use of Military Force, or AUMF, that this White House itself has written. And he wants it in force for 3 years, also tying the hands of the next president.
I contend this is the *only* reason Obama is finally pursuing the AUMF. Keep in mind, Obama has claimed the 2001 and 2002 AUMFs gave him the power to take on ISIS, we can see what the result of that has been. Having an AUMF for war is meaningless unless the president is willing to act on it. Obama will not. It’s just like how having health insurance is not the same as getting health care. Obama knows these games very well, so don’t be surprised if Congress passes this thing, that Obama returns to shooting up a few trucks and killing the individual ISIS scum every now and then. King Abdullah’s successful engagement of ISIS proves if Obama wanted to wipe out ISIS, he could. But, for some reason he doesn’t, and he wants to point to Congress as the reason why he does nothing of consequence. And he gets the bonus of tying the next president’s hands as well.
The Republicans hopefully understand this, and with their own rhetoric of “not wanting to tie the president’s hands” perhaps they understand what he’s doing here.
President Obama asked Congress Wednesday for formal authority to use the U.S. military to combat the Islamic State, calling the group “a grave threat to . . . the national security of the United States and its allies and partners.”
The request for a new Authorization for the Use of Military Force, or AUMF, marks the first time Obama has requested approval for military action in his six-year presidency and comes more than six months after the start of U.S. airstrikes against the Islamic State.
The authorization includes no geographic limitations, in keeping with the administration’s view that the group is seeking expansion beyond Iraq and Syria and with the Islamic State’s own claim to head a “caliphate” spanning the Muslim world.
It would give Obama the power to use military force “as the President determines to be necessary and appropriate” against the Islamic State or “associated persons or forces.”
The authorization would not permit “enduring offensive ground combat operations.” That provision refers to Obama’s pledge not to deploy ground troops in Iraq or Syria.
In an accompanying letter to Congress, Obama explained that the proposed legislation “would not authorize long-term, large-scale ground combat operations like those our nation conducted in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Instead, he said, it would “provide the flexibility to conduct ground combat operations in other, more limited circumstances,” including rescue operations or targeted attacks on Islamic State leadership.
In other words, codifying exactly what he’s doing now. Which is nothing of major consequence.
Don’t you think that this was the subject of his meeting with the Muslims this last week? To tell them, don’t worry about what I am going to do in asking for a military authorization. And after I do that regardless of what Congress does, I’ll announce an agreement with Iran. So then I’ll tell the American people and the world that with the authorization and the agreement, I have secured for the Middle East, Peace in our time. Okay, maybe something other than those 4 words, but similar.
Can somebody please shove a BIG cork in his pie-hole and sledge hammer it in so he cannot remove it. Pleasssseeee.
This guy is as brilliant a military tactician as LBJ and McNamutha. We’re sure to beat these freedom fighters like we did the last bunch in Vietnam.