• OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    9 hours ago

    The War Powers Act of 1973 only requires the president to notify congress within 48 hours. The president only needs authorization it troops are deployed for longer than 60 days.

    The US drone strikes wherever it feels like, whenever it feels like. In fact, this was reaffirmed in one of the wiki pages you link in another comment:

    The authorization granted the president the authority to use all “necessary and appropriate force” against those whom he determined “planned, authorized, committed or aided” the September 11 attacks, or who harbored said persons or groups.

    Note that no specific country is mentioned in that, meaning that it gave the president complete, unilateral authority to determine which countries fell into that category and how to respond.

    Business Insider has reported that the AUMF has been used to allow military deployment in Afghanistan, the Philippines, Georgia, Yemen, Djibouti, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Iraq, and Somalia. The 2001 AUMF has enabled the US president to unilaterally launch military operations across the world without any congressional oversight or transparency for more than two decades. Between 2018 and 2020 alone, US forces initiated what it labelled “counter-terror” activities in 85 countries. Of these, the 2001 AUMF has been used to launch classified military campaigns in at least 22 countries.

    Even now, all Trump would have to do is say he determined that Venezuela at one point “harbored” someone connected to 9/11, there could even be truth to it! If someone tangentially connected at some point might possibly have passed through Venezuela without the government’s knowledge, that’s enough (not that we would even be told the reason). This insanity became the law of the land over 20 years ago, with near-unanimous bipartisan support, and it has survived multiple democratic presidents. Biden invoked it regarding Somalia as recently as 2021.

    Welcome to the paying attention club, glad you could join us, but this is absolutely not new.