UPDATE: Already, the most common comment to this diary is “everyone knows” what the resolution did. “Everyone knows” is tea-party logic. What matters is not what you think everyone (seriously, everyone?) knows. Go back and read the debate. Read the Resolution, in conjunction with the UN Resolutions to which it refers. And if that is too much for you, read the books. Or cite national security/congressional experts on what the AUMF did if this diary is wrong. However, unless you can do anything other than say “everyone knows,” realize that you are simply reinforcing the point: people have confidence in “knowledge” that is based on lack of information.
P.S.: I voted for Sanders. I just hate spin over facts.
One of the most frustrating things for me (except for those people who proudly proclaim they will refuse to vote) is people writing about the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force Resolution — the thing they use to slam Hillary Clinton as a warmonger. What makes it so hard for me is the number of people who confidently beat their chests about what happened but, through their statements, reveal that they have no idea what the AUMF was or what it did. There are lots of books about this. I encourage folks to read them.
(An aside: This is not about defending Hillary per se. It is about trying to get people who, if they want to criticize her for her vote, to do so based on reality, not misunderstandings.)
The biggest problem with most of the people who write about this vote is that they don’t read the AUMF and don’t know what the legal status of presidential authority was without it. First, the AUMF had no actual power of law. It was a resolution. From the time it was adopted, every president has rejected the War Powers Resolution (again, a resolution, not a law, which is a huge difference. Most people ignorantly call it the War Powers Act without realizing that changes the entire essence of what it is.) as a encroachment of the executive branch’s constitutional power — which it is. As a resolution, it has no enforceable grant of power to Congress. In fact, in INS v. Chada, the only major litigation to delve into issues raised by WPR, Kennedy-appointed Justice Byron White made clear that the essence of the WPR, 50 USC 1544(c), constitutes an unconstitutional legislative veto. That is why whenever Congress passes something regarding to the WPR it always says it is “consistent with” rather than “pursuant to” the resolution; no White House has agreed to accept “pursuant to” because that would be a presidential recognition of its authority.
Doesn’t Congress have the constitutional power to declare war? Yup. However, for decades, that has been treated as a mere technicality: Congress can DECLARE war, but only the executive can order the military into action. The declaration, as a result, has been treated as basically the power to call something war. That is why there has been no declaration of war since 1942 (against Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania) — presidents have called them “the use of military force.” Technically, America has had no “wars” since 1942. That is also why the Iraq vote is about the Authorization of the Use of Military Force, not the Declaration of War.
So why have the WPR at all? Because neither side wants to be going to the courts and have this argument in the midst of a military conflict. The WPR is more about cover; that’s why the AUMF was not passed as a law or a declaration (which the WPR would seem to require) but as a resolution.
Why did Bush want it? If you read any of the books about these events (Fiasco and 500 Days are good ones) it is made clear that this also was about political cover — Bush wanted to neuter political opposition to the possibility of an attack he was already planning to launch yet was pretending he was willing to negotiate.
Why did Democrats approve it? Some because of the circumstances of the time. However, if you actually READ THE DEBATE rather than just summaries of summaries of summaries of summaries by people who saw something on television said by a talking head, it was about RESTRICTING Bush. Without AUMF, there was no enforceable legal restriction on Bush from launching a war. (Of course, there wasn’t after the AUMF either — there was just a Congressional expression of commitment that he should pursue non-lethal means first.) The critical section in the AUMF was RESTRICTIVE, not a grant of power. It stated that, before taking military action (which congress had no authority to stop) Bush had to certify that he had determined diplomatic and peaceful means to bring Iraq into compliance with UN resolutions would not work without force. (As always, the AUMF said it was “consistent with.” Bush refused to allow it to say “pursuant to.”)
In other words, what the AUMF said was “you can use military force (which you can use anyway) but FIRST you have to determine that peaceful means won’t work.”
The AUMF served what was portrayed as its purpose: Saddam, concerned about a military intervention, let the UN Weapons Inspectors back in. By the spring of 2003, they determined — but not with final certainty — that there were no weapons of mass destruction. They asked for Bush and the UN to hold off from launching any military action until the fall of 2003, at which point they could give a definitive answer.
At which point came the biggest scum move in history. Bush said “screw you” to the inspectors. He sent the worthless piece of paper to the Congress saying peaceful means wouldn’t work. He revealed that the entire AUMF had been a con job to convince people who don’t pay attention that Congress was on his side. He launched military action in the spring of 2003, fast enough to ensure that the UN (and the IAEA) couldn’t deliver a final or more detailed determination that Saddam was in compliance with UN Resolutions.
Was Hillary and all the other democrats (and even some Republicans) who voted for the AUMF suckered? Yup. Did it work? Yup — look at all the people on dailykos who don’t know that the AUMF was about RESTRICTING Bush in exchange for giving him political cover to take action. No one assumed the president of the United States would just flat out lie. (And, as always, because it was a resolution, no one had the authority to challenge Bush. Plus, there was no means under Constitution or law that said any other branch of government had the power to determine whether the pursuit of peaceful resolution had been followed in good faith.)
Yes, there were those in Congress who saw through the con job (or maybe weren’t bright enough on the law to know what the AUMF actually did or who didnt understand that the WPR had legal authority or didn’t want Bush to have political cover.) But the “Hillary wanted war, look — she voted for the AUMF” meme is just stupid. Her failing was that she didn’t realize what unmitigated liars Republicans are. I doubt she will make that mistake again.