Senate Leader Surprises Lawmakers with New ISIS War Powers Request

[flowers]

http://www.defenseone.com/politics/2016/01/senate-leader-surprises-lawmakers-new-isis-war-powers-request/125303/?oref=d-river

Neither Republicans nor Democrats knew the majority leader planned to set up a debate on authorizing the use of force against the Islamic State.

    Congress
    /
    ISIS

Sen­ate Ma­jor­ity Lead­er Mitch Mc­Con­nell offered mem­bers a snow-week­end sur­prise late Wed­nes­day night: Quietly tee­ing up a de­bate on the leg­al un­der­pin­ning for the fight against IS­IS.

After months of wor­ry­ing that such a res­ol­u­tion—known as an au­thor­iz­a­tion for the use of mil­it­ary force—would tie the next pres­id­ent’s hands, Mc­Con­nell’s move to fast-track the meas­ure sur­prised even his top deputy, Sen­ate Ma­jor­ity Whip John Cornyn, who was un­aware that Mc­Con­nell had set up the au­thor­iz­a­tion.

“He did?” Cornyn asked Na­tion­al Journ­al on Thursday morn­ing.

The AUMF put for­ward by Mc­Con­nell would not re­strict the pres­id­ent’s use of ground troops, nor have any lim­its re­lated to time or geo­graphy. Nor would it touch on the is­sue of what to do with the 2001 AUMF, which the Obama ad­min­is­tra­tion has used to at­tack IS­IS des­pite that au­thor­iz­a­tion’s in­struc­tions to use force against those who planned the 9/11 ter­ror­ist at­tacks. By con­trast, the leg­al au­thor­ity put for­ward by the ad­min­is­tra­tion last Feb­ru­ary wouldn’t au­thor­ize “en­dur­ing of­fens­ive ground com­bat op­er­a­tions” and would have ended three years after en­act­ment, un­less reau­thor­ized.

After sit­ting on the pres­id­ent’s pro­posed AUMF for nearly a year, amid deep in­fight­ing in the Sen­ate over the meas­ure, Mc­Con­nell’s move came as a sur­prise to many mem­bers. Just in Decem­ber, Mc­Con­nell dis­missed the idea of bring­ing up a new au­thor­iz­a­tion, telling re­port­ers: “It’s clear the pres­id­ent does not have a strategy in place, so it would be hard to fig­ure out how to au­thor­ize a non-strategy.”

Don Stew­art, Mc­Con­nell’s spokes­man, said Thursday in an email that the new AUMF “is not the one the [p]res­id­ent asked for” and “not one that would tie the [p]res­id­ent’s hands.”

[HAPPY2BME]

The AUMF put for­ward by Mc­Con­nell would not re­strict the pres­id­ent’s use of ground troops, nor have any lim­its re­lated to time or geo­graphy. Nor would it touch on the is­sue of what to do with the 2001 AUMF, which the Obama ad­min­is­tra­tion has used to at­tack IS­IS des­pite that au­thor­iz­a­tion’s in­struc­tions to use force against those who planned the 9/11 ter­ror­ist at­tacks. By con­trast, the leg­al au­thor­ity put for­ward by the ad­min­is­tra­tion last Feb­ru­ary wouldn’t au­thor­ize “en­dur­ing of­fens­ive ground com­bat op­er­a­tions” and would have ended three years after en­act­ment, un­less reau­thor­ized.

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OK, so it is an election year and Obama bites McConnell's war solution to 'attack ISIS' on the other side of the planet.

Obama launches a major troop deployment to the region, which would get off the ground sometime around May or June if it passed both houses and Obama puts his pen to it.

WHO.  WHO is going to benefit from this?  Is it the Republican running for POTUS or Hillary Clinton?

[massadvj]

=====================================

OK, so it is an election year and Obama bites McConnell's war solution to 'attack ISIS' on the other side of the planet.

Obama launches a major troop deployment to the region, which would get off the ground sometime around May or June if it passed both houses and Obama puts his pen to it.

WHO.  WHO is going to benefit from this?  Is it the Republican running for POTUS or Hillary Clinton?

It is hard to see how anyone benefits unless he gets some sort of quick victory and then pulls out.

[HAPPY2BME]

It is hard to see how anyone benefits unless he gets some sort of quick victory and then pulls out.

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If it 'worked,' Obama would take credit for it and pass it on to Hillary.

If it 'failed,' Obama would blame the GOP for it and NOT pass it on to Hillary.