Senate rejects new war authorization amendment

  The headline might be a little misleading at first glance. Rand Paul was spearheading an effort to add an amendment to the defense bill which was designed to bring the war-making power back to the Congress where it belongs, but it was defeated by a large margin.

  Here is more:

The Senate on Wednesday rejected a bipartisan push for a new war authorization against the Islamic State and other terrorist groups, electing to let the White House rely on a 16-year-old law passed after the Sept. 11 attacks as the legal basis to send U.S. troops into combat.

Senators voted 61-36 scuttle an amendment to the annual defense policy bill by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., that would have allowed war authorizations, created in the wake of al-Qaida’s 9/11 strikes, to lapse after six months. Paul, a leader of the GOP’s noninterventionist wing, said Congress would use the time to debate an updated war authority for operations in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere before the old ones expired.

  This was not an attempt to end the war in the Middle East but rather an attempt to hold the Senate responsible for any continued war in the Middle East. Here is more on that:

Paul criticized his colleagues ahead of the vote, urging them to embrace their war-making responsibility instead of surrendering their power to the White House. He and senators who backed his amendment said former President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump have used the war authorizations from 2001 and 2002 for military operations in countries that Congress never voted to support.

“We are supposed to be a voice that debates and says, ‘Should we go to war?’ It’s part of doing our job,” Paul said. “It’s about grabbing power back and saying this is a Senate prerogative.”

  Personally I believe the Senator from Kentucky is 100% right because the Constitution gives war-making power to the Congress but that responsibility has been abdicated.

  But of course there was no way the Senate was going to vote in the affirmative on an amendment which would ultimately hold them responsible for further action in the Middle East when they could let the policy which is already in place remain in place. They do not want to go on record but would rather let Donald Trump make these decisions and then either support his decision or complain about his abuse of power. 

malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium