WASHINGTON, September 26 (RIA Novosti) - Relying on the 2001 authorization for use of military force in the war against the Islamic State is a bad model for the American government to do business and may lead to dangerous abuses by the executive, according to Stephen Vladeck, law professor at American University.
"The reason its not a good way to do business is because ...what stops the president from saying its Boko Haram tomorrow, the Irish Republican Army on Saturday, and on Monday the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union]?" Vladeck asked.
Speaking at the Heritage Foundation on Thursday, Vladeck answered his own questions saying, "Of course the answer is politics. The answer is politics will stop him. But that's not enough for me, and that shouldn't be enough for us."
President Barack Obama and his legal advisers have justified the wider military operation in Iraq and Syria since August 8 under the 2001 AUMF which authorized President George W. Bush to launch his War on Terrorism. Originally passed to apply to those who planned, authorized, aided or committed to September 11, 2001 attacks, the 2001 AUMF has been stretched to encompass affiliates of al-Qaeda or the Taliban.
"The [2001] AUMF is unusual in the history of use of force doctrines," said Vladeck. "Part of why it's unusual is because it has no endgame... it had no sunset, it had no geographic scope, it had no substantive goals, the accomplishment of which would cease the authority." For that reason, it becomes a useful tool for a president who "is looking for authority on which to rest uses of force, lest he provoke a constitutional crisis."
Currently there are multiple bills in the Congress seeking to give President Obama new authority against the Islamic State forces in the Middle East, as well as measures to revise the 2001 AUMF. Vladeck posed that not having a debate on a broader use of force in the 12 legislative days before they went on another recess, was an "abdication of constitutional authority by Congress."
