Congress needing to pass new war authorizations

As Americans observed the 16th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. military action continued across the greater Mideast under the same old authorizations that lawmakers passed into law in 2001 and 2002.

Far too much time has passed since those congressional authorizations for use of military force, or AUMFs. The world has changed. The battlefields have expanded. New enemies have arisen. It’s time to bring the AUMFs to an official end and vote on what to replace them with.

Unfortunately, given that opportunity to begin that work, Congress declined. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., forced a vote on the issue last week by threatening to scrap the amendments legislators wanted attached to the latest big defense bill. His opponents gave in, but they gained enough support to simply table his amendment to repeal the 2001 AUMF.

“We have fought the longest war in U.S. history under an original authorization to go after the people who attacked us on 9/11,” a frustrated Paul told his colleagues on the Senate floor. “That war is long since over,” Paul said, and it has been a long time since Congress has had a debate “over whether we should be at war or not. It is the constitutional role of Congress.”

Not everyone agrees, though. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., slammed Paul’s amendment as “premature” and “irresponsible,” even though he supports a new AUMF specific to the war against the Islamic State that the United States is already deep into waging.

Paul’s amendment wouldn’t have left our wars and our warriors hanging. It would have given Congress a six-month window within which new AUMFs could be deliberated, debated and passed properly into law — if the people’s representatives so chose.

It’s reasonable to claim that the U.S. can’t risk just walking away from the many conflicts now being fought under color of the old AUMFs. But, over the years, the number of such conflicts has approached 40, with no end in sight.

Lawmakers are seriously miscalculating the political winds — and their constitutional responsibilities — if they think they can table the matter indefinitely. Earlier this summer, the Republican-controlled House Appropriations Committee adopted an AUMF repeal measure introduced by Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif. That effort, too, was scuttled — after all, it was rather out of place, tacked onto a spending bill. Still, the depth of bipartisan support for facing up to the AUMF problem was put on stark display.

Voters and sympathetic lawmakers should keep the pressure on. It’s not as if a serious debate over the AUMFs will result in chaos and confusion on the field of battle, or a sudden stoppage of funds. In Congress, opposition to “endless war” isn’t extensive or extreme enough to trigger that kind of crisis. The firm consensus is in favor of adjusting policy in an orderly fashion.

But Americans know that some of the battles we’re fighting lack a clear legal connection to the military actions Congress approved 16 years ago. That’s bad for our legitimacy, damaging to our integrity and corrosive to our patriotism.

Sharp disagreements over the scope of our wars will continue for years to come. Waging those wars in a deliberate state of constitutional limbo should stop as soon as possible.