Political Quotes

“I thank Congresswoman Lee. We are all grateful to you for being so clear and so principled. As I have often said, Congress must fulfill its constitutional obligation to consider an updated AUMF, and as my colleagues said, that stands for the Authorization for the Use of Military Force. Right now, the administration is still using the authorization we passed after September 11, 2001, in the legal justification to fight ISIS. That is deeply problematic. The 2001 AUMF has none of the limits many of us are seeking. We are a Congress. We are not a rubber stamp to any President. We have a right to vote on issues such as war and peace. U.S. leadership to defeat ISIS is critical, but this doesn't require a large-scale deployment of U.S. forces. With American leadership, we were able to prevent the wholesale slaughter of the Yazidi people. Iraqi partners were able to maintain control of the Mosul Dam, which, if breached by ISIS, could have resulted in death and displacement of up to 2 million people and endangered American personnel in Iraq. With our support, local forces have taken back about 80 percent of the territory from ISIS in Iraq and Syria. So another large-scale, open-ended commitment of American troops is certainly not the answer. The disastrous intervention in Iraq last decade set the stage for the rise of ISIS in the first place. The 2001 AUMF has no limits at all on U.S. ground troops.…”