Political Quotes

“Madam President, Senator Paul has been relentless in doing something that has to be done, which is the revision of the AUMFs from 2001 and 2002. Yet there is sort of a simple notion that you cannot replace something with nothing, and we have nothing. This is 6 months of more time when, in the last 16 years, even at the request of a President, we have not been able to come together as a Senate. I don't know where the House is on this, but I think that it is equally befuddled in providing the kind of specific language we need for an AUMF. This would be a different debate and a different vote if we were to have before us an actual AUMF that would immediately supersede the existing authorities. Without such an AUMF, we are going to cause confusion, and we are going to cause disruption among our forces and our allies. In my having spent a little bit of time in the Service, when there is a possibility that in 6 months you will have to cease operations, you begin planning almost immediately for those operations. By the time we get around to actually even considering this--since I do not think there are any plans to do it immediately--we could see 3 or 4 of those months evaporate. With each passing day, the concerns about redeployment and repositioning and authorities become more pressing to the military.…”