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View Full Version : Congress calls Tillerson, Mattis to testify in war powers debate




Swordsmyth
10-20-2017, 09:23 PM
With the Afghanistan War in its 17th year and U.S. troops spread across the globe to combat terrorism (https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/06/06/text-letter-president-speaker-house-representatives-and-president-pro), the Senate took a step late Thursday toward reviving the post-9/11 debate over where, when, how, why and on whose authority young Americans should go off to war. Those questions have new importance in the aftermath of the ambush that claimed the life of four U.S. servicemen in Niger.The Senate Foreign Relations Committee announced that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis would testify at an Oct. 30 hearing on the Sept. 18, 2001, Authorization for the Use of Military Force (https://www.foreign.senate.gov/hearings/the-authorizations-for-the-use-of-military-force-administration-perspective) (AUMF). That legislation greenlighted the invasion of Afghanistan and has been used by successive presidents as the legal justification for the global war on terrorism. (Technically, the question-and-answer session will also cover the 2002 AUMF that helped set up the invasion of Iraq, but that legislation plays a less consequential role in 2017.)
“As we face a wide array of threats abroad, it is perhaps more important than ever that we have a sober national conversation about Congress’s constitutional role in authorizing the use of military force,” said Sen. Bob Corker, R.-Tenn., the committee’s chairman.

More at: https://www.yahoo.com/news/amid-niger-questions-congress-calls-tillerson-mattis-testify-war-powers-debate-185234902.html