Tillerson Appears Before Senate Foreign Relations Committee to Re-up More Open-Ended War

U.S. Secretary of State and former Exxon CEO, Rex Tillerson appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee late yesterday to give the Trump Administration’s perspective on the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed by Congress in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon. The Secretary’s appearance before the Committee follows recent grumblings in Washington to repeal the 2001 AUMF, which has been the legal basis for ever-expanding American military escapades around the globe in the 21st Century.

Predictably, Secretary Tillerson invoked the same “war on terror” fear-mongering used by the Bush and Obama Administrations to justify the continued authority of the AUMF. He stated that the “2001 AUMF remains a cornerstone for ongoing U.S. military operations” to prosecute campaigns against the Taliban, al-Qaida, and associated forces, including ISIS. Tillerson further suggested that repeal of the AUMF, without first replacing it with another AUMF, could cause “operational paralysis and confusion” in U.S. military operations and cause U.S. allies in the “Global Coalition” to question U.S. commitment to defeating ISIS.

The 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Terrorists granted the President the authority to use all “necessary and appropriate force” against those whom he determined “planned, authorized, committed or aided” the September 11th attacks, or who harbored said persons or groups”. The measure has effectively ceded Congress’s constitutionally mandated role as sole authority for waging war to the Oval Office. The previous two administrations used it as legal cover to wage unprovoked war across the Middle East and into Northern Africa.

The fact that Tillerson is a career oil man making a pitch to defend a measure that has been used to further entrench U.S. neocolonialism in the oil rich Middle East should not be lost on anybody. But Tillerson’s appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to defend the AUMF signals that the Trump Administration is concerned about a rebellion inside the beltway against the imperial presidency created under George W. Bush and normalized under Barack Obama.

Secretary Tillerson’s appearance before the Committee also shows that the Trump Administration is trying to get ahead of the game by laying some groundwork for a new AUMF. Probably an AUMF which would likely centralize even more power in the presidency than has already occurred since 9/11. Tillerson’s statements also provide yet another example of the Trump Administration’s commitment to the same globalist interests that Donald Trump railed against during his 2016 presidential campaign.

For more, see the State Department press release Opening Remarks Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the Authorizations for the Use of Military Force: Administration Perspective.

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Image credit U.S. Department of State public domain via Flickr