Sens. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and Tim Kaine, D-Va., are renewing their push of a new Authorization of Military Force Against Terrorists, arguing that the original 2001 legislation is outdated.
“Bipartisanship is possible,” Kaine said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Thursday. “Strong resolve against ISIL, a balanced approach to some of the strategic questions … it should be about putting the weight of Congress in support of the troops who are over there battling this mission.”
“We’ve been at this sixteenth months now,” Flake added, referring to the American-led campaign against the Islamic State. “More than anything, this has metastasized. ISIS is not just in Syria and Iraq, they’re elsewhere. So I think that there’s a growing realization that we need to have this debate, and we need a war resolution.”
“I think there’s an increasing realization that even if we don’t need new legal authority, that it would be a message that needs to be sent to our adversaries, our allies, and most importantly to the troops who are fighting on our behalf,” Flake said.
Debate on national security issues has heated up in recent days, both in Congress and on the campaign trail, following Friday’s Paris attacks that killed 129 people, and have been attributed to the Islamic State.
The text of the original war authorization was passed in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and reads, “the president is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”
Defenders of the existing authorization often point to the fact that the Islamic State originally grew out of “al Qaeda in Iraq.”
