It seems quaint to note in the summer of 2020 that America’s global war on terror will soon enter the last year of its second decade. Yet it’s not something that the junior senator from Kentucky, who has long opposed it, is prone to forget — and though Rand Paul’s attempts to end it are misguided, he is not wrong about Congress’s dereliction of duty.
On Sept. 14, 2001, Congress passed — with only one dissenting vote — the authorization for the use of military force against those who had attacked the United States three days before. Since its passage, the U.S. has conducted drone strikes and commando raids throughout most of the Islamic world, and in Afghanistan, the U.S. has waged the longest war in its history. All of this has had the consent of Congress because of the resolution passed just after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Paul tried and failed Wednesday to revoke that authorization. His amendment to the bill authorizing spending for the 2021 defense budget would also have required the Pentagon to devise an orderly withdrawal strategy from Afghanistan and award all military who fought in that war a bonus of $2,500.