“Section 2 – Authorization for Use of United States Armed Forces

1. IN GENERAL- That 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.”^[1]

(Excerpt taken from the text describing the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) Proclamation, which became a law on 18^th September 2001 in the United States)

I presume the time is right to speak about US imperialism, following the crisis in Palestine. I refuse to call it a bilateral conflict rather I would like to describe it as unilateral aggression on the part of Israel, a belligerent state right from its inception. It’s sad to note how quickly the Jews have forgotten the persecution and emerged as persecutors on their own, slowly and successfully devouring up an entire nation over the last seventy years with impunity. The nation of Palestine now exist as a collection of fragmentary illusions entrenched and encircled deeply by the Zionist regime with the West standing in full solidarity with the aggressors.

However this article is not about the conflict in the Middle East. The context is used to highlight the role of the US and its mindset of interfering with each and every social, political or economic crisis, at every instant, at every nation, even when she is unasked and uninvited. The United States of America gives much importance to right and wrong, talks a great deal about social justice, equality, freedom, human rights and what-not; she sells herself as the champion of social liberties and claims herself to be one of the most rational, most liberal and most equal societies in the world, which establishes her right to be the moral policeman of the millennium. But one must refuse to accept.

I believe that as being the permanent member of the UN Security Council, Russia’s act of regularly vetoing out the resolutions which were drafted to call for peace and ceasefire in Syria or Ukraine must be condemned; one must also unequivocally condemn the United States for vetoing out a resolution that called for a humanitarian pause of violence in Palestine on 18^th October, 2023^[2]. Let us now try to go back in time to consider the instance when the US government passed an act (which fully justifies its mindset as an ever-belligerent, violent, and inquisitive nation) with a resounding majority in both the houses of the parliament, but stopped short of a unanimous majority due to the Afro-American lawmaker from California who was black, and who was a woman. She was the lone person to challenge and dissent the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) Act of 2001, which became a law on 18^th September 2001, following the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York.

The nation was in fear. The thirst for revenge was high, and as Barbara Lee spoke about it often “it is never the right time to take a strong decision when you are not in the right mind to think or act rationally.” In other words, when one is angry, sad, fearful, traumatized or in absolute shock against some highly emotional events occurring at that instant, one must not initiate any immediate action on one’s part, which has the potential to influence decades of lawmaking and the conventions surrounding them, particularly when they are in high office and has the mandate to wield authority over people.

Following the terror attack of 9/11, President George W. Bush proposed the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) proclamation of 2001, which gave an overall authority to the president to order and execute military operations throughout the world with zero credibility whatsoever for their outcomes. The introduced bill was overwhelmingly passed in both the houses, the Senate and the House of Representatives, with a margin of 98-0 and 420-1 respectively^[3], with two senators and ten representatives abstaining from the process. Barbara Lee, the Afro-American democrat representative from the state of California became the lone dissenter, and she remains an outspoken critic of the Act till today.

Let us briefly talk about the aftermath when Barbara Lee emerged as the lone dissenting lawmaker against the AUMF in 2001. Her mailbox was flooded with hate mails, she continued to receive hundreds and thousands of threat calls on her phone and she willingly accepted everything. She knew at that time when emotions were running high throughout the nation, it will not allow a rational voice to speak. But she did what she could on her part and registered her lone opposition against the proposal, which she thought was to emerge as a notorious weapon and will later be perceived as a blank cheque to the presidency of the United States for the use of military action against any individual or state throughout the globe. She reiterated her dissent time and again through different platforms forcefully to establish the fact, a single individual can never be entrusted with such an authorizing power, using which one can wage war literally at his whims without any need to show or supply any credible information justifying one’s allegations.

Not only did her dissent drown, the upcoming presidents of the United States continued to use the AUMF to authorize and execute ‘pre-emptive’ action against individuals and states, whenever they felt necessary, accounting for hundreds if not thousands of deaths throughout the world. According to a report published in 2017, AUMF has been used to allow military deployment in Afghanistan, the Philippines, Georgia, Yemen, Djibouti, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Iraq, and Somalia^[4]. Even under the presidency of Barack Obama, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and also a ‘perceived’ global champion for human rights, the US Congress under his leadership affirmed presidential authority for indefinite detention under the AUMF and made specific provisions so as to exercise the same^[5]. Under the present Biden administration, airstrikes against Somalian terrorists were authorized using the AUMF, with majority of the sitting representatives supporting it for the sake of ‘global security and peace’ as usual^[6]. The congressional research service confirms, since its inception AUMF has been used 37 times in 14 countries. It has been evoked 18 times during the Bush administration and 19 times during the presidency of the peace prize laureate Barack Hussein Obama, which quantitatively highlights the fact that in terms of belligerence, the mastermind of ‘Iraq’, George W. Bush (note: the Iraq war was later termed as a ‘bad war’ by Obama) and his successor, the messenger of peace and harmony, undoubtedly the ‘people’s champion Barack’, unfortunately both of them stand absolutely at par with each other when it comes to show off their military power to the globe. Violence begets violence. We always seem to forget this message, which Barbara Lee tried to remind her colleagues time and again over her career, but ultimately the call fell to deaf ears leading to an onslaught of abject misery and hardships.

The US abruptly ended their misadventure in Afghanistan and straightway deserted the country at the mercy of Taliban, which also created a deep sense of hatred and disbelief amongst the Afghan population against the Americans. As the Trump administration hastily withdrew their presence from Afghanistan and even explicitly held talks with the Taliban for a smooth transfer of power, although it was dubbed as a ‘peace initiative’, the democratically elected Afghan government was sidelined in these meetings; and a section of the extremist leaders also mocked the proposal of their leaders sitting in parley with the Afghan government, by saying, “one cannot talk with a puppet which will fall the moment Americans are off!” Another woman activist, Afghan civil rights defender Fawzia Koofi held her head high through these turbulent times and tried her best to participate in the talks with the Taliban as a female voice, raising her concerns for one last time against the Talibs, against the US as well, for backing off abruptly, and also against the international press in order to call out their inability and ineptitude for failing to report more over the cause of Afghanistan, and to ask the world for a solution.

Born into a polygamous family of seven women, Koofi was first rejected by her parents because of her gender. Her father had married a younger woman and her mother sought to have a son to maintain her husband's affection. The day Koofi was born she was left out to die in the sun. In 2020, Fawzia Koofi was a part of the 21-member team, which was supposed to represent the Afghan government in the negotiated ‘peace talks’ with the Taliban. On 14 August 2020, she was shot in an assassination attempt near Kabul, while she was returning from a visit to the northern province of Parwan with her sister^[8]. Still she managed to attend the talks and register her concerns in front of the international media but with little success as the US forces soon withdrew and the Talibs captured Afghanistan.

AUMF by definition cannot be matched with imperialism. But it shows the extent to which militarism still exists and determines global political posturing and also the extent to which the first world countries are willing to go in order to expand their social, political and economic hegemony over the others. Be it Ukraine or Syria, be it Palestine or any other country, the first world nations will choose their ‘aggressors’ as per their political requirement and safely term the other stakeholder of the conflict as ‘aggressed’, to wage war for eternity. They don’t look for solutions. Rather they aim to keep the conflicts alive, to monetarily benefit from the arms race thus evolves, and to exploit the conflict-torn region for excavating natural resources at throw away prices.

Voices like Barbara Lee and Fawzia Koofi are seldom raised, and they drown with time – but their very presence confirms, the ability of oneself to stand for human rights, as well as for womens’ rights and for all the other rights of the oppressed throughout the globe. It never matters for the woman to stand up and speak, as long as she has the conviction herself to speak for the greater truth. With each such effort we inch towards betterment. It’s always laborious and time-consuming to bring about real change, and bring down the tyrants, but without the soldiers like Lee and Koofi, one wouldn’t even have progressed so far, as where we stand today. Let us raise our voice today for equality, liberty and fraternity and call out the hypocrites of the First World who remain the players of aggression, even in this new millennium which stands for truth and transparence.

In the name of all those who are ‘aggressed’ and in the name of truth, LET US ALL UNITE!

References

[1] www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-107publ40/pdf/PLAW-107publ40.pdf

[2] https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/18/europe/us-veto-security-council-israel-gaza-war-intl/index.html

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Military_Force_of_2001

[4] https://www.businessinsider.in/defense/congress-may-repeal-the-post-9/11-act-the-us-military-used-to-justify-the-fight-against-isis/articleshow/59375785.cms

[5] Mian, Rashed “2001 AUMF: The Controversial Truth Behind America's Never-Ending War”, Long Island Press, Morey Publishing, 2012

[6] https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/27/democrats-biden-somalia-airstrike-500916

[7] https://sgp.fas.org/crs/natsec/pres-aumf.pdf

[8] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/16/female-afghan-peace-negotiator-wounded-in-assassination-bid

Writer : Researcher,  Essayist, Short Story Writer

Picture : Collected