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Rand Paul puts Senate on record on Syria, war powers [1]

['Olivier Knox']

Date: 2023-12-12

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Welcome to The Daily 202! Tell your friends to sign up here. Israel has announced a new site at its southern border to screen aid for Gaza, amid calls by humanitarian groups for more aid as the humanitarian crisis worsens. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight The big idea Rand Paul puts Senate on record on Syria, war powers There were two little-noticed developments last week in the long, far-reaching, and frequently bitter national debate over who gets to decide when, where, how long American forces are sent into harm’s way, with what mission and under what constraints.

First, President Biden sent Congress his semi-annual letter to Congress , required under the War Powers Act of 1973, listing where “combat-equipped” U.S. troops are deployed in conflict zones (so think Yemen, not long-standing bases in Germany).

Second, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) forced the Senate to vote on whether to withdraw American forces from Syria, where they have come under frequent attacks by Iran-aligned groups since Hamas rampaged through Israel Oct. 7 and that U.S. ally retaliated by pounding Gaza.

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Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.). Paul’s resolution went down 13-84 . But it attracted an ideologically diverse group of supporters , from Sen.(I-Vt.) to Sen.(R-Ala.).

Congress has never voted to formally authorize the deployment in Syria.

Barack Obama said the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) against the perpetrators of 9-11 covered military action against the so-called Islamic State in Syria and therefore he Former presidentsaid the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) against the perpetrators of 9-11 covered military action against the so-called Islamic State in Syria and therefore he needed no additional congressional action.

Paul’s reasoning

The Daily 202 caught up with Paul by telephone yesterday to discuss the resolution, his purpose, whether he was surprised by the outcome (nope!), and whether he will try to keep this issue on the Senate’s docket in the future (yep!). Here is a condensed version of our conversation, edited for length and clarity.

D202: What was your goal in introducing the resolution?

I think that our service members, our young soldiers, men and women, deserve to have Congress vote on whether or not they should be deployed into war. Our founding fathers certainly thought so. But I think the last 50-100 years Congress has abdicated their role, they’ve punted to the administration. And by forcing this vote, now everybody’s on record. If a calamity happens like it happened in Beirut [ the 1983 barracks bombing ] the people who voted to have the troops in Syria will share that responsibility.

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There’s a military argument for not being there but there’s definitely a constitutional argument that if you’re going to be there, the legislature should vote on it.

D202: Were you surprised by the outcome?

Not really. [Paul pointed to an alliance on parts of the right and left that agree with him, while noting “most of the time it hasn’t been a majority.” He also said “the bipartisan consensus in foreign policy” in Washington is “very bellicose” and pointed to The Washington Post editorial board’s support for military operations overseas.] It’s sorta what we expected.

D202: To what do you attribute the bipartisan consensus against Congress taking a more active role in restraining or changing the terms of military entanglements abroad?

There have been people who were what I call good clear-thinking progressives that have agreed with libertarians on these issues. It used to be more so, and I think after the Trump years some of the coalition broke up and we haven’t had as many as we once had.

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I also think that you’ve seen some House members who’ve come forward and even mention the words “negotiate” and “Ukraine” and they’ve been pilloried by the left-wing media – and pilloried to such an extent that you don’t even see them talking about Ukraine anymore, because it was so unacceptable to talk about negotiation.

D202: Do you think you’ll do this again?

Part of it is to bring it back into the debate and to try to shame them. I think of it in very personal terms. I have a good friend whose son was just made a captain in the Marines and he’ll be on the ground in whatever war we go to. And, for goodness sakes, I’d hate to see someone that I know – or any young soldier – lose their life and there’d never been a discussion of what the mission was and no one ever voted to send him there.

The stakes are high

The names of the conflicts roll off the tongue: Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq again, Libya. But when’s the last time Congress embraced its constitutional responsibility to declare war, and against whom?

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It was 1942, against Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania.

Lawmakers have mostly relied on AUMFs. But in the case of Syria, there hasn’t even been that.

The stakes of the debate are especially high right now: America will decide next year who will be the military’s commander in chief.

Politics-but-not

What’s happening now

Inside COP28’s final hours

“As talks, scheduled to finish Tuesday, reached their final hours, negotiators were pulling all-nighters trying to bargain and compromise” after “a draft text released Monday night caused uproar over its weakened language on fossil fuels, with the Europeans calling it unacceptable, and one island nation negotiator reduced to tears,” Chico Harlan reports.

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So far, “Developed countries have fought furiously with a few oil-dependent nations, especially Saudi Arabia, on whether to call for a phase-down or phaseout of fossil fuels.”

U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said one of the prerequisites for success is consensus on a deal to eliminate fossil fuels, the root cause of rising global temperatures that have wrought devastation across the globe in the past year.

China’s cyber army is invading critical U.S. services

Hackers associated with China’s People’s Liberation Army have ramped up attacks on “key American infrastructure, including power and water utilities as well as communications and transportation systems, according to U.S. officials and industry security officials,” Ellen Nakashima and Joseph Menn report.

So far, the people said China has burrowed into the computer systems of about two dozen entities over the past year, including a water utility in Hawaii, a major West Coast port and at least one oil and gas pipeline. “The intrusions are part of a broader effort to develop ways to sow panic and chaos or snarl logistics in the event of a U.S.-China conflict in the Pacific,” our colleagues write.

Lunchtime reads from The Post

Pharmacies share medical data with police without a warrant, inquiry finds

“The nation’s largest pharmacy chains have handed over Americans’ prescription records to police and government investigators without a warrant, a congressional investigation found, raising concerns about threats to medical privacy,” Drew Harwell reports.

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The findings, revealed in a letter sent Monday evening to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, comes after a trio of Democratic senators began probing “the practice after the Supreme Court’s decision last year in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ended the constitutional right to abortion.”

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“Though some of the chains require their lawyers to review law enforcement requests, three of the largest — CVS Health, Kroger and Rite Aid, with a combined 60,000 locations nationwide — said they allow pharmacy staff members to hand over customers’ medical records in the store.”

'Problematic pockets’: How Discord became a home for extremists

“According to interviews with more than a dozen current and former employees, moderators and researchers, the company’s [Discord] rules and culture allowed a racist and antisemitic community to flourish, giving [Jack] Teixeira an audience eager for his revelations and unlikely to report his alleged lawbreaking,” Samuel Oakford, Chris Dehghanpoor, James O'Donnell and Shane Harris report.

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Teixeira is the young Air National Guard member from Massachusetts who allegedly shared top-secret intelligence documents and national security secrets on the platform for more than a year before being discovered.

“Discord allows anonymous users to control large swaths of its online meeting rooms with little oversight. To detect bad behavior, the company relies on largely unpaid volunteer moderators and server administrators like Teixeira to police activity, and on users themselves to report behavior that violates community guidelines”

… and beyond

Three months after Biden, it’s Xi’s turn to court Vietnam

“China’s leader, Xi Jinping, arrived in Vietnam on Tuesday for a relatively rare trip abroad, seeking to elevate ties with an important neighbor just three months after President Biden visited Hanoi on a similar mission,” Damien Cave reports for the New York Times.

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“Mr. Xi, analysts say, wants to test Vietnam’s intentions, seeking reassurances that it is not siding against China with the United States after Washington and Hanoi agreed in September to form a ‘comprehensive strategic partnership,’” a strong diplomatic status that Beijing reached with the highly independent nation 15 years ago.

“This is a very delicate dance for Vietnam’s government,” said Alexander Vuving, a professor at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu. “They have to dance on a very thin tightrope, and the tightrope has become even thinner.”

The Biden agenda

Inflation drops to 3.1 percent as Fed kicks off final meeting of 2023

“Fresh data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Tuesday showed prices rose 3.1 percent in November over the year before, and about 0.1 percent compared to October. That’s still higher than normal, but a vast improvement since the consumer price index peaked at 9.1 percent in June 2022,” Rachel Siegel reports.

The news “all but guarantees that the Federal Reserve will leave rates unchanged when officials gather for their final policy meeting of the year on Tuesday and Wednesday,” shrinking the chances that the economy is headed for a recession. Now, the Federal Reserve is charged with deciding whether it has reached the end of its rate-hike campaign — and whether it will cut rates in 2024.

Biden stays clear of calling for Ivy League presidents’ resignations

“Joe Biden has been nearly unequivocal in his support for Israel, but he’s trying to steer clear of a volatile conflict roiling his own party over whether presidents of elite colleges should lose their jobs for how they addressed antisemitic rhetoric,” Adam Cancryn reports for Politico .

His reluctance comes after the presidents of Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania “failed during a congressional hearing to decisively denounce calls for genocide against Jews as a violation of their campuses’ codes of conduct.”

“His White House has made clear he views the calls for genocide of Jews as out of bounds and has stressed that the university presidents should have said so," Adam writes. "But the president himself and his team are not joining the calls for resignations and have largely resisted speaking about the departure of Liz Magill, the president of the University of Pennsylvania, where Biden has a center in his name.”

Plan to bring Capitals and Wizards to Virginia, visualized

“A group of Virginia state lawmakers voted Monday in favor of a deal to bring the Washington Capitals and Wizards to a new arena in Northern Virginia, according to four people with knowledge of the situation,” Teo Armus, Laura Vozzella, Sam Fortier and Gregory S. Schneider report.

“The deal, if ultimately approved, would constitute a major economic development win for Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) after his party’s losses in last month’s state elections.,” but it could also “could amount to a crushing blow to D.C.’s struggling downtown.”

“Under the plan, which would still require approval from the full General Assembly and local officials, both teams would move to a new facility anchoring a massive mixed-use development in Alexandria’s Potomac Yard neighborhood, according to three of those people and four others.”

Hot on the left

California mayor flips Senate endorsement from Schiff to Lee, citing Gaza stance

“The mayor of Burbank, Calif., who had previously endorsed Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) in the competitive race for California’s U.S. Senate seat, announced Monday he is instead endorsing Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), citing Schiff’s refusal to call for a cease-fire in Gaza,” Azi Paybarah reports.

“[Schiff’s] silence on a cease-fire is what really drew me to consider” rescinding my support, Konstantine Anthony told The Washington Post in an interview Monday. “And the continued silence is why I endorsed Barbara Lee,” for the seat formerly held by the late Dianne Feinstein.

Hot on the right

GOP doubts rise on Ukraine-border deal despite last-ditch Zelensky trip

“Senate Republicans on the eve of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky’s arrival in Washington are casting increasing doubt they will reach a deal unlocking aid to his country by the end of the year,” the Hill ’s Al Weaver reports.

“Help for Ukraine is linked to talks on a border deal, and senators on Monday said they were no closer to reaching an agreement on the issue, which would push work on the $111 billion package requested by President Biden into 2024. The package was to cover money for Ukraine, Israel, the border and other priorities.”

“Republicans said they wanted to hear from Zelensky but dismissed the possibility that he could change their minds,” with the GOP wanting to negotiate more intently on border security as opposed to writing “another blank check” for Ukraine, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) said on Steve Bannon’s “War Room.”

Today in Washington

President Biden will return to the White House this afternoon following a campaign reception in Washington. At 2:15, he will host a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, with a press conference scheduled for 4:15.

In closing

Frog knocked at Toad’s door. “Toad, wake up, he cried. “Come out and see how wonderful the winter is!”



“I will not,” said Toad. “I am in my warm bed.” pic.twitter.com/loghAR2Qbk — Frog and Toad (@frogandtoadbook) December 12, 2023

Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow.

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[1] Url: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/12/12/rand-paul-puts-senate-record-syria-war-powers/

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