Kaine: If Congress doesn’t authorize military action, ‘we will have created a horrible precedent’
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) intensified his calls for Congress to debate the authorization of expanded U.S. military operations in the Middle East Tuesday: failing to take up the issue later this fall, he said, would essentially be an endorsement of the Cheney Doctrine of preemptive war they'd once rejected.
"If we’re going to engage this mission we got to do it right or not do it. And if we don’t get Congress on board with it, we aren’t doing it right," Kaine said during a speech at the Center for American Progress Tuesday afternoon.
In office less than two years, Kaine has made the issue of congressional authority to declare war and authorize military operations a key focus. His persistence places him at odds with the White House and top Hill Democrats who have not fully endorsed the idea of a robust congressional debate over authorizing military force.
It's also notable because Kaine was one of the first prominent Democrats to endorse President Obama's first presidential campaign, and has taken an active role with the movement to urge Hillary Clinton to enter the 2016 race.
His position may not be popular in the West Wing -- but over on Capitol Hill, members of both parties have praised Kaine for continuing to press the issue.
During a roughly 30-minute address Tuesday, Kaine took the audience through a detailed analysis of the constitutional powers reserved for a president and for Congress on matters of military action.
Kaine called the rise of the Islamic State terror group "a significant threat" and "a growing threat" to the United States, but he criticized the Obama administration for suggesting that current military action in Syria can be legally justified by a military force authorization passed by Congress in 2001.
Doing so is "an extremely creative stretch by extremely creative lawyers...that just really doesn't add up," Kaine said.
He noted that the 2001 military authorization was drafted in order to target entities responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, chiefly al Qaeda. Suggesting that the Islamic State was responsible for those attacks is "to basically torture the English language," he said.
As he did in a speech two weeks ago, Kaine called on Congress to debate a broader use of force authorization to replace the 2001 legislation when it returns after the elections.
"If Congress allows the president to begin this campaign against ISIL...without Congress authorizing it, we will have created a horrible precedent, or maybe further a horrible precedent that future presidents -- I have no doubt -- will use to suggest 'I can take unilateral action' against groups that may pose some terrorist threat to the United States," he said. Failing to act "will have created by precedent exactly what Congress refused to do when they voted the Bush administration down in their initial 2001 draft of the AUMF."
After the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration proposed what became widely known as the Cheney Doctrine, or the idea that the United States could preemptively attack groups that were considered an imminent threat. But Congress rejected that proposal and instead passed the 2001 authorization that more narrowly targeted al Qaeda and related groups.
Kaine said he believed that Congress will indeed take up the issue after the elections, though he couldn't be sure.
"I'm pretty confident, but I'm still new here," he admitted.
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