International Community in Afghanistan continues...

Those acts, Congress was saying, required more than the law enforcement efforts that were the only visible responses to the previous attempt in 1993 to topple the twin towers of the WTC by means of a car bomb detonated in the Centre’s underground garage. And more than the sporadic and half-hearted military responses of the past five years to terrorist attacks on US forces in Saudi Arabia, embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the USS Cole in Yemen, the Joint Resolution authorized the president to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons who determined, planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on 11 September 2001, or harboured such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the US by such nations, organizations or persons.

Thus the Congress’s delegation to the president to deal with the events of 9/11 is, in some respects, broad and unspecific.

The Joint Resolution leaves it to him to determine who are “those nations, organizations or persons who determined, planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks … or harboured such organizations or persons.” Without further authorization the president may now “use all necessary and appropriate force” against them. Unlike its experience in Vietnam, the US cannot disengage from its own defence.

As Under Secretary of State, George Ball, once stated, “while we may have few national interests in the narrow sense outside our own territory,” the government’s first duty is to protect those while live in that territory.

To be continued...