Back in 2004, in a video addressed to the American people, Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden described his “bleed until bankruptcy” strategy. “All that we have to do is to send two Mujahedin to the farthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaeda in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human economic and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits to their private companies,” bin Laden taunted. “So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy.”

The twin goals of this strategy were to drain the U.S. of resources by baiting it into expensive, open-ended military interventions like those in Iraq and Afghanistan, with the resulting anger over those interventions causing more people to join Al Qaeda’s cause.

I was reminded of that by these specific remarks from President Obama’s speech on counterterrorism yesterday:

The AUMF is now nearly twelve years old. The Afghan War is coming to an end. Core al Qaeda is a shell of its former self. Groups like AQAP [Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] must be dealt with, but in the years to come, not every collection of thugs that labels themselves al Qaeda will pose a credible threat to the United States. Unless we discipline our thinking and our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don’t need to fight, or continue to grant Presidents unbound powers more suited for traditional armed conflicts between nation states. So I look forward to engaging Congress and the American people in efforts to refine, and ultimately repeal, the AUMF’s mandate. And I will not sign laws designed to expand this mandate further. Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue. But this war, like all wars, must end. That’s what history advises. That’s what our democracy demands.

There was a lot to chew on in the president’s speech, and obviously we’ll have to wait and see how much weight the president actually puts behind some of the reforms he suggested, but I think this core passage represents another important shift away from the rhetorical construct of a “Global War on Terror.”

Meanwhile, on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, four of the Senate’s leading hawks — Republican Senators John McCain (AZ), Lindsey Graham (SC), Saxby Chambliss (GA) and Kelly Ayotte (NH) — responded as you might expect to the prospect of the loss of that rhetorical construct, which has proven extremely politically beneficial to hawks over the last decade.

“I believe we are still in a long, drawn-out conflict with Al Qaeda. to somehow argue that Al Qaeda is ‘on the run’ comes from a degree of unreality that, to me, is really incredible,” said McCain, adding: “Al Qaeda’s ‘on the run’ is expanding all over the Middle East from Mali to Yemen and all places in between and to somehow think that we can bring the authorization of the use of military force to a complete closure contradicts the reality of the facts on the ground. Al Qaeda will be with us for a long time.”

“The President’s speech today will be viewed by terrorists as a victory,” Chambliss declared.

Graham took the chance to ding the president on Iraq: “Iraq is a country that went through hell, was inside the 10-yard line, the surge did work and it’s falling apart because the president chose not to leave any American soldiers behind when 10,000 or 12,000 would have made a difference.”

Leaving aside why Graham thinks 10,000 or 12,000 U.S. troops would have made a difference in Iraq when over 100,000 couldn’t stop it from descending into civil war in 2006 (not to mention the tension between claiming to support democracy in Iraq while bashing the president for not working harder to circumvent democracy in Iraq in order to keep U.S. troops there), it’s remarkable that these Congressional leaders essentially want America to keep playing into Al Qaeda’s “bleed until bankruptcy” strategy.

(Credit: SOCOM)

The Senate Armed Services Committee today held its first hearing on whether or not to revise or rewrite the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) questioned one of the witnesses, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations Michael Sheehan, about how long he foresaw the war against Al Qaeda will extend for. The answer was much longer than the twelve years that the AUMF has already been in place:

GRAHAM: Do you agree with me the war against radical Islam, or terror, or whatever description you like to provide, will go on after the second term of President Obama?

SHEEHAN: Senator, in my judgement, this is going to go on for quite awhile, yes, beyond the second term of the President.

GRAHAM: And beyond this term of Congress?

SHEEHAN: Yes, sir. I think it’s at least ten to twenty years.

GRAHAM: I think you’re absolutely right. I think we’re involved in a generational struggle.

That response appears to contradict former Pentagon lawyer Jeh Johnson’s comments in January. At the time, Johnson said the fight against Al Qaeda “shouldn’t be regarded as a perpetual war without any sort of end.” Likewise, former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said in January that the targeted killing program authorized under the AUMF is “not something that we’re going to have to continue to use forever.” While Sheehan’s comments today put a more definite end date on the AUMF’s authority, they are far further in the future than Johnson and Panetta’s comments would lead one to believe.

Passed in the aftermath of 9/11, the law gave the President broad authority to target “those nations, organizations, or persons” who “planned, authorized, committed, or aided” the 2001 attack. Since then, that authority has been used as the basis for conducting military actions around the world, including not only in Afghanistan, but also in Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan. At present, the AUMF is criticized for being overly broad in its wording and used to target individuals who had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks, leading to conflicting moves in Congress to either narrow or expand its scope.

The Obama administration does have some say, however, in when the AUMF’s authority expires. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) asked the panel what, other than Congress revoking the AUMF, could shut down the battle against Al Qaeda. “If the President were to issue a declaration stating that the conflict against Al Qaeda has been concluded, I would think that would constitute an end,” the Pentagon’s acting general counsel Robert Taylor said, opening the door to just such a move from President Obama or some future administration.

Sens. Bob Corker (R-TN) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ)

In the original phrasing of the draft resolution, as reported by ThinkProgress, the language was vague enough to allow for almost any Israeli use of force against Iran to be immediately and without question backed by the United States with “diplomatic, military, and economic support.” On Tuesday, Sens. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Bob Corker (R-TN) — the Chair and Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee respectively — won unanimous approval of an amendment to S. Res. 65 that significantly diluted that language.

In the most important section of the resolution — the section previously stating that U.S. policy would be to support Israel in near any strike against Iran — language was added making clear that the U.S. itself must be the sole determinant for when force is used:

Urges that, if the Government of Israel is compelled to take military action in legitimate self-defense against Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the United States Government should stand with Israel and provide, in accordance with United States law and the constitutional responsibility of Congress to authorize the use of military force, diplomatic, military, and economic support to the Government of Israel in its defense of its territory, people, and existence;

The insertion of the word “legitimate” into the clause on self-defense helps narrow the possibility that the measure could be seen as implicitly approving a preventative or pre-emptive Israeli attack on Iran. Instead, while the decision to attack would remain Israel’s, the U.S. would decide whether a strike meets its own standard for legitimacy. This is important as, while the resolution was never intended to substitute an actual declaration of war from Congress nor an Authorization of the Use of Military Force as seen prior to launching Iraq War, it will serve as an official statement on U.S. policy.

When Menendez and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) first introduced the non-binding measure in February, it was with the intent that the full Senate vote on it before President Obama’s trip to Israel. Instead, it was met with criticism in the form of pressure from pro-peace groups and even a scathing New York Times editorial lamenting how Congress “gets in the way” of a peaceful solution to the Iranian nuclear issue.

“This new language is the kind of language that should have been in the first version,” Joel Rubin, Director of Policy at the Ploughshares Fund, said about the amendment. “Fortunately the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chose to mark it up, which is relatively rare for this type of resolution, and chose to do it in a way that sharpened up the concerning clause.”

“Americans for Peace Now welcomes amendments made by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to temper [the] problematic Iran-war resolution,” the group said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that Corker and Mendendez “deserve credit for dealing seriously and substantively” with concerns about the measure.

The two senators’ offices did not respond to ThinkProgress’ requests for comment about the senators decision to make changes to the resolution’s language.

The amendment doesn’t, however, completely close the door to the future Congressional authorization of war against Iran. Graham, in explaining his thinking behind the original draft of the resolution, readily admitted that it was designed to be part of a “step-by-step” process towards authorizing war against Iran. The Obama administration has still not ruled out the use of force against Iran if deemed necessary to prevent its acquisition of a nuclear weapon, that would only be after the exhaustion of all other available tools.

Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, Osama bin Laden's son-in-law (Photo: AP)

Abu Ghaith was taken into custody in Jordan, then transferred to the custody of the CIA and FBI under the extradition treaty between the two countries. Abu Gaith served as a spokesman for the core Al Qaeda group that planned the September 11th, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. Shortly after that attack, Abu Ghaith issued a video address to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, in which he warned that “the storms shall not stop, especially the Airplanes Storm,” and advised Muslims, children, and opponents of the United States “not to board any aircraft and not to live in high rises.”

Rather than being transferred to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Ghaith has been indicted in U.S. District Court in Southern New York on charges of conspiracy to kill United States nationals. That step has already been criticized by several Republicans who are in favor of Guantanamo remaining open, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). “We believe the administration’s decision here to bring this person to New York City, if that’s what’s happened, without letting Congress know is a very bad precedent to set,” Graham said in a press conference with Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH).

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, also agreed that Abu Ghaith should be sent to Guantanamo rather than brought to the U.S. for trial. Fox News contributor Geraldo Rivera, however, this morning defended the decision to bring Abu Ghaith to New York, citing the much higher conviction rate seen in federal courts:

RIVERA: We have convicted 67 of these terrorist in our federal courts. We have only convicted seven in the military tribunals in Guantanamo Bay. 67 in Federal Court. Just seven in the military tribunals. This is exactly the venue where he should be tried and convicted.

Watch Rivera’s defense here:

Civilian courts have also proved in the past to be better at gaining usable information from suspected terrorists than their military counterparts. This fact hasn’t stopped the outrage from pouring forward from conservatives whenever a civilian court is utilized to try suspected terrorists.

It’s that outrage that allows Abu Ghaith to be the highest-level Al Qaeda official tried in civilian courts. The last attempt to have a high-ranking member of Al Qaeda tried — Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind behind September 11th — was virulently opposed by Republicans, such as Sarah Palin and Rep. Steve King (R-IA). The outcry that sprung up around that trial forced the Department of Justice to drop their move, resulting in Sheik Mohammad’s trial to be moved to military tribunal.