Paul: Obama’s reason for ISIS fight ‘absurd’

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Friday slammed the White House for relying on “absurd” arguments in justifying the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). 

Paul told Fox News that right now Obama has “no statutory authority and no constitutional authority” for fighting the Islamic extremists.

“The Constitution, I think, would allow, and most people say, for the repelling of an imminent attack. But once an attack goes on for months and months and you are actually not defending anything, you are actually going out and offensively trying to either conquer territory or conquer an opponent, I don’t think that’s a defensive maneuver, nor is that temporary or an imminent attack,” he said.

Last week Paul, a likely 2016 contender, unveiled a declaration of war and authorization in order to carry out attacks on ISIS.

President Obama earlier this month said he would seek approval from Congress, though the White House believes congressional action is still not necessary because the 2001 and 2002 congressional authorizations from after the Sept. 11 attacks still apply.

“Both of those, I would say, would be absurd contentions,” Paul explained. “Basically, in 2001, we voted for authorization that said the people who attacked us on 9/11, that we would go after them. Well, this group wasn’t in existence then. And this group isn’t even allied with al Qaeda. This group is with odds with al Qaeda. I think it’s absurd.”

Paul’s proposed resolution would repeal the 2002 authorization and set the 2001 authorization to expire in one year.

The new declaration of war and authorization would also expire in one year and would prohibit the use of U.S. ground troops, except to protect U.S. personnel from imminent attack, for limited operations against “high value targets,” and “advisory and intelligence gathering operations.”

He also slammed Secretary of State John Kerry for telling the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of which Paul is a member, that the president has the authority for such attacks under the Constitution.

Kerry said “the president has Article II authority to do whatever he wants. I disagree with that. I think most constitutional scholars do,” according to Paul.

“I think most people in the American public do not think the president has unlimited power to go to war,” he added.