60 Words

So we are coming up on the 25th anniversary

of these Pember Elements attacks.

“Actually, a week from today, it'll be the 25th anniversary.”

And while back, I co-produced a story that was about the legacy of 9/11, only it wasn't about any aspect of 9/11 that I had ever heard before. It's about one single sentence,

60 words long, written in the Panic, grief-stricken days right after 9/11, that ended up defining America for decades. In the story, it's a sort of like strange side door into this legal world behind the longest war

in our country's history. We have a couple of updates for you at the end, so stick around for that. But for now, we're just gonna jump in. So here we go.

- Yeah, wait, wait, you're the thing. All right, okay, all right. - Okay, you're listening to Radio Lab, Radio Lab. - Radio. - From, in, in.

- WNYS. - Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, I'm Jada Boomeran. - I'm Robert Crowe, which, and this is Radio Lab. - Today, we've got a story about the crazy power of words. - In particular, 60 words.

- Single sentence. - That is, well, that has, you could say, defined America for the last 12 years. And, yeah, in the place to start, is a difficult one. - This just in, you were looking at,

obviously a very disturbing life shot there. - September 11th, 2001, 846 AM. - A plane has crashed into the World Trade Center. We don't know anything more than that. We don't know it.

- This is a day that anyone who is old enough to remember, does remember.

“We can remember where we were, who we were with.”

- So you have no idea of whether or not - I've been not a one, another plane just yet. - Oh my god, another plane has just hit. - And, of course, we could remember how we felt. - Oh, come here we need a saw.

- Oh, thank you. - It felt down. - It's supposed to, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. - It is the worst attack ever on American soil. But, if you really want to understand the world

we live in now, you've got to jump ahead one day since September 12th, to a corner office in the White House, where there's a lawyer sitting at a computer, trying to figure out how are we going to declare war?

- And one of the things that everybody realizes after sort of an initial discussion is, yes, we'd like to declare war, but we have no idea upon whom we should declare war. That is Gregory Johnson.

The Michael Hastings National Security Reporting Fellow at BuzzFeed. Now, the reason this lawyer, man by the name of Timothy Flanagan, the reason Flanagan is sitting at a computer in an office is because then President George Bush had to do

something he had to act, and he didn't want to act alone. You want it congressional approval. - Right. - I mean, technically in an emergency. - The president can defend the country.

- He is the commander in chief after all. - He doesn't have to go to Congress and say, hey, do I have authorization to use force? - Not an emergency. - That's been with us, by the way.

- Senior Fellow in government studies at the Brookings Institution. But President Bush needed Congress on his side. He felt, you know, it was important that we project unity.

That we were all standing together as one. And second, if this was an act of war, - The power to declare war in the Constitution is given to Congress, not to the executive. - When Congress seclares war, suddenly,

the president has a very clear and powerful mandate.

Now, the Declaration of War is kind of a dead instrument of international law. I mean, nobody's declared war since World War II, but the modern incarnation of the Declaration of War is the authorization to use force.

- The authorization to use force.

“- What's called the authorization for the use of military force?”

- Or as it's commonly referred to, the AUMF. - Right. - So, our lawyer in the White House, planning him. He's given a task, go right in AUMF that Congress consented the president.

He really has no idea. So, he goes back to the last time that the U.S. did this. - Last time Congress passed one of these things. He does a quick sort of search on his computer. Boom, finds it.

1991, Iraq, the Gulf War. Flanagan grabs the text, and then he copies that into a word document, and that becomes his template. He makes some cuts, he makes some changes, he deletes some words, and then he hits sent.

- Our war on terror, a justice war. - And he sets in motion this bewildering series of events. - But U.S. drones strike in, link to Al-Qaeda, in the war, bringing the troops home now.

- This madness that is basically the world we live in.

- It's Taliban. - Fifty members of a wedding perception were killed by U.S. - And if you're like me. - Bazaar, even sadistic treatment.

flipping through the channels, see the news,

basically ignoring it, then every so often thinking,

wait a second. - Terrorism targets in Africa. - From Libya now, the U.S. Air Force, our drone strike in southern Somalia. - Wait wait.

“- How are we doing this in all these different places?”

- 100 prisoners are on a hunger strike. - And like that. - In protest of their indefinite detention. - How are we detaining people for so long? - I mean, is it okay to do that?

- Well, just who signed off on this? - Yeah. - And it turns out, we all did, because it was in that document. - This is the legal foundation for everything that the U.S. has done everything from Guantanamo Bay

to drone strikes, to secret renditions, to seal rates, it's all been hung off these 60 words. - And that's the crazy part, the body of this document, the part that really matters. And the reason that when I was reading Gregory's reporting

on this, I was like, what? Is it it all goes back to one single sentence? - 60 words, one sentence. - Can you read it? - Absolutely.

- That the president is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons. He determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks

that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

60 words. - Today, a collaboration with BuzzFeed. - Added with reporter Gregory Johnson. - We're going to try to decode those words. - And ask, where do those words come from?

And how could they come to mean what they mean? - Which is not what you think they mean though. - And how did they end up leading us into what is arguably the longest war in American history? - And nobody saw it coming, absolutely no,

that's the weirdest part. - Well, nobody minus one. Let's start there.

“Maybe you should introduce us to Barbara Lee.”

- Right, Barbara Lee is a Congresswoman from right around Berkeley, California. - Hello. - Hello, hello. - Hi, it's Barbara and she is someone

who has been in many ways a lifelong activist. - Going all the way back to when she was 15 and high school in San Fernando Valley. Because I wanted to be a cheerleader. - But, you know, since it was the early '60s.

- You had to have certain criteria, like at least whether it was stated or not, blonde and blue eyes. - That would have been hard for you, I would figure it. - Yeah, that was really hard, so I went to the NAACP.

- She got them to pressure the school to change the rules. - And I won.

- And she became the first black cheerleader

at her high school. - Yeah, yeah. - That's just by way of introduction. Fast forward many years, she becomes a Congresswoman. She gets elected to a second term.

And on that day. - There is smoke pouring out of the Pentagon. - She was at the Capitol. No one knew where to go sober. The police office just said, "Run, run, run, go, go."

- This was an apparent terrorist attack on our country. - So I ran out of the Capitol down Pennsylvania Avenue.

“And I remember looking back and saw a lot of smoke,”

which was, you know, the Pentagon. - You know, clearly the country's under attack. Clearly people have died, clearly. We've got to deal with whoever did this, whatever it takes. - Fast forward two days, September 13th,

Barbara Lee's back at the Capitol. To meet with her Democratic colleagues to review that document that Flanagan had sent over. - The mood in the room was very somber and very angry. - The thing we have to keep in mind

when we're talking about this is all of this was done within 72 hours after the worst terrorist attack in United States history. - And very confused. What would be the appropriate response?

- So as she and her colleagues read those 60 words. - There was a lot of debate going on back and forth. - Oh yes, oh yes, for everyone. - Because this actually wasn't the first draft. Flanagan had sent one over the night before.

- September 12th, 2001, and that one was something that almost no one agreed to. - According to Gregory that early draft had a few extra lines in it. One gave the president the power to preempt

any future acts of aggression against the United States. - And Barbara Lee and her colleagues knew that look so many things can be packed into this word aggression, that if we sign onto this, that if we give the president this power,

the president may never have to come back

to Congress ever again and request authorization for military force because he can say that anything is aggression and we're also giving him the power to preempt. - So they kicked it back to the White House Flanagan took out those words.

- And now they have this new draft. That the president is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force. - Which is what you heard.

and saw phrases like all necessary and appropriate force.

She thought, what does that even mean? - I said this is too broad. It's not definitive, it's open-ended.

“And as she was speaking, this is taking place”

in the basement of the Capitol building. She sees some of her democratic colleagues start to nod. - Yep, people were nodding, people were nodding. - Because everybody there knew the danger of ill-defined words.

- You just had to go back 50 years. - To the Gulf of Tonkin. - Yep. - Gulf of Tonkin. - Tonkin, Tonkin, Tonkin with an N.

- Yes. - To explain. - My fellow American, as president and Commander in Chief. - 1964, LBJ announces that two American ships-- - So you asked destroyers.

- Parked in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of Vietnam were torpedoed by North Vietnamese boats. - By a number of hostile vessels. - Many people now argue that one of these attacks never even happened.

Nonetheless, President Johnson wanted to strike back. So he asked Congress-- - To pass a resolution. - Which they did, giving him the power to, quote, take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack

against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression. - Making it clear that our government is united in its determination to take all necessary measures in support of freedom and in defense of peace

and Southeast Asia. - Now, it is the broad language of that document, most people believe, that open the door to the worst part of the Vietnam War. - The range of the Marines, the casualty,

mostly from hidden sniper. - The thousands and thousands of casualties-- - To keep dropping in, there's not you can do it. - A horrific atrocities. - Challenges have been made that troops killed

as many as 567, South Vietnamese civilians during a sweep in March, 1968. And in a television interview in 1969, when President Johnson was asked to justify it all, he said, "You can't just blame him."

- Congress gave us this authority. In August 1964, the new whatever may be necessary-- that's pretty far reaching. That's the sky as the limit. - So the lessons of Gulf of Tongue and Vietnam

that was very much in the air in that meeting on September 13, 2001.

“- Several key leaders hope to avoid a repeat”

of the 1964 Tongue in Gulf of Resolution. - So it was understandable that when Barbara Lee stood up and said to her colleagues, she was worried about some of the slanguage. People were nodding, people were nodding.

So there was a lot of uncertainty about what to do.

- But in the end, those concerns were ultimately outweighed

by another desire. - We've got to be unified with the president. We can't show political divisions. - Let's have the nation, let's have Congress speaking with one voice.

- It was a time for unity and for action. And so walking out of that democratic caucus meeting. - On the evening of September 13th. - Congressional leadership decided that these 60 words, this is the version.

There's no going back to the drawing board. And so that 10 16 AM, September 14, 2001. - Senate will come to order. - The Senate is gaveled into session. - Clerk will call the roll.

- Dash will call the vote. - Mr. Akaka, Mr. Allard, Mr. Allen. - There are 98 senators on the floor. - Mr. Durban, Mr. Vaughan of itch. - All 98 of them vote, yay.

- No senator voted in the negative. - So was a sweep. - Yeah.

“- Later in the day, the resolution would go to the house”

where Barbara Lee was a representative. - Dash will had actually rush the vote through the Senate because the White House is called for a national prayer meeting at the National Cathedral for the victims of 9/11.

- That's supposed to start right at noon. And so right after the vote, all the senators pour out of the Capitol and get on to the buses I'm trying to get through the drizzle.

- It was actually raining that day. Now at that moment, Barbara Lee. She hadn't decided how it is that she was gonna vote. - I struggled with it. - For the previous two nights, September 12th and 13th,

she'd stayed up late. Calling back to advisors to friends in California. - We talked every day. - Including this guy. This is Ron Delums.

- I served for over 27 years in the U.S. House of Representatives. - Barbara used to be his chief of staff and when he resigned, she won his congressional seat. - You know, she would say, well, what about this

and what do you think about that? - And we kind of talked through the emotional state of the country that we are feeling. Pain, anger, we're shocked. - Both Barbara and Ron were trained

as psychiatric social workers. So they both knew that when a person is feeling all of those things, it's generally better to do nothing. - Yes, I called you 101. You don't make decisions when you're mourning,

afraid, on the other hand. - I believe, you know, in unity too. I wanna be unified with the president when the country's under attack. - I understood.

- And he didn't tell me, he didn't say which way I should vote. - But I did say to her, Barbara, however you vote,

I will always respect you.

You will always be friend. You will always be family. - So at that moment with the memorial service about to start in a few hours till the house vote,

- That was in the cloak room.

“- And since she wasn't sure how she was gonna vote,”

she planned to skip the memorial service. - She wanted to stay, she wanted to think. - And then, I don't know what it was. It may have been the spirit moving me. I don't know, but at the very last minute,

she was drinking actually a can of ginger ale at the time. - That's the thing I'm gonna go. And I just ran out. I probably was the last one on the bus. I had the can of ginger ale in my hand

and ran down the steps and got on the bus. - She got to the cathedral, the house buses arrived about 30 minutes or so before the opening.

And so for 30 minutes, she's in the cathedral

about halfway back, listening to the organ. Think it about the families and those who were killed. There are people around her who are sort of whispering the pain and anguish, the few people who are crying. Why I said I gotta pray over this

and she's just wrestling with their vote. Her heart is saying one thing, this is too broad and her head is saying unity.

“How is it that you can be against the president at this point?”

- Speaking of the president, eventually, President Bush takes the podium. - We are here in the middle hour of our grief. Just three days removed from these events. Americans do not yet have the distance of history.

But our responsibility to history is already clear. To answer these attacks and rid the world of evil. And then as soon as President Bush steps down, everyone in the congregation stands up. And they sing the battle him of the Republic.

Which is a very powerful, a very moving piece of music.

But it's not the sort of thing that is typically sung at a memorial service. It's a very forward and almost aggressive sounding. - That's the phrase Terrible Swift Sword. - Yeah.

Oh my God. It was not quite what I expected in a memorial service. But the second speaker, a Reverend by the name of Nathan Baxter, got up and he gave a reading from Jeremiah 31. - When ancient Israel suffered the excruciating pain

and tragedy of militant aggression and destruction. - Here in that all over again,

“takes me right back there and I remember.”

- A voice is heard in Ramah. - Well, I'm meant to be a better weapon. Rachel weeping for her children. - For her children. - When he spoke, that's when to me and was a memorial.

And then he started to pray for the healing of our grief-stricken hearts for the souls and sacred memory of those who have been lost. - And he said something that really struck Barbara Lee.

- Let us also pray for divine wisdom. - He said as we act. - That as we act, we not become the evil we deploy. - That evil that we deploy. When he said that, I became very,

it was the sense of peace and calm came over me. And Barbara Lee says it was right then that she knew what she'd do. - The clerk will report the title. - House joint resolution 64 joined resolution

to authorize the use of United States arm. - Later that evening, the house opens up its debate on the AUMF. - Speaker, I rise with support of this resolution which authorizes the president to use

all force necessary. - And Congressperson after Congressperson. - Mr. Speaker. - Stand up. - I rise in support of this resolution.

- Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to fully endorse and authorize the use of force. - One after another. - Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the authorization. - I rise today in support of this resolution.

- We will rally behind our president. - 16 in a row, until. - Jell won from California is a recognized for a minute and a half. - We get to Barbara Lee.

- Mr. Speaker, members, I rise today really with a very heavy heart. One that is filled with sorrow for the families and the loved ones who were killed and injured this week. - Only the most foolish, ever most chaos

our people and millions across the world.

Now, I have agonized over this vote. But I came to grips with it today

“and I came to grips with opposing this resolution.”

During the very painful, yet very beautiful memorial service. As a member of the clergy, so eloquently said, as we act, let us not become the evil that we deplore. - Just after the vote, Barbara Lee says she was in the cloakroom again and she starts getting

accosted by colleagues. All of these friends are coming up to her and saying, you've got to go back, you cannot vote this way. - Has that brought change in my vote? - One of them actually said to her, look,

you've done so much on HIV, you've done so much on AIDS. This vote is gonna take you out. Think of the bigger picture. - They're saying you're dead. - Yeah, but that's the right vote.

I'm not gonna give any presence at the authority to go to war and we don't know what we're doing. The only Congress can declare war. - Help me on this, guys. Has the house vote?

Okay, the house is just now finished that vote. And we see one no vote during it. - The final vote for the house was 420 to one. - We know it's a Democrat, we don't yet know who. We'll figure that out.

- Barbara Lee was the only person in the Senate or the house to cast a no vote. - That must have been a very lonely moment. - To be perfectly honest with you, I said some prayers for my friend.

- This was the right thing to do. - And, you know, votes like this,

“you have to be ready to pay the consequences.”

- Over the next few weeks and months, her office was inundated with letters. - Barbara Lee, you are a traitor and a disgrace to the office that you hold. - You can find all these letters archived at Mills College.

- You are a blade on American Society, a terrorist yourself. - So much hatred. - I don't know why you decided to place yourself into the camp of terrorists. - Those attacks came when they came in the caves.

- They took that line. What's your (beep) - Death threats. - Now off to help with you. You Benedict Arnold want to be.

- So I had to have security day and night. - Up yours. - Thanks for supporting the child. - Hey, Henway, Barbara Lee. What are you?

What do you believe in? - If you go to Mills College in Oakland and we send her a border there, you will find 60,000 letters. They're not all negative, but most are.

- The congressman Lee says she never faltered

because right after the vote and she's in her office. - My dad called me. Lieutenant Colonel retired in the army. He said, "I'm really proud of you." You know, my dad had been in Korea and World War II.

He sees that the way I see it 'cause I really wasn't sure what he would say 'cause you know. (laughs) I really wasn't sure. - She thought, all right.

- Daddy's proud of me. - Now we should note that Barbara Lee is still a congresswoman. She did not pay the price for that no vote. And whatever you think of her vote,

whether you think it was the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do. What is interesting to me is that, as we're sitting here looking back on 12 years of war, she was sitting there 12 years ago looking forward.

And maybe she saw something about how this would play out. But how these words, these 60 words, would start to grow and expand. That's next. - Hey, I'm Chad, I'm Rod.

- I'm Robert Crollwich. - She's a radio lab in today. - 60 words. - This is a collaboration with BuzzFeed and reporter Gregory Johnson. The story is based on an article that Gregory wrote

about the 60 simple words that have really defined American counterterrorism for more than a decade. - It's called the authorization for use of military force that shortened to AUMF and it was passed by Congress three days after September 11th.

And here it is again read by Senator John McCain, which says the President is authorized to use all necessary appropriate force against those nation's organizations or persons. He determines planned authorized committed

or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11th, 2001, or harbored sexual organizations or persons in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations or organizations.

“- All right, so why would we be looking at that boring ass sentence?”

- He seems he was almost bored of saying it. - Yeah, he does.

Can I just be honest with you first?

- Yeah. - I generally move through the world with the assumption, which has been proven over and over again to be true, that I don't know how the world works. Like somehow I miss that day in school or something.

- No, I'm free to a general sense that somehow like AUS is out there behind the curtain

pulling the levers and I'm just always gonna be stuck

on this side, you know?

“- I think it's what motivates the show for me”

is that like I feel kind of stupid most of the time and these shows are a way to engage the world and really examine the world. - Right, exactly. - And when it comes to these matters of national security,

I really feel clueless. And so when I read Gregory's article, I felt like I understood something crucial for the first time, but the way words actually operate in the world.

'Cause again, this sentence, this totally boring sentence, this is the legal foundation for everything that the U.S has done everything from Guantanamo Bay to drone strikes, to secret renditions, to seal rates. It's all been hung off these 60 words.

One lawyer who was in the Bush administration said, "Look, this sentence is like a Christmas tree." All sorts of things have been hung off of this. But how? - How? Like, 'cause you read the thing

and you don't see any mention of Guantanamo Bay in those 60 words. - It doesn't mention detention. It doesn't mention drone strikes. It doesn't mention drone strikes against American citizens.

- Okay, so that guy, it's one of the first folks

we called to help us decode this. That's John Belinger. - I served as the legal advisor for the National Security Council from 2001 to 2005, and as the legal advisor

for the Department of State from 2005 to 2009. - You can't do any speed dating with a quick engine like that, 'cause the date will be over. - Yeah, that's my congressional testimony voice. - Yeah.

- And we asked him, like, okay, so we get detention isn't anywhere in this document. So how do you read detention from these 60 words? - The argument with which I am comfortable as a legal matter is this.

He says if you go eight words into those 60 words and you get to the phrase, all necessary and appropriate force. - All necessary appropriate force, yeah. - You gotta ask yourself, what is force?

What does that mean? - What do you, we know what force is and I punch you in the face, that's amusing for-- - That's one kind of force. - Can you use force to kill people?

- Uh, but a lesser use of force is to detain them. Detention is simply lesser included in the use of force that comes naturally in a military operation. - It's like a subset of force, basically.

So if you're authorized to use force to kill people, you are also by default authorized to use force to detain them, essentially to knock them out of the battle in other ways and that that force is both necessary and it's appropriate.

And the courts have upheld that. So that one word force, that is how you justify Guantanamo Bay. - All the controversies surrounding Guantanamo Bay continues. - The authorization to use military force act has--

- What happens at military commissions happens? - I've been the legal basis for the detention of thousands of individuals. - Now many of them have been detained for more than 10 years. None have have been charged.

- And the words detention are never mentioned.

- Okay, so that's the detention. If it gets even trickier, if you go just a few words past all necessary and appropriate force, do what? - You get to the mention of the enemy,

“who the force is supposed to be used against, right?”

- And it seems to be very limited language. - You mean, we can't shoot everybody or anybody. - No, only the people who planned authorized committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11th, 2001, or Harvard,

sounds much more. - Sounds very much tethered to 9/11, right? Which is why a lot of congressmen and women voted for it. - Joe Biden, on the day of the vote, September 14th, 2001, he says, "Look, people, don't freak out about this language."

- It relates to the incident and there's broad authority relating the incident. It does not relate to all terrorism every place. - 'Cause we're just talking about Al Qaeda who did this and the Taliban who have Harvard them, right?

- Nope. - None necessarily. - Gregory Johnson again. - Over time, what's happened is there's been this other sort of catch-all category

that has been read into these 60 words, even though it appears nowhere in these 60 words. And that catch-all category is associated forces. - Associated forces. - Yeah.

- What we've been calling these 61st and 62nd words. - It's Westonta, it is Westonta. - Wait, wait. And if you define the enemy as Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated forces, it's a whole different ballgame.

- Yeah. - So when you read those, all those words, it did not include the phrase. - Associated forces is nowhere in the text. - So where does it go?

- So then why could people cite something that isn't in the text? - Yeah, this is one of the enduring mysteries of this. So the earliest example that we could find of those two words is in a 2004 memo

from Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. He finds the enemy as Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated forces.

“But the truth is, it may have just been there”

from the beginning. - What do you mean? - Because according to Ben Wittis from the Brookings Institution,

called co-bulljorancy.

It's the idea that if you're at war with person A,

and person B is on person A is side in the war. You're also legally at war with person B. - Makes perfect sense if you think of it in traditional war terms, 'cause like we're at war with Germany, Italy joins their side, so by default we're at war with Italy too.

- Right, so just transpose that here, if we're at war with this group called al Qaeda, and a certain set of groups that aren't them, join the war on al Qaeda side, then you are legally at war with them.

- If you don't think about that too hard, it is crystal clear. - But then the question that has arisen over time is how broad do you make that circle? - 'Cause the problem, obviously,

is that we're not talking about nation states anymore, we're talking about groups. - So, okay, how close does the link to al Qaeda,

“and the people who carried out September 11th have to be?”

So if you have someone who's connected to someone who's connected to someone who's connected to someone who is connected to September 11th, is that enough, or is it only three links, or can you be an associate of an associate?

- Now we can't exactly know how broadly the Obama and Bush administrations have defined those words,

and we'll talk about why in a second.

But you just have to look at the news, right? And you could see that we started with a war that was in Afghanistan, and then it spread to a lot of different places, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen? - Yeah, and in Yemen.

- There's a lot of debate and a lot of discussion, about like, is this legal? Does this have anything to do with September 11th anymore? - 'Cause now the group in Yemen, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula,

which is a group that was first formed in 2009, they have their own hierarchy and their own structure, and it's not clear how, and in what fashion, they take orders from either Osama bin Laden while he was still alive, or now I'm in all the Wahari.

So does this make them an associated force, or does it make them part of al Qaeda? - The answer, at least on. - Good morning, everyone.

“It is Friday, it's September 30th, 2011,”

Market Don on your calendar.

- September 30th, 2011, seemed to be yes when the U.S. assassinated two members of the group. - This is not confirmed yet, but it could very well have been a U.S. predator drone strike

that is a U.S. government attack. - And it put all this in context. Between 2002 and 2014, according to some estimates, there've been about 65 drone strikes in Yemen, killing about 400 people.

And so much hinges on how you define those words. - So much is in the definition. I asked the Pentagon, I said, "Who, what are the list of associated forces?" So al Qaeda, yes, the U.S. is at war, that's clear.

What about the other groups? - El Shabab, al Qaeda in Iraq, al Qaeda in the Islamic Madra, armed Islamic group, Abu Sayyah, al Qaeda in Syria, brotherhood of this, brotherhood of that.

"Who, who are these groups? Who is the U.S. at war with?" And the Pentagon emailed me back, and they said that list is classified and not for public release.

- Wait, so we, who we are at war with. - We don't know. - I.

“- Wait, so you're saying, when you approach the Pentagon,”

- They say that they, they will not tell you the names of the people were at war against. - Well, maybe they should, maybe that's a value. - Well, they, don't you wanna know as a citizen of America who were fighting?

- On the other hand, do I want to know as the, as, if the United States has determined that I am dangerous to it, if it announces, then that would give me a certain amount of notice, which I may perhaps would be disadvantageous

to the United States. - It could also, though, act as a disincentive for you to take action. - Maybe, but maybe not. Maybe they will just get quieter, more dangerous.

- I mean, it's true, there might be reasons for this. - They have not wanted to provide a public list because they, this is John Bellinger again, one, the groups move all the time, and so if you say, well, these are associated groups,

well, then certain people just move from group A to group B, and they also wanna leave these different groups guessing. But it still raises democratic concerns if the American people don't really know

who the executive branch believes is covered by the AUMF. - In the democracy, and in a representative democracy, that has to be weighed out, should the citizens of the United States know

who it is that the United States is targeting for death around the world, who it is that the United States is technically at war with, should war be a decision that the citizens of a democracy of a representative democracy have a safety.

- Well, we're representative democracies, we just said, so I'm assuming that the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee knows every item on that list. - I'm not so sure.

- Good morning, everybody. The committee meets today to receive testimony on the law of armed conflict. - One of the more interesting Senate hearings took place in early 2013.

- Including the status of the 2001 authorization for the use of military force, the AUMF.

Senator Carl Levin of Michigan's chairman

“of the committee, Senator McCain is on the committee.”

- I'd like to welcome our witnesses. - And Gregory says the senators called the couple of Defense Department officials to answer questions. - Members, committee, thank you.

If the opportunity to testify about the legal framework for the U.S. military operations to defend our nation. - 'Cause they wanted to know, like, now that we're 12 years into this war, how are you using this document?

Does it need to be changed? - So the Department of Defense officials and there were four of them. - That's necessary in a program. - came and said, look.

- I believe that existing authorities are adequate for this armed conflict. - Don't revisit this sentence. Don't repeal it. This sentence is sufficient.

It gives us all the power that we need. - Against Al Qaeda and associated forces. - And as they're laying out their case, they say those two words. - Associated forces associated forces

and associated forces. - Over-associated forces. - And over-associated forces and associated forces. - Associated forces and they're associated forces associated forces and associated forces.

- Instead of just nodding along a lot of the senators are like, what? - Gentlemen, I've only been here five months, but this is most astounding and most astoundingly disturbing hearing that I've been to since I've been here.

You guys have essentially rewritten the constitution here today. - That's Angus King independent senator from Maine. - And you keep using the term associated forces. You use it 13 times in your statement.

That is not in the AUMF. And you said at one point, it suits us very well. I assume it does suit you very well because you're reading it to cover everything. And anything.

- But one of the most striking moments of this hearing is when the head of the committee, Senator Carl Levin, turns to one of the DOD officials and asks him. - Is there a list, now is there an existing list of groups that are affiliated with Al Qaeda?

- Senator, I'm not sure there's a list per se. I'm very familiar with the organizations that we do consider right now, or affiliate Al Qaeda and I could provide you that list. - Would you give us that list?

- Yes, sir, we can do that. And when you add it or subtract names from that list, would you let us know? - We can do that as well, Mr. Chairman. - Thank you.

- Let me just see if I understand what you just said at a committee hearing. - Yeah. - You asked Senator, asks specifically,

“so who's on the list of people were allowed to kill?”

- Right, that suggested that the Senate Armed Services Committee who had oversight really had no idea. Which is what I'm like, all right, if we don't have any idea who we're with and the Senate Armed Services Committee

doesn't seem to have any idea. - Then who does? - Well, one of the things that became clear to me as I was reporting on this story was that many of the people who were making these decisions

had never been elected by anyone, to any position

and they were the ones who were making the decision, not the elected represented. And so who are they? - He's going to be on my seat. - Yeah, I guess sorry, yeah.

- So we were rooting around for a while looking for an answer to that question. Until we found this guy, this is Daniel Clyden, he's a journalist and I've covered national security and counterterrorism for many years.

- And based on hundreds of confidential interviews that became his book Killer Capture, he was able to paint a picture for us of who makes these decisions and how. He told us about these meetings.

You say it's the STVS meetings. What are they who's in the room? How do the events unfold? - Well, these are, they call them civics meetings in the vernacular of the bureaucracy.

It stands for a secure video teleconference meetings. - It described them as a sort of a massive, top secret Google hangout chat, where literally hundreds of people from throughout the national security bureaucracy

- Lug in to decide who's on the list and who isn't and who should live and who should die. You said literally hundreds? - Literally hundreds of people now. Many of them are back benches.

They're not participating in the call, but they're taking notes. Before they get together in this meeting. - Many of the folks at this meeting he says are given little packets of information

on each target. They call them baseball cards, 'cause they sort of look like it. You got a picture in some stats. - Like Yogi Barra on one side,

and then you got his batting average in his hometown on the back. - Well, the terrorist equivalent of all of that. So who is this person? Where does he rank?

“And what kinds of operations has he been involved in in the past?”

Eventually a general will come on the screen and say, here's our target, objective acronym.

- For some reason he says they always refer

to the targets by the name of American cities. - Objective Toledo. - General might say, target is in Yemen. We have a drone over head. - There's an opportunity to kill this person.

- Can we legally do it? And the fascinating thing, although maybe it won't come as much of a surprise, is that the people he's making this pitch to are not generals, but lawyers, there are lawyers everywhere.

That is just a basic fact of modern warfare, says John Belinger. You now have lawyers on the ground. - With artillery units, tank commanders. - The lawyers in Kevlar, the lawyers in helicopters.

- They are lawyers really almost behind every bomb. - Just lawyers everywhere?

- That's Harold Co., he was the top lawyer

at the State Department from 2009 to 2013. - Because it means that we're not just shooting away at people willing, Millie, or because we're angry at them or anything. It's a considered, careful decision.

- Now Harold Co., according to Dan Klivin's reporting, was in those civil speedings. And he would often be the one to answer the general's questions. Can we legally kill this person? So we asked him, like if lawyers are now the one's deciding

“who we are at war with and who we aren't, how do you do it?”

- And unfortunately for us-- - I don't think I can get into that on this call. They're multiple methods, but I'm not going to go into that. - He said he couldn't comment on any of it because it's classified.

But-- - Harold Co is a creative lawyer.

- According to Dan Klivin, who spoke a lot of people

familiar with the process, Co in particular had a fascinating way of determining who is and is not an associated force. - In other words, we are or aren't at war with. And it seems to be less about the groups as a whole and more about individuals within the group.

For example, seniority, that was an important issue. - For Co, if you're going to target a guy, he has to be a senior member of group like Al Qaeda. - Right. - He has to be able to give orders.

And he has to be unique within the organization. You couldn't simply under Harold Co's theory go after, say, a driver or a cook who was in Al Qaeda or even foot soldiers because they were fungible. - Meaning they could be easily replaced.

- Another criteria was whether they were externally oriented. - For Co, if they were just participants in a civil war, you couldn't target them. But if they were targeting Westerners or Western interests, then yes.

So if you take Dan Clydeman's account of Harold Co's criteria as a representative and we personally have no way of verifying it. But if you take that as the norm, then maybe there is a strong vetting process in place. - But I interviewed numerous people

who participated in these meetings. And one of the things that I heard over and over again was that there was this kind of inexorable momentum toward killing and that the military people in these meetings could speak with a kind of a tone of dual diregency.

In fact, two of the people who I quote in my book used exactly the same metaphor to describe that sense of momentum that was very difficult to resist. It was like standing on a train track with a train hertling toward them at 100 miles an hour.

- But then I guess the important question for me is like, how often do they say no? - Well, the answer had been 99 times yes and one time no or 50 times yes and 50 times no. - How many knows are there?

- Well look, I'd say I did not come across many, many examples. - But he did tell us about this one instance. - This was a meeting between the top lawyer at the Defense Department and the man named Jay Johnson and the top lawyer at the State Department

who was then Harold Co. - And according to Dan's sources, Harold Co and Jay Johnson were faced with determining the fate of a 40-year-old man, roughly 40, named.

“- Sheikh Muhtar Robo, I think that's the way”

by the State's name, I'm not sure. - Use a member of the small group, El Shabab. - And for context. - Use World Cup celebrations have turned to tragedy in the central African nation of Uganda.

- A few months before this conversation, this is in 2010, El Shabab bombed a rugby club and a restaurant at the same time in Uganda, killing 74 people. - Broken chairs, smashed tables and the sounds of pain

as rescuers search for the living and the dead. - So that just happened. And according to Dan Clydeman at this moment in intelligence circles, there was a debate raging as to whether El Shabab should or should not be considered

an associated force. - At the time, their leader had sworn allegiance to Osama bin Laden, but their agenda was primarily a local agenda.

They had never struck out against the United States

or against American interests in the region. - So you've got the top lawyer at the State Department and the top lawyer at the Pentagon facing off as to whether this fellow Robo from El Shabab should live or die.

- And how does this work?

“Does somebody just, like, just someone pound the table?”

- Yes, this was a very heated meeting. Jay Johnson argued vehemently that Robo was covered under the AUMF. - He was, after all, a founding member of El Shabab. - Harold Co. vehemently disagreed.

- Harold Co's conclusion based on the evidence and the intelligence that he saw was that Robo was not externally focused. In fact, he belonged to a faction of El Shabab that was arguing against attacking the United States

and other Western interests. - So according to Clyde Men, these two men went back and forth and back and forth until eventually Harold Co just drew a hard line. And essentially said, look, if you do this,

you need to know that you will be doing it

of the State Department's legal advisor.

- The unambiguous move.

“And that's very strong language coming from a lawyer.”

And the signal that it sent to the White House was you will be taking military action, even though the top lawyer at the State Department said that this would be an illegal action. - Okay, so what happened, did they decide not to?

- They did not do it. - This is not academic, it's lives depend on which way the decision goes. (upbeat music) - We're continuing to devote the entire show

to a single sentence, one sentence. - 60 words, that's all. - It's the 2001 authorization to use military force, was signed into law on September 18, 2001.

And together with BuzzFeed and reporter Gregory Johnson, we have, we have manhandled these words. - Yeah, we have dissected, we have bisected. - Try dissected. - And whatever other kind of sected you could...

- What was dissected to the AUMF as it's called? - Yes, and you know, we've looked at how the sentence has defined our last 12 years of counterterrorism. - And now, how will it define our future? - Gentlemen, thank you for being here today.

This is a very... - So when we were thinking about that Senator armed services committee hearing, we ended up calling someone who sat on the committee. - Tim Caine, Senator from Virginia,

and who was there that day. - Yeah, that was a very kind of hair-raising day. - And Senator Caine told us that one of the most hair-raising moments for him was when one of his fellow senators, Lindsey Graham,

asked one of the Department of Defense officials. - Do you agree with me, the war against radical Islam or terror, whatever description you'd like to provide,

“we'll go on after the second term of President Obama?”

- In other words, how long do you think this particular war as declared in this section is going to go on? - Senator, my judgment, this is going to go on

for quite a while, and yes, beyond the second term

of the president, and beyond this term of Congress? - Yes, sir, I think it's at least 10 to 20 years. - It was chilling. - 'Cause like, this is already-- - The longest war in the history of the United States.

- Long of the Vietnam. - And now a DOD official is saying, add on 10 or 20 years. - So I said, is it the administration's position that you tell me if somebody is born after 9/11?

- Let's imagine in 2030 they join a group that has just become associated with Al Qaeda. - In 2030, is it the administration's position that the AUMF would cover them in those organizations?

- And without hesitation, the administration witnesses said, yes, as long as they'd become an associated force under the legal standard that was set out, it's not limited in time, not limited in geography, really troubling.

But you know, I'm also troubled by another thing. I mean, you know the iconic, it's a New York picture of the VJ Day kiss and Times Square. I mean, you see that here we have a combination of every type of person.

- August 14th, 1945. - There ought to be a day where those who have served in war that you declare that the war is over and then you celebrate them.

“- All these people happy, that's the only way to express it.”

I am happy. (audience cheers and applauds) - You can ask sometimes by service families like when is this gonna end? Do you ever come up?

- Yes, yes. - Yes. - You told us it's something like one in three people in his state of Virginia are connected to the military. So he does get that question a lot.

And the truth is, we all want a VJ Day.

We need it. And so seven days after that Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, President Obama. - It is a great honor. - Give a speech.

- To return to the National Defense University. - Where he seems to say basically, it's time. - This war, like all wars, must end. That's what history advises. That is why I intend to engage Congress

about the existing authorization to use military force or AUMF. - Basically, it announces that he would like to get rid of those 60 words and end this war. - Yeah, but common sense tells you

that these are different kind of enemy, not a state or a government, they make war in a different way.

He goes, "Look, we're in an age of warfare,

"where the war isn't gonna end with the signing of a peace treaty "on the deck of a destroy." That's not how it happens these days. There's no clear start and ending. - And yet, the president, he wants to end the war.

- Says Benoitus. - And every war has come to an end. - He sees himself as a person who came in to a country fighting two wars. And he brought them all to an end.

And I think he wants to have done that. - But how do you, how do you do that? How do you end a war when the vast amount of people

“that you're calling the enemy haven't stopped fighting?”

- So, what he does in the May speech, and it's extremely clever, and by the way,

it's really well-loared, is he announces a set of rules

going forward for drone strikes. - America does not take strikes to punish individuals. We act against terrorists who pose a continuing and imminent threat to the American people. - That he's only going to use drone strikes

when there's an imminent threat. - And it's well understood by people who understand this kind of stuff. That in the Constitution and also in international law, the president is allowed to act unilaterally

in self-defense when there is an imminent threat, meaning it's urgent, and you can't feasibly capture that person. - Ben fears that what President Obama was doing there by stressing that word. - And imminent threat to the American people.

- Is it he was laying a new foundation? - He was saying, when the AUMF ends and I wanted to end, I do have another way of justifying all these things. - Maybe they wouldn't change. - So the drone strikes and the raids would continue.

- As long as you have a capacious enough understanding of what the word imminent means, you might be able to continue a whole lot of this stuff, and then you don't have to go to Congress at all. And you can say you've ended the war,

and the human rights groups will cheer for you. And we're gonna mysteriously find that there are a whole lot of imminent threats. - For freedom. - Thank you very much everybody, God bless you.

- Thank God bless you, nice to meet you. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - And in the context of what happened to those 60 words, you do have to wonder what's gonna happen

to a word like imminent. And all the while, according to Ben Whittison, pretty much everyone we spoke with, we haven't really answered the big questions. - When do we want to attack the enemy?

Who is the enemy? And if we're gonna be fighting them, even when we're not technically at war with them, then what's the difference between war and peace? (upbeat music)

- And that's why this whole subject is so unsettling. Like if you don't know, the common sense definition anymore, of when you're at war and when you're at peace, then how do you write rules?

- Yeah. - This was an attempt to begin over war, and so it had the usual beginning questions. - Okay, you, who are you? You out there where you for how long till you surrender?

I know, you're not gonna surrender. Like all the usual business of war fairies, is this gonna apply in this case?

“So then you have to think of that now, what do we do?”

- Yeah, it's just like one long improvisation. (upbeat music) , it's mad again here in the present. There are a lot of updates here, and also, depressingly, a lot that has stayed the same.

So Obama never did. - Hey, it's Mad again here in the present. There are a lot of updates here, and also, depressingly, a lot that has stayed the same.

- So Obama never did get rid of the AUMF.

In fact, he sort of stretched it out even further, about a year after he made that speech, calling to M. the AUMF. His administration started using it to justify a fighting ISIS.

Arguing ISIS was a successor to Al Qaeda, even though Al Qaeda publicly rejected ISIS. Obviously, the US withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021 under President Biden.

“You probably remember that didn't go too well.”

It was basically a disaster. And on top of that, it still left us in this bizarre place with this AUMF hanging open despite the fact that so many people claim the war was now over. It definitely wasn't the VJ Day that Tim Kain was hoping for.

And Barber Lee, our one lonely Congresswoman

Our producer Saracari actually talked to Barber

a few years back.

“- Hello, hello, it's connecting to Al Qaeda.”

- All right, hold on a minute, hold on a minute. - Hi, right as Barber was sponsoring a bill to repeal actually a different AUMF. So we just told you this whole story of the AFR 9/11. This one came in 2002.

- Not for the Iraq military action. The invasion and war, any rock.

- And just last year in December 2025, Congress finally

passed it, clawing back that second authorization. But as for our big AUMF, like the original one, there are multiple efforts still to repeal or replace it. Barber Lee herself introduced a repeal bill. She's actually no longer even a Congresswoman now.

She became the first black woman elected mayor of Oakland in 2025. But her bill is still out there. There are several other attempts. And as of now, they're all still pending.

So the 2001 AUMF remains fully intact today.

It is still there on the books exactly as broad as it was in 2001. So those are the updates, my mac guilty. Thanks for listening. - Huge thanks this hour to BuzzFeed

and to their reporter Gregory Johnson. Check out Gregory's piece. - Where we started with this. - We will link to it from radiolab.org. It's on BuzzFeed as well.

It's called 60 Words and a War Without and the untold story of the most dangerous sentence in the US history. That is a title right there.

“Also thanks to the great Dylan Key for Original Music”

and Glenn Cochi from Music from his album, "Adventure Land". This hour was produced by Kelsey Paget and Matthew Kilti and myself up Chad Abobron. - I'm Robert Rollwich. - Thank you for listening.

- Hi, I'm John Cole and I'm from Brooklyn and here's the staff credence. Radiolab is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif NASA. Surren Wheeler is our executive editor. Sarah Sandbach is our executive director.

Our managing editor is Pat Walters.

“Dylan Key is our director of sound design.”

Our staff includes Jeremy Bloom, W Harry Fortuna, David Gabel, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sindhu Nyanam Sambandan, Matt Kilti, Mona Madgalka, Annie McEwen, Alex Neeson, Sarah Curry, Natalia Ramirez, Joanne Strogatz, Anisa Vizza,

Ari Hwack, Molly Webster and Jessica Young with help from Gabby Santos and Maya Abobin Malamid. - Our fact checkers on North Aboblidia, Hilary Elkins, Rachel Gross, Diane Kelly, Emma Krieger, Natalia Metleton and Sophie Samay.

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