Obama's Proposed AUMF | National Catholic Reporter

Obama's Proposed AUMF | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: The question is not who has the power, but who is willing to use it.  It seems that the President is quite willing to follow procedure to use his and to signal ISIS, as well as its foes, that something is going to happen.  We live in an age with more formal persmissions, which some would argue are largely symbolic.  I doubt the President would call it symbolism or that Congress appreciates a role where it might have to act bipartisanly, even when it has voters who hate Obama for what they peceive as his inexperience (hard to say that without looking like an ass after all Obama has done in in office).  Sadly, there is more to do.  ISIL is undoubtedly part of Al Queda and the Wahabi sect is undoubtedly using royal oil money to expand that philosophy, with all its hatred toward women.  That we will deliver or help deliver some kind of military punch is obvious.  The question is the extent to which we will or can cooperate with the Sunni tribal leaders in the Levant (the fertile part of Iraq) or whether we must oppose them.  How to deal with the complicity of the Saudi royals is the bigger issue, as it extends farrther than Iraq.  Even one American missile means high oil prices again, so diplomacy looks like the only option for now.  An then there is the question of Palestinians.  That's a pickle too, since there is bipartisan consensus galore against treating them justly at all.  Pity that - although even opening a discussion as to where they come from (I suspect it is exactly where they are) and who they derive from could be explosive - since if they are descended from Samaritans, especially Samarita Christians, everything changes - and without a shot being fired.