The Afghanistan war alone has cost more than $2.6tn taxpayer dollars and killed more than 238,000 individuals. The 2002 AUMF, which authorized war against Iraq based on fabricated claims of weapons of mass destruction, has cost $1.9tn and killed an estimated 288,000. Together, these two AUMFs have been used by three successive presidents to engage in war in at least seven countries – from Yemen to Libya to Niger – against a continually growing list of adversaries that Congress never foresaw or intended. The Bush, Obama and Trump administrations have further identified to Congress combat-ready counter-terrorism deployments to at least 14 additional countries, indicating that the AUMFs could justify armed combat in those places as well. Only 56 current members of the House and 16 senators were present at the 2001 vote, making a mockery of the constitutional principle that only the people’s elected representatives in Congress can send our country to war.

The results today are a perpetual state of war and an ever-expanding military-industrial complex that consumes a greater and greater amount of our resources every year. Pentagon spending since 9/11 (adjusted for inflation) has increased by almost 50%. Each hour, taxpayers are paying $32m for the total cost of wars since 2001, and these wars have not made Americans safer or brought democracy or stability to the Middle East. To the contrary, they have further destabilized the region and show no sign of ending or achieving any of the long-ago stated goals.