60 Words

Today we've got a story about the crazy power of words.

In particular, sixty words.

Single sentence.

That is well has you could say defined America for the last twelve years.

And uh Number two yeah In the place to start Is a difficult one This Justin you were looking at obviously a very disturbing live shot there September eleventh two thousand and one eight forty six AM A plane Has crashed into the World Trade Center.

We don't know anything more than that.

We don't know if 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 rather Oh There's another One Another Plane Just Hit Right oh My Gosh Another Plane Has Just hit! And Of course Everybody stay calm! We Can Remember How He Felt Tell Me What You Just Saw Oh Shit! It fell down Explosion !Oh my god! What happened ?It is The Worst Attack Ever On American Soil But If you really want to understand the world we live in now You've gotta jump ahead one day To september twelfth 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 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 Johnsen.

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 Wanna ACT alone hE Wanted Congressional Approval Right mean Technically IN AN emergency THE president CAN Defend THe Country He IS THe Commander IN Chief After ALL H e Doesn'T Have tO Go tO Congress AND Say "hey Do I HAVE authorization tO Use Force?" Not AN Emergency THAT'S Ben Wittes BY ThE Way Senior fellow in governance 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 declares 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 O f The declaration o F War IS TH E Authorization tO USE force.ThE AUTHORIZATION TO USe FORCE WHAT'S CALLED THE autorizadoation FOR THE use OF military foRce Or As IT'S COMMONLY REFERRED TO THE AUMF RIGHT SO Our Lawyer IN ThE WHITE HOUSE FLANAGAN He S given A task GO WRITE AN AUMF THAT CONGRESS CAn SEND TO THE PRESIDENT He REALLY Has NO Idea sO HE Goes BACK TO ThE LAST TIME ThaT ThE US DID ThiS Last time congress passed ONE OF THESE THINGS He DOES A Quick SORT OF SEARCH ON His COMPUTER Boom Finds It Nineteen Ninety One Iraq ThE Gulf Wa R 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 send OUR WA rOn terror A JUST waR And he sets in motion this bewildering series of events.A u.s drone strike linked to Al Qaeda End the war Bring the troops home Now Madness that is basically the world we Live in Taliban Fifty members of a wedding procession WERE killed by us And if yOU'RE LIKE ME Bizarre EVEN Sadistic Treatment If yoU'Re Like me AND YOu Find Yourself Flipping Through thE Channels Seeing news Basically ignoring it then every so often thinking WAIT A SECOND Terrorism targets in Africa From Libya nOW THE Us Air Force Drone Strike in Southern Somalia WaiT waiT HOW ARE WE doing thiS IN All these different places One Hundred prisoners Are On A Hunger StrikE And likE that In protest of their indefinite detention HoW hoW HOw ArE WE Detaining people For SO Long YoU Mean IS THaT IS IT OKAY TO DO THAT Well jusT WHO signed off on this yeaH You Know AND IT turns OUT WE ALL Did BECAUSE IT WAS IN THAT DOCUMENT

DOCUMENTThis is the legal foundation for everything that the US has done, everything from Guantanamo Bay to drone strikes, to secret renditions, to SEAL raids.

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 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, authorize, 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.

[gentle music] Today a collaboration with BuzzFeed-

And with reporter Gregory Johnsen.

We're going to try to decode those words.