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Radiolab

This hour we pull apart one sen­tence, writ­ten in the hours after Sep­tem­ber 11th, 2001, that has led to the longest war in U.S. his­to­ry. We exam­ine how just 60 words of legal lan­guage have blurred the line between war and peace.

In the hours after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a lawyer sat down in front of a com­put­er and start­ed writ­ing a legal jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for tak­ing action against those respon­si­ble. The lan­guage that he draft­ed and that Pres­i­dent George W. Bush signed into law — called the Autho­riza­tion for Use of Mil­i­tary Force (AUMF) — has at its heart one sin­gle sen­tence, 60 words long. Over the last decade, those 60 words have become the legal foun­da­tion for the war on terror.”

In this col­lab­o­ra­tion with Buz­zFeed, reporter Gre­go­ry Johnsen tells us the sto­ry of how this has come to be one of the most impor­tant, con­fus­ing, trou­bling sen­tences of the past 12 years. We go into the meet­ings that took place in the chaot­ic days just after 911, speak with Con­gress­woman Bar­bara Lee and for­mer Con­gress­man Ron Del­lums about the vote on the AUMF. We hear from for­mer White House and State Depart­ment lawyers John Bellinger & Harold Koh. We learn how this legal lan­guage unleashed Guan­tanamo, Navy Seal raids and drone strikes. And we speak with jour­nal­ist Daniel Klaid­man, legal expert Ben­jamin Wittes and Vir­ginia Sen­a­tor Tim Kaine about how these words came to be inter­pret­ed, and what they mean for the future of war and peace.