Whereas ISIL is responsible for the deaths of innocent United States citizens, including James Foley, Steven Sotloff, Abdul-Rahman Peter Kassig, and Kayla Mueller;
Authorization for Use of Military Force against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [as proposed to Congress by the Obama administration]
Yes, ISIL is responsible for taking Ms. Mueller hostage and for endangering her life in a war zone. Her death is an awful tragedy, particularly given her humanitarian motivations and self-sacrificing efforts. But it is no small matter that there is no evidence to date that ISIL militants actually killed her. No one—not even the United States government—has said that's the case. The only known direct claim about a cause of death was this:
Supporters of Islamic State had claimed on Friday that she was killed in a Jordanian air strike intended to avenge the burning to death of a captured Jordanian pilot.
Family of Isis hostage Kayla Mueller confirms aid worker has been killed
Raya Jalabi in New York, The Guardian, 10 February 2015
Obviously ISIL isn't exactly a credible source on its own, and they have incentive to lie about this incident themselves. All the same, their statement is the only evidence to date that is publicly available. ISIL provided a photograph of the apparent bombardment damage, though they made public no direct evidence of Ms. Mueller's passing.
US officials could not determine her cause of death.
The National Security Council spokeswoman, Bernadette Meehan, said that over the weekend, the family received a private message from Mueller’s captors containing “additional information”.
“Once this information was authenticated by the intelligence community, they concluded that Kayla was deceased,” Meehan said.
As Marcy Wheeler pointed out,
But neither statement includes any agent with her death. The White House has “learned of the death of Kayla Jean Mueller.” Her family confirms she “has lost her life.”
Amid ISIL’s allegations that she was killed in a Jordanian bomb strike, the utter lack of an agency here seems to suggest those claims are correct. When ISIL kills a hostage, agency is at the forefront. When a bomb kills a hostage, no one is to blame.
Sometimes, Death Just Happens
By emptywheel, February 10, 2015
The USA can jump up and down about ISIL being responsible for Ms. Mueller's death all week long, but so far as what we know to date, a claim that ISIL forces killed Ms. Mueller may in fact be a lie.
And yet the new "Authorization for the Use of Military Force"—under which this country asserts the power to make war—by implication makes that claim.
There are many other glaring problems with the state of war powers in the USA and the way this specific AUMF goes about enacting them. But let us, as a bare minimum, insist that any basis for war be the product of facts.
Lies our political leaders promulgated to justify wars are what carried us into our and our target countries' present worsening circumstances in the first place.
Our history:
Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated;
Whereas Iraq, in direct and flagrant violation of the cease-fire, attempted to thwart the efforts of weapons inspectors to identify and destroy Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction stockpiles and development capabilities, which finally resulted in the withdrawal of inspectors from Iraq on October 31, 1998;
Whereas in Public Law 105–235 (August 14, 1998), Congress concluded that Iraq’s continuing weapons of mass destruction programs threatened vital United States interests and international peace and security, declared Iraq to be in "material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations" and urged the President "to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations";
Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations;
[...] Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;
Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens;
[...] Whereas Iraq’s demonstrated capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction, the risk that the current Iraqi regime will either employ those weapons to launch a surprise attack against the United States or its Armed Forces or provide them to international terrorists who would do so, and the extreme magnitude of harm that would result to the United States and its citizens from such an attack, combine to justify action by the United States to defend itself;
[...] Whereas it is in the national security interests of the United States to restore international peace and security to the Persian Gulf region:
Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 [PDF]
Public Law 107–243, 107th Congress (116 STAT. 1498)
H.J. Res. 114, Oct. 15, 2002
Whereas naval units of the Communist regime in Vietnam, in violation of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations and of international law, have deliberately and repeatedly attacked United States naval vessels lawfully present in international waters,
[...] Whereas the United States is assisting the peoples of southeast Asia to protect their freedom and has no territorial, military or political ambitions in that area, but desires only that these peoples should be left in peace to work out their own destinies in their own way:
JOINT RESOLUTION to promote the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia [PDF]
Public Law 88-408, 88th Congress (78 STAT. 384)
H. J. Res. 1145, August 10, 1964