Radiolab rarely takes on politics, and when it does the stories are more behavioral than partisan. This is one of the best examples of that, where the hosts analyze a sentence that was written shortly after September 11th, 2001 and became the legal foundation for the “war on terror.” In collaboration with Buzzfeed reporter Gregory Johnsen, the story looks word by word at the confusing yet incredibly important sixty-world Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) and what it meant for U.S. politics.

During the episode, interviews with journalists, legal experts and politicians help understand how the sentence was interpreted, why it is so impactful, and how it will affect the future of war and peace.

[April 18, 2014]