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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy U.S. airstrikes in Syria are not legal- and why it matters
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MARTIN: The Obama administration says these strikes are legal under something called the AUMF - this is the Authorization for the Use of Military Force - that was passed after 9/11. You disagree, why?
FELDMAN: The post-9/11 authorization was for us to go to war with al-Qaida or affiliated forces. The Islamic State is not an affiliated force of al-Qaida and, in fact, the Islamic State it is at war with an al-Qaida affiliate in Syria. And it would be a mistake to interpret that initial authorization as simply saying if someone is a jihadist and we don't like them then the president is authorized to make war on them. That's a bit too close to the old, refuted idea that the United States is involved in a global war against radical Islam; we're not as a legal matter, and we shouldn't be as a practical matter either.
MARTIN: But no one seems to be making a big deal of this. The Secretary-General of the U.N. has called ISIS a grave threat, and no one but Iran - no nation state but Iran - seems to be calling into question the legality of the strikes.
FELDMAN: That's true. There seems to be a kind of recognition that the Islamic State, which has no significant national allies, is a rogue actor. And therefore, people are more or less willing turn a blind eye to the apparent absence of legal justification for this action. Now, that does make you ask, quite reasonably, who cares about international law? Should it matter at all? And the answer is international law never matters until it matters. You know, it's not until somebody like Vladimir Putin is in the process of trying to carve away a part of Ukraine that suddenly the question of national sovereignty enters people's concerns. And they suddenly say, wait a minute, what Putin is doing is violating international law. So when we violate international law - when we don't get U.N. authorization for interventions like this - we do so at our peril because we create precedents by which bad actors can subsequently appear and say, well, you thought this was fine, and so what we're doing - our intervention - is fine too.
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http://www.npr.org/2014/09/25/351529354/are-u-s-air-strikes-in-syria-legal
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Legalequilibrium78
(103 posts)For what end? What is it that you are trying to achieve? If Iran - which is a known verifiable sponsor of terrorist organization - will question the legal basis and conduct of the U.S. actions inside Syria, then perhaps Iran and it's ilk should have pursued these damn terrorists or brought about an action plan that would have thwarted ISIL/ISIS insidious activities. But alas, Iran for it's laughable attempt to paint the U.S. actions as a flagrant violaton of international laws.
cali
(114,904 posts)It sets a bad precedent- and not just internationally. Imagine the next time a republican is in the White House.
GeorgeGist
(25,320 posts)American exceptionalism!
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)msanthrope
(37,549 posts)1) Khorasan is definitely AlQaeda.
2) Al-Nusra is definitely AlQaeda.
Anyone who knows the basic history of ISIL understands why only Iran is saying something, and why the AUMF of 9/18/2001 applies.
cali
(114,904 posts)and Noah Feldman surely knows his basic history- and if you knew anything about him, you'd know that.
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)fighting alongside ISIL, the fact that Noah Feldman didn't mention that indicates that he purposefully tailored his argument to the theoretical, as opposed to the facts on the ground.
Do I know Noah? Well, let's just say that Noah is pretty well aware that I find his stance on hate crimes disingenuous, appalling, and nothing more than apologism.
