Who knew that the Chemical Weapons Convention trumps the U.S. Constitution? [View all]

[kpete]

Carney pretty much gave away Obama's entire legal argument for intervention:

The Chemical Weapons Convention has more than 150 signatories and makes clear that the use and proliferation of chemical weapons is a clear violation of international norms, and that it is absolutely in the national security interest of the Unites States and in the international community that the use of chemical weapons on the scale that we saw on August 21st cannot be ignored. It must be responded to.

Because to allow it to happen without a response would be to invite further use of chemical weapons and to have that international standard dissolve. And the consequences of that, given the volatility of the region and the concerns that this nation and many others have about proliferation of chemical weapons, would be very serious indeed.

In the Libyan intervention, a vaguely worded UN resolution replaced congressional authorization. A UN resolution is clearly not obtainable for the coming Syrian adventure, so the new fallback is the Chemical Weapons Convention. Apparently the upholding of this Convention is sufficiently vital that it obviates any need for congressional authorization of force.



http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/08/27/press-briefing-press-secretary-jay-carney-8272013