{"id":754,"date":"2011-06-29T09:16:56","date_gmt":"2011-06-29T07:16:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/?p=754"},"modified":"2015-04-26T18:42:25","modified_gmt":"2015-04-26T16:42:25","slug":"obamas-illegal-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/obamas-illegal-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama’s illegal war"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few years ago, in the early stages of the Iraq war, some Americans complained that the military action was illegal. This puzzled my brother-in-law<\/span>. “How can a war be illegal?” he asked me.<\/p>\n

I was flattered<\/span> at the chance to show that my years of studying history and political science had not been in vain<\/span>.<\/p>\n

I told him about international law<\/span> and explained that the United Nations is basically a treaty<\/span> with every other nation on the planet. If everybody else is against you, they can give themselves the right to try to stop you. This happened in Korea in 1950 and in Iraq when it invaded Kuwait in 1990. It almost happened in Iraq in 2003, but the US, having wiretapped<\/span> the other nations’ delegates, determined it wouldn’t get the necessary number of votes and decided to go it alone.<\/p>\n

There’s a second way a war can be illegal, and that is if the warfaring<\/span> nation’s constitution forbids it. This brings us to the current situation in Libya.<\/p>\n

The US constitution gives Congress two important powers: the power to declare war, and the power to decide how the federal budget is spent. The presidency is part of a separate branch<\/span> of government \u2014 the executive \u2014 and does not have these powers. Instead, the executive branch has the powers of representation and diplomacy.<\/p>\n

However \u2014 and this is where it gets tricky<\/span> \u2014 the constitution also says that the president is commander-in-chief<\/span> of the armed forces<\/span> during wartime.<\/p>\n

What if?<\/h2>\n

So imagine that the US is attacked. Suppose it’s of strategic importance to be able to strike back<\/span> immediately. If a nuclear war started, the decision would have to be made within minutes.<\/p>\n

In 1964, a report came in that the North Vietnamese had fired upon American ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. President Lyndon Johnson ordered a counterstrike, then went to Congress to ask for authorization. It was a trick<\/span>; the Tonkin battle never happened. But it set a precedent. In 1973, Congress formalized the procedure in the War Powers Act<\/span>. This gives the president the authority to start a war, but requires him to finish it within 90 days unless he gets Congress’s approval<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Well, guess what. Barack Obama took the US to war in Libya. Last week, the 90 days ran out, and Congress said no<\/a>. Both Democrats and Republicans voted against the war. Obama hadn’t even asked for their permission. So US involvement in Libya is now illegal.<\/p>\n

Various members of Congress gave the official reason that Libya had neither threatened nor attacked us. Others gave a more immediate reason, which is that the US is overextending itself<\/span>. Almost all available forces are still stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ironically, though, a second measure in Congress \u2014 to cut off funding<\/span> for the NATO-run Libya War \u2014 failed. The most legal, and most likely, result is that the US will continue to provide intelligence<\/span> and logistical support to its allies without actually dropping bombs.<\/p>\n

The end of NATO?<\/h2>\n

This isn’t the end of NATO, but it does raise a fundamental question: What is NATO without the US in the lead<\/span>?<\/p>\n

Through the negligence<\/span> of the media and school systems, and through the polemics of politicians, Americans today generally don’t understand the role of either the UN or of NATO. The UN is portrayed<\/span> as a club of tin-pot<\/span> dictators who sit around and pass<\/span> meaningless resolutions, not as the parent organization of UNESCO, UNICEF and the World Health Organization, which all work for the betterment of humanity. NATO is portrayed, if at all, in its Cold War context, not as a force that still keeps Russia, China and Al Qaeda at bay<\/span>.<\/p>\n

A common perception<\/span> in the US is that America is, at worst, pushed around by both organizations and, at best, subject to<\/span> their decisions. It’s ironic, because America made sure that both organizations were founded<\/span> and have operated according to its own values. It’s not at all by coincidence<\/span> that the UN is headquartered in the United States and that the US (until now) has called the shots<\/span> in NATO.<\/p>\n

If there are rules to be followed, one should be grateful<\/span> that they are one’s own rules.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few years ago, in the early stages of the Iraq war, some Americans complained that the military action was illegal. This puzzled my brother-in-law. “How can a war be illegal?” he asked me. I was flattered at the chance to show that my years of studying history and political science had not been in vain. I told him about … >><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[67,27,56,235,62],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=754"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1554,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754\/revisions\/1554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}