You think Putin is bad? — President Trump's arguably righteous, but illegal Syrian missile strike

© 2017 Peter Free

 

10 April 2017

 

 

Consider President Trump's widely lauded Syrian missile strike

 

How was this impulsively tsar-like way of behaving much different than those that characterize the multiple foreign autocrats, whom we delight in criticizing?

 

The missile strike was (unfortunately) an act of illegally waged war:

 

 

The strike was unconstitutional. Congress did not declare war on Syria.

 

There was also no imminent threat to the United States involved in President Assad's gassing of Syrian citizens. We would (therefore) have considerable difficulty arguing that an international emergency confronted our commander in chief.

 

Had an existential threat legitimately and imminently faced us, perhaps the President could have reasoned that temporary action on his part was justified under the War Powers Resolution of 1973.

 

Nor was the Syrian missile strike authorized by our laughably elasticized Authorization for Use of Military Force against Terrorists (2001).

 

The sovereign Syrian Government is not a terrorist organization under international law. And if the United States' own bestowed "state sponsor of terrorism" by itself justified waging undeclared war on such entities, then we would still be evading our own Constitution.

 

 

The United States — spiraling into non-stop illegalities

 

It is historically telling that we are now casually attacking other nations, without first declaring war or positing the slightest persuasive legal justification.

 

With regard to the Syrian situation that faced President Trump, keep in mind that:

 

 

The Russian Federation and Iran are both in Syria at the Syrian government's invitation. They are there lawfully, unlike the United States.

 

Indeed, the Syrian government, heinous though it is, is (of necessity) fighting the same ISIS terrorists that the United States is.

 

 

The "hypocrisy gottcha" is this

 

Pretty damn near everyone in the United States thinks that gassing babies is a bad idea.

 

Therefore, President Trump could have asked Congress for a declaration of war. Congress could have done its constitutional duty and voted upon his request. Domestic law would have been satisfied.

 

 

As to international law, America's course would have been trickier

 

Does death-gassing baby citizens constitute a situation in which foreign nations are allowed to forcibly intervene?

 

Perhaps, but maybe not.

 

That's where (a) proof of the source of the alleged murder gassing is necessary and (b) some international forum in which to bring it.

 

Naturally (given the characteristic arrogance of our Unremittingly Righteous Rectitude), Imperial America could not possibly allow itself to be slowed by such international niceties.

 

But at least our own Constitution would have been satisfied by a Congressional declaration of war.

 

And even our adversaries would understand — proof of the Syrian Government source of the gassing having been persuasively demonstrated — that American intervention had some rationally defensible justice in it.

 

 

The moral? — When one consistently ignores rules of order and civility, it is difficult to differentiate oneself from the Bad Guys

 

I am not blaming President Trump for this trend in American unlawfulness. His two most recent predecessors did pretty much the same thing, almost as blatantly.

 

I mention the recent Trump missile strike only to point out why significant numbers of foreign peoples find American hypocrisy distasteful. The U.S. example currently consists of impulsively, illegally, and often stupidly doing whatever we want, whenever we want, and everyone else be damned.

 

Most revealing is the fact that Americans, leaders included, seem to be completely unaware of just how unlawfully chaos-fueling much of what we do really is.

 

How the violently anarchic totality of these American doings differs (in significant essence) from Putin examples of behavioral atrociousness is a legitimate question.

 

One cannot legitimately claim morality and necessity as a basis for warlike action, under circumstances in which:

 

 (a) combative strikes violate all rules of widely accepted societal order

 

and

 

(b) are so poorly thought out that they are unlikely to achieve even a hint of one's pretended goals.