Was strike on Syria legal?
By Ryan Lizza 06:13 P.M.
... In the years following the September 11th terrorist attacks, Americans have grown so accustomed to Presidents launching missiles at countries in the Middle East and North Africa that we almost forget that there are laws intended to circumscribe a President’s urges to use military force ...
... what is the legal justification for Trump’s actions? In 2013, Obama considered a similar strike after Assad used chemical weapons on Syrians outside Damascus, killing some fourteen hundred people. Obama had previously announced that such an attack would amount to a “red line” triggering military action. Obama initially sought an authorization for the use of force from Congress, but it became clear that it would not pass, especially when some of the most hawkish Republican senators opposed it. “I have never supported the use of U.S. military force in the conflict <in Syria>. And I still don’t,” Senator Marco Rubio, of Florida, said in September, 2013 ...
... Obama did not strike Assad in 2013 and instead negotiated, with the blessing of the United Nations, an agreement that Assad would give up his chemical weapons. When the Security Council adopted the resolution outlining the agreement, it “agreed that in the event of non-compliance, it would impose ‘Chapter VII’ measures,” the U.N.’s term for the use of force ...
... the relevant U.N. resolution made it clear that the Security Council had to authorize the use of force before military action could be taken ...
http://www.newyorker.com/news/ryan-lizza/was-trumps-strike-on-syria-legal
= new reply since forum marked as read
Syria was not an imminent threat to the US, therefore Trump should have gotten approval from Congress. Of course, Itchy Mitchy thinks what Trump did was wonderful.
