Lawless President + Lawless Congress != Legal Use of Force in Syria

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/09/05-1



In March 1967, Johnson's secretary of state, Dean Rusk, center foreground, faced Congressional questions about Vietnam. (

Lawless President + Lawless Congress ? Legal Use of Force in Syria
by Howard Friel
Published on Thursday, September 5, 2013 by Common Dreams

On August 7, 1964, the United States House of Representatives voted 416–0, and the U.S. Senate voted 88–2, to support President’s Johnson’s decision to bomb targets inside North Vietnam in response to what the president said were North Vietnamese attacks on the U.S.S. Maddox and U.S.S. Turner Joy in the Gulf of Tonkin.

~SNIP~

Similarly, in October 2002, the House voted 296–133 and the Senate 77–23 to authorize President George W. Bush to resort to military force against Iraq “as he determines to be necessary and appropriate” in order to “defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq.”

~SNIP~

These votes authorizing force were illegal because (a) the United States was not subjected to an “armed attack” on its territorial borders by Vietnam or Iraq; neither Vietnam nor Iraq had any capability to engage in such an attack, and (b) the UN Security Council did not authorize the United States to resort to force in Vietnam or Iraq.

On these two counts, then, the Congress voted in violation of the cardinal rule of the UN Charter—Article 2(4)—which prohibits the threat or use of force by states in the conduct of their international relations.