Daniel Larison — The Legal ‘Arguments’ for Attacking Syria Are Preposterous

Remember the legal controversy over the legality of "enhanced interrogation," "extraordinary rendition," and assassination. Now, it's illegal aggression.

The US power elite does what it wants because it can. Who is going to hold American officials to account?

This is what is at stake in the debate over attacking Syria. If you don’t think attacking the Syrian government is illegal, you are reduced to buying into the anti-constitutional nonsense of John Yoo and others like him. If you think that the president’s authority is limited by the Constitution and the power to decide when and where to go to war rests solely with Congress, you have to oppose an attack on the Syrian government as the illegal overreach that it is.

And Larison's argument is limited to US law. Illegal aggression is the most serious war crime under international law, based on Nuremberg precedent, for example.

This goes way beyond overreach.

It is also deadly for American soft power, since the US exemption from law and treaty is based on American "exceptionalism" even it it violates international law, domestic law and the US Constitution. It's patently hypocritical to require others to conform to law of one's making and laws to which one has agreed by treaty while exempting oneself from those laws.

It sends the message that the US is an arrogant and hypocritical bully.

The American Conservative
The Legal ‘Arguments’ for Attacking Syria Are Preposterous

Daniel Larison