A U.S. strike against Syria would be a war crime says former Judge Andrew Napolitano.
Appearing on Fox News Channel on Thursday, Napolitano said that even a limited strike is illegal under international law and violates the U.S. Constitution.
“You can use military force to attack somebody that’s attacked you, or you can use military force to attack somebody that’s about to attack you,” Napolitano said. “You can use military force to come to the aid of an ally that has been attacked when the ally asks for your assistance.”
Urgent: Should U.S. Strike Syria? Vote Here
The United States also could use the military to enforce international norms if the United Nations authorizes it.
None of those conditions apply in Syria, Napolitano said, making it a war crime if the United States acts.
He said the 1973 War Powers Act is unconstitutional because it takes away Congress’ authority to wage war and gives it to the president in certain circumstances. He said he expects the House to vote down President Barack Obama’s request for authorization by about 20 votes. Public sentiment is against action as well, with polls showing more than 60 percent opposed.
“Who wants this to happen besides John Kerry and the president?” Napolitano asked. “Sometimes the president can get lawless – any president – when he has military equipment at his disposal.”
Just before Russian President Vladimir Putin opened the G20 summit in St. Petersburg, he blasted the Obama administration on Wednesday for what he termed its propaganda on military action against Syria. “We talk with these people,” he said about Secretary of State John Kerry, the administration’s chief political spokesperson making the case for war. “We assume that they are decent. But he lies. And he knows that he lies. That’s pathetic.”
Putin has always been a bare-knuckles political brawler with a penchant for saying politically incorrect things about enemies — he once said of Islamist terrorists in Chechnya, for example, “If you are willing to become a radical Islamist and be circumcised, I invite you to Moscow. I will recommend that they perform the operation so that nothing can sprout there again.” Now, however, he’s directly challenging the authority of the United States – and he’s winning. President Obama has always wanted to be perceived as a global leader. Instead, it’s his chief international rival, quasi-dictator Putin, who has seized the reins.
Obama has been left to complain. “Do I hold out hope that Mr. Putin may change his position on some of these issues?” Obama asked in Sweden on Wednesday. “I’m always hopeful, and I will continue to engage him.” Just a few weeks ago, Obama mocked Putin’s posture during their meetings, likening it to a “bored kid in the back of the classroom.”
But it is Obama being schooled. Putin has stated that he would be open to action against Syria if shown proof that Assad ordered the chemical attack there. But on Wednesday, he said of John Kerry, “Of course he lied. And that’s not pretty.”
The G20 summit has been set not around national security issues, but on tax issues and economic recovery. Nonetheless, it will be Putin setting the agenda on his home turf, especially given that the visiting team is led by a floundering quarterback.
Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the New York Times bestseller “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).
U.S. to release information about Syria’s chemical weapons use
(CNN) — The Obama administration will release declassified intelligence Friday backing up a government assessment that the Syrian regime was responsible for a chemical weapons attack, a senior administration official said.
[U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s response to the vote was more diplomatic.
The United States respects the results, he told journalists in Manila, the Philippines. “Every nation has a responsibility to make their own decisions.”
The United States will continue to consult with the British government and still hope for “international collaboration.”
“Our approach is to continue to find an international coalition that will act together,” he said .]
This comes amid talk among major powers of a military response against the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The administration has said that the information would be made public by the end of the week.
But diplomatic and political developments this week raised the chances of the United States going it alone in a military intervention.
A U.N. Security Council meeting on Syria ended in deadlock, and in the U.S. Congress, doubts about military intervention are making the rounds.
And the United States’ closest ally, Great Britain, backed out of a possible coalition when its lawmakers voted down a proposal on military intervention.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said it is important for the United Kingdom to have a “robust response to the use of chemical weapons, and there are a series of things that (Britain) will continue to do.”British involvement in a military action “won’t be happening,” he said.
But diplomacy is continuing. Speaking in televised comments aired Friday, Cameron said he expects to speak to President Obama over the “next day or so.”
On Friday afternoon, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon intends to consult with countries at the United Nations on developments in Syria and is scheduled to meet with permanent members of the U.N. Security Council at noon Friday.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to speak about Syria at the State Department on Friday at 12:30 p.m. ET.
Iran: U.S. military action in Syria would spark ‘disaster’
Alone or together?
After the British vote, a senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told CNN that going it alone was a real prospect.
“We care what they think. We value the process. But we’re going to make the decision we need to make,” the official said.
Former President George W. Bush said Obama’s “got a tough choice to make.”
“I was not a fan of Mr. Assad. He’s an ally of Iran, he’s made mischief,” he told Fox News on Friday. “If he (Obama) decides to use the military, he’s got the greatest military in the world backing him up.”
In a statement released Friday, former President Jimmy Carter said “a punitive military response without a U.N. Security Council mandate or broad support from NATO and the Arab League would be illegal under international law and unlikely to alter the course of the war.”
A former director of the CIA says he believes Obama would face off with al-Assad alone.
“I can’t conceive he would back down from a very serious course of action,” retired Gen. Michael Hayden told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
[…]
Chemical weapons in Syria: How did we get here?
The government of France supports military intervention, if evidence incriminates the government of using poison gas against civilians.
But on Friday, President Francois Hollande told French newspaper Le Monde that intervention should be limited and not include al-Assad’s overthrow.
Public opinion
Skeptics of military action have pointed at the decision to use force in Iraq, where the United States government under Bush marched to war based on a thin claim that former dictator Saddam Hussein was harboring weapons of mass destruction.
Opponents are conjuring up a possible repeat of that scenario in Syria, though the intelligence being gathered on the use of WMDs in Syria may be more sound.
Half of all Americans say they oppose possible U.S. military action against Syria, according to an NBC News survey released Friday.
Nearly eight in 10 of those questioned say Obama should be required to get congressional approval before launching any military attack against al-Assad’s forces
The poll, conducted Wednesday and Thursday, indicates that 50% of the public says the United States should not take military action against Damascus in response to the Syrian government’s alleged use of chemical weapons against its own citizens, with 42% saying military action is appropriate.
But the survey suggests that if any military action is confined to air strikes using cruise missiles, support rises. Fifty percent of a smaller sample asked that question say they support such an attack, with 44% opposing a cruise missile attack meant to destroy military units and infrastructure that have been used to carry out chemical attacks.
“Only 25% of the American people support military action in Syria,” former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson told CNN’s Piers Morgan on Thursday.
Convincing evidence
To shake off the specter of the Iraq war, the public needs convincing that chemical weapons were used and that al-Assad’s regime was behind it.
“You have to have almost incontrovertible proof,” Richardson told CNN’s Piers Morgan on Thursday.
It’s there, said Arizona Sen. John McCain, and will be visible soon. He thinks that comparisons to Iraq are overblown and that doubts are unfounded.
“Come on. Does anybody really believe that those aren’t chemical weapons — those bodies of those children stacked up?” the Republican senator asked Morgan.
Al-Assad’s government has claimed that jihadists fighting with the opposition carried out the chemical weapons attacks on August 21 to turn global sentiments against it.
Read UK intelligence on chemical weapons
McCain doesn’t buy it.
“The rebels don’t have those weapons,” he said.
The president also needs to assure Congress that a possible intervention would not get out of hand, said Democratic Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.
“The action has to have a very limited purpose, and the purpose is to deter future use of chemical weapons,” he said.
Why Russia, Iran and China are standing by al-Assad
Haunted by Iraq
The parliamentarians in London shot down the proposal in spite of intelligence allegedly incriminating the Assad government.
Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee has concluded it was “highly likely” that Syrian government forces used poison gas outside Damascus last week in an attack that killed at least 350 people, according to a summary of the committee’s findings released Thursday.
A yes vote would not have sent the UK straight into a deployment.
Cameron had said his government would not act without first hearing from the U.N. inspectors and giving Parliament another chance to vote on military action. But his opposition seemed to be reminded of the Iraq war.
Opinion: For the U.S., Syria is a problem from hell
“I think today the House of Commons spoke for the British people who said they didn’t want a rush to war, and I was determined we learned the lessons of Iraq, and I’m glad we’ve made the prime minister see sense this evening,” Labour Party leader Ed Miliband told the Press Association.
The no vote came after a long day of debate, and it appeared to catch Cameron and his supporters by surprise.
For days, the prime minister has been sounding a call for action, lending support to talk of a U.S.- or Western-led strike against Syria.
“I strongly believe in the need for a tough response to the use of chemical weapons, but I also believe in respecting the will of this House of Commons,” the prime minister said.
“We will not be taking part in military action,” Cameron said Friday. “The British Parliament has spoken very, very clearly,” he said.
Though Cameron did not need parliamentary approval to commit to an intervention, he felt it important “to act as a democrat, to act a different way to previous prime ministers and properly consult Parliament,” he said Friday.
He regrets not being able to build a consensus of lawmakers, he said.
Letter from al-Assad
Before the vote, Syria’s government offered its own arguments against such an intervention. In an open letter to British lawmakers, the speaker of Syria’s parliament riffed on British literary hero William Shakespeare, saying: “If you bomb us, shall we not bleed?”
But the letter also invoked Iraq, a conflict justified on the grounds that Iraq had amassed stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and was working toward a nuclear bomb — claims that were discovered to have been false after the 2003 invasion.
“Those who want to send others to fight will talk in the Commons of the casualties in the Syrian conflict. But before you rush over the cliffs of war, would it not be wise to pause? Remember the thousands of British soldiers killed and maimed in Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead, both in the war and in the continuing chaos.”
British Commons Speaker John Bercow published the letter.
U.N. deadlock
Lack of support for military intervention at the United Nations on Thursday was less of a surprise.
Russia, which holds a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, is one of Syria’s closest allies and is most certain to veto any resolution against al-Assad’s government that involves military action.
Moscow reiterated the stance Friday.
“Russia is against any resolution of the U.N. Security Council, which may contain an option for use of force,” Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said Friday.
Map: U.S. and allied assets around Syria
A closed-door Security Council meeting called by Russia ended with no agreement on a resolution to address the growing crisis in Syria, a Western diplomat told CNN’s Nick Paton Walsh on condition of anonymity.
U.N. weapons inspectors are now in Syria trying to confirm the use of chemical weapons. The inspectors are expected to leave the country by Saturday morning.
They are to brief U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who, in turn, will swiftly brief the Security Council on the findings.
Congressional jitters
The president is facing doubts at home as well: More than 160 members of Congress, including 63 Democrats, have now signed letters calling for either a vote or at least a “full debate” before any U.S. action.
The author of one of those letters, Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee of California, said Obama should seek “an affirmative decision of Congress” before committing American forces.
More than 90 members of Congress, most of them Republican, signed another letter by GOP Rep. Scott Rigell of Virginia. That letter urged Obama “to consult and receive authorization” before authorizing any such military action.
Congress is in recess until September 9.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama was still weighing a potential response to the chemical weapons attacks.
The president has said that he is not considering a no-fly zone and has ruled out U.S. boots on the ground in Syria.
Al-Assad has vowed to defend his country against any outside attack.
UK Government’s legal position on Syrian regime’s chemical weapon use
Any attack on Syria without Congressional approval would be an impeachable act, political commentator Pat Buchanan has told Newsmax in an exclusive interview.
Urgent:Should U.S. Strike Syria? Vote Here
The former presidential candidate and best-selling author also says he prefers “the devil we know” in Syria — Bashar Assad — to the al-Qaida elements he asserts are leading the rebellion against his regime.
Buchanan has been a senior advisor to three presidents, a two-time candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, and the presidential nominee of the Reform Party in 2000.
President Obama has signaled that he is considering a strike on Syria amid administration claims the Assad regime has used chemical weapons.
In an exclusive interview with Newsmax TV on Thursday, Buchanan says his chief concern about a potential strike is that “the president of the United States is threatening a war and planning a war he has no right to wage. The Congress of the United States alone has the power to authorize war or declare war and it has not done so.
“President Obama is usurping the authority of the Congress first and foremost and he appears about to launch an unconstitutional and unnecessary war. So the President should be called to account by the Congress and told: no war without our approval. That’s the way the Constitution works.
“The key figure is Speaker of the House John Boehner, who should call the House of Representatives back into session on Monday and instruct the president directly: Mr. President, you have no authority and no right to launch acts of war against Syria against whom we have not declared or authorized any war. We are calling on you not to engage in what would clearly be an impeachable act – starting a war against a country without the approval of the Congress when you are asked directly not to do so.
“If the president launched an unnecessary and unconstitutional war, striking a country against whom we have not declared war and has not attacked us, that is de facto an impeachable act that could lead to an open-ended war, the consequences of which we cannot even see.”
The White House has talked about the moral justification for a strike. Asked if there is also a legal justification, Buchanan responds: “There’s no constitutional justification right now in my judgment for a strike on Syria. The U.N. Security Council has not authorized a war, the Congress of the United States has not authorized a war.
“I do agree that the use of poison gas by the Syrian government — if it was President Assad who authorized it — is an obscene act which the international community and the Security Council should take up. But we don’t know who ordered it; we don’t know how it was delivered; we don’t know if Assad knew about it; we don’t know if Assad ordered it.
“But if he did, this is an issue that ought to be taken up by the international community and the Security Council, not the United States of America unilaterally and certainly not the president of the United States based on the flimsy evidence we have seen to date.”
Obama declared unequivocally on Wednesday that the Syrian government was responsible for the chemical attacks on. However, several U.S. officials are now using the phrase “not a slam dunk” to describe the intelligence picture.
Buchanan comments: “I would not understand or comprehend if Assad, no matter how bad a man he may be, would be so stupid as to order a chemical weapons attack on civilians in his own country when the immediate consequence might be that he would be at war with the United States.
“But what the United States should do is quite clear: Gather all the evidence through the U.N., gather all the evidence through our intelligence, take this to the Security Council the same way President Kennedy through Adlai Stevenson took the [evidence] during the Cuban Missile Crisis. We had our photographs, we showed the world what we had, we proved the missiles were in Cuba.
“That is the constitutional and legal way to do this. It is not to act in panic because John Kerry is shocked at the pictures he saw on YouTube.”
Buchanan said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid should call the Senate into session and “if he believes we should go to war, authorize it.”
“That is what George H. W. Bush did before he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait. That is what George W. Bush did. I was against that war on Iraq but the president won the authority from Congress so it was a constitutional and legitimate war no matter that I did not like it.”
If Obama does attack Syria without approval, “it is a clear, unconstitutional, illegal act,” Buchanan reiterated. “If the president did this, he would be a rogue president.” Buchanan says he disagrees with former ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton’s assertion that we should seek to take out Assad.
Urgent:Should U.S. Strike Syria? Vote Here
“Look who is on the other side of this war,” he tells Newsmax. “We have al-Qaida elements that are murderous, that have tortured people, that have killed Christians, and they’re the leading force in the elements that are fighting against Assad.
“Behind Assad we have the Iranians and Hezbollah and the Russians. It is not our war. Quite frankly, I would prefer the devil we know, which is Assad, to the devil we don’t know, which is that crowd in the rebels who are torturing and killing people and engaging in atrocities of their own.”
Buchanan also says the Republicans have “the power of the purse” and should block spending by those agencies that would implement Obamacare.
And regarding immigration reform, Buchanan doubts that the GOP-controlled House will go along with the amnesty that President Obama wants and the Senate has approved.
He adds: “I believe and hope that the House of Representatives will deny amnesty, deny legal rights to people who’ve broken into our country and broken our laws.”
