What constitutes a "legal" war?

Great Debates
41

Sorry, but I am not wrong. The impeachment process is separated in two major phases, one in the House, one in the Senate, the first decides whether to indict, the second whether the President is found guilty of the charges. I would suggest you inform yourself a bit better on the legal proceedings of your own political system.

Here’s the process in a nutshell, from
http://www.law.cornell.edu/background/impeach/impeach.htm

1.The House Judiciary Committee deliberates over whether to initiate an impeachment inquiry.

  1. The Judiciary Committee adopts a resolution seeking authority from the entire House of Representatives to conduct an inquiry. Before voting, the House debates and considers the resolution. Approval requires a majority vote.

3.The Judiciary Committee conducts an impeachment inquiry, possibly through public hearings. At the conclusion of the inquiry, articles of impeachment are prepared. They must be approved by a majority of the Committee.

4.The House of Representatives considers and debates the articles of impeachment. A majority vote of the entire House is required to pass each article. Once an article is approved, the President is, technically speaking, “impeached” – that is subject to trial in the Senate.

  1. The Senate holds trial on the articles of impeachment approved by the House. The Senate sits as a jury while the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court presides over the trial.

  2. At the conclusion of the trial, the Senate votes on whether to remove the President from office. A two-thirds vote by the Members present in the Senate is required for removal.

7.If the President is removed, the Vice-President assumes the Presidency under the chain of succession established by Amendment XXV.

The result of the impeachment process was an acquittal: The Senate voted 55-45 ‘not guilty’ on perjury, and 50-50 on obstruction of justice.

What part of ‘not guilty’ did you not understand?

As such, your ‘convict’ was actually acquitted.

As for Clinton being disbarred, since when is that equivalent to a conviction?

42

Sorry, but your ignorance of the impeachment process is not an argument. Totally aside from that, indictment of Clinton after his leaving office was considered, but dismissed.

43

From robertliguori

No comprende. The DIFFERENCE being, if you bop me on the head and I take you to court, a judge and jury are EMPOWERED to weigh the evidence presented by both sides, and a LEGAL ruling will be made. The judge and lawyers are QUALIFIED to render an opinion on the laws in play, and also EMPOWERED to make a binding ruling.

If you get off, then yes…you ARE innocent, even if you really did it. Its how the system opperates (remember OJ?). Otherwise, the system would be, you’d bop me on the head and I’d simply pull out a gun and blow you away. Bummer for you. No harm for me though, except the bop on the head of course. In other words, it would be chaos.

What you guys (on BOTH sides of this arguement) are basically saying though, ammounts to you bopping me on the head, and some bystanders (or even someone who wasn’t there, but heard about it from a friend of a friends grandmothers housekeeper)basically making the call…‘well, I thought he (the bopper) looked like a nice man, so I think he was justified.’ ‘No, I thought that the bopping was unprovoked so it was definitely illegal.’ etc etc…but the point being, they are neither qualified to render an opinion on the law, nor are they part of the legal process itself, so their opinions are, frankly meaningless.

Capice? :slight_smile:

-XT

44

How about if I bop you on the head, but don’t really consider that the laws that I would have applied to others apply to me? And, as I’ve got the police in my pocket, have the choice of which courts I subject myself to, and would be entitled to veto any judgement against me, what you gonna do?

45

I don’t care what you want. The OP basically said that it was only liberals who agreed that the war is illegal. My cite refutes that, and clearly shows that an acknowledged conservative (or neoconservative if you wish) agrees that the war is illegal.

Somewhat related to what you want, I believe him because it is his job as Chairman of the Defense Policy Board and an advisor of Rumsfeld’s to know whether or not things like this war with Iraq are legal. He is not doing his job properly if he doesn’t know whether he is advising a legal or illegal military action.

46

Well, since this is a weak ass analogy to the all pervasive power of The Bush I’ll play along. What I’d do is get my friends (France, Germany, etc) who DON’T want to play in your raindeer games to basically boycott your goods, put sanctions on your ass, and otherwise make your life miserable. THAT would be your punishment, and we’d be justified in doing so, IF your actions were illegal. After all, you might have control of your OWN raindeer game, by, I’m assuming, you DON’T have control of mine.

In reality, if I percieved such a thing happening in REAL life, I’d probably be back to simply blowing you away with my gun if I couldn’t find other redress. In international politics though, I would assume that sanctions to trade, embargos and boycotts would suffice for this. Are they happening? Or is everyone simply too afraid of the US? Because it was my understanding that the US WAS being threatened with trade sanctions in reference to steel tarriffs…so why there, and not here??

Instead of all this fencing and weak analogies, why don’t you simply EXPLAIN to me why, if the US is in violation of international treaties, and if the US’s actions were in fact illegal, that absolutely nothing is being done about it. And if thats the case, why don’t you further explain to me why ANY country should even bother to take them seriously.

Man, I have no position on this. Convince me that the US’s actions were illegal. SHOW me some authority that is legally empowered (hell, statements by the opposing members of the security counsel calling the US actions illegal will do for a start) authority that is claiming this. But don’t show me the UN charter, and pick out the points YOU feel are relevant.

This should be an easy one if its so cut and dry. PROVE it.

-XT

47

Well, as a matter of fact, it is. It isn’t a matter of picking out the points I think are relevant, the terms are entirely clear. Military action, absent a clear and present danger, is “aggressive war” Agressive war is illegal, under the UN Charter which we signed and ratified as a treaty. The US Constitution states, in no uncertain terms, that treaties ratified by the Senate have the force of law. Its really quite simple.

The fact that no one has the power or the guts to bust us for it has no bearing. It simply means no one has the power or the guts.

48

Chirac

Putin

And Tony Blair was told by the senior lawyer in Britain that only the existence of WMDs made the war legal.

49

If we accept this logic, the Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait doesn’t make him a “war criminal” either. He is/was the “elected” leader of a republic just like GWB is.

I thought it might be useful to throw in a definition to help people out.

War Crime

This is the definition of the International Criminal Court, which the United States does not recognise. It is one of 53 countries not to recognise the treaty, Russia is the only other noteable country not to have done like wise.

50

XT:

You’re correct, of course, that one can’t describe the invasion of Iraq, or any other war, really, as “illegal” in a technical sense, because the international community lacks a set of codified laws governing their relations, a system of courts for adjudication, or any enforcement agency. (I think a case can be made that the war is illegal in terms of US law, on the other hand, by referring to the Constitutional clause that equates international treaties with “the supreme law of the land.” But I digress.)

For me, saying the invasion is “illegal” is just shorthand for claiming it’s a violation of the UN Charter, standards of international praxis, and so on. I don’t think the claim can be taken quite as literally as you seem to understand it. On the other hand, it isn’t “frankly meaningless,” either, just because it’s not technically correct, strictly speaking. In other words, if such an international court system existed, then a very strong case could be made against the US in such a forum.

51

And since only congress has the authority to declare war, should we assume that those Congressmen who authorized Bush to use force against Iraq have committed an illegal act?

But you’re still wrong. Even by your own logic, one must determine whether or not there was a “clear and present danger”. And that must be through a formal, legal process, must it not? As much as I’d like you to be the arbiter of that, Elucidator, you just aren’t. And that’s what is actually simple here.

52

What is actually quite simple here is that no one claimed there was a clear and present danger to the US, for the simple fact that Iraq didn’t have any weapons capable of reaching the US.

53

Is it your proposition that the war was illegal and that Bush is guilty of comitting a criminal act? That is the topic of debate.

54

It is my position that the war is neither justified by the UN nor by self-defense.

55

You must be a poltician, as you have not answered the question.:slight_smile:

I must assume, then, by your non-answer that you do not think the war was illegal.

56

Good god, what a mess.

First things first: if you don’t think that international law exists, fine. The rest of this conversation clearly does not apply to that position.

Second, for the sake of clarity, let us interpret the word “illegal” in this context to mean “contrary to the obligations of a state under treaty or customary international law.”

Third, Congress passing or not passing a use of force authorization has nothing to do with whether the United States has fulfilled its international obligations to restrain itself from using military force until justified by relevant international laws (more on that later). It is the United States as a whole, as a political entity that is culpable for its actions in this setting, not just one man or the whole legislature.

Fourth, let’s just drop talk of the ICC right now, because it clearly does not apply in this situation. The crime of “aggression” in the Rome Statute (the ICC treaty) was not defined, so the ICC has no jurisdiction EVEN IF the US could be held to account. The relevant judicial institution here is the International Court of Justice (aka the World Court) which was established in Chapter XIV of the UN Charter to be the judicial body of the United Nations. All members of the UN submit themselves to the jurisdiction of the ICJ.

Fifth, let’s take just a quick look at international law in this area. In terms of treaty law, the UN Charter lays it out very clear: states are obligated under that treaty to use self defense in the case of an armed attack until the UN Security Council has the opportunity to deal with the issue. The Iraq war clearly fails on that test: the UNSC had ample time to deal with the matter and did not authorize the use of force.

In terms of customary international law, two elements are required to justify pre-emptive war: necessity and proportionality. Necessity means that a country has no time to deliberate, that an impending attack forces immediate action. Bush and Congress (in the use of force resolution) called Iraq “a grave and growing” – not an “imminent” – threat, so this test fails there.

On proportionality, the response must be in proportion to the threat. That is, a complete conquest of a country is clearly not proportionate to a supposed threat of, say, a threatened shoot-down of an airliner. This question can be left open, because there’s little factual evidence here to make a judgment about the seriousness of the threat (which was merely “grave and growing.”)

Look, nobody is going to go to jail for this, because, as Al Gore said so well, “there is no controlling legal authority” here. The worst that could happen is that the ICJ issue another ruling against the US, like it did in 1986 when we mined the harbors in Nicaragua, that the US is found to be in violation of its commitments to peace and security in the world. And then, all the countries around the world will know that we acted like big fat powerful jerk country that think that “might makes right.”

Which is pretty much exactly what most of the world thinks about the US right now, so there we are.

57

Well Dudes, we have several problems here. Let us start with the first one- whether or not the Invasion of Iraq was legal by US laws. It was. Congress gave the Prez the authority to do so. And, according to the Courts- it doesn’t have to do so in a “Declaration of War” (nobody “declares” war anymore, besides). This was already taken to the Courts in one of the Apellate Courts, so absent a reversal by the Supremes (HIGHLY doubful) the "war’ (note small case w) is legal by US laws. OK?

Next- is the war legal under International laws, or under UN mandate? Well, as has been said- International law is a huge fuzzy thing, where almost nothing is black & white. Now it is true that the US claims the war was to protect us from “WMD” but them darned rascally WMD are sparse indeed (still, there were some, a long time agao, they MIGHT not have all be destroyed, and Saddam might have made more- He also could well have hidden what remain in Syria. All possible, but it is now clear that even if true, we really weren’t in any “imminent danger” from Saddam… however the Kurds, OTOH…). So, it doesn’t seem to have really been a war of self defense- which is legal. Nor did we have UN permission- again making it legal… at least as far as the UN is considered.

Ah, but here is the rub- just because something isn’t “legal” (allowed by law) doesn’t mean it is “illegal” (prohibited by law)- either in US law and/or especially in the murky, fuzzy world of “international law”. There is a gap between the two statuses (stati?).

Let us assume for the purposes of this debate- that Bush et al really truely thought there were WMD, and SH was really going to give them to terrorists to use against us. Certainly we can agree Saddam was evil enough to do so, and really desired his very own CBR arsenal- and at one time was trying very hard to make one, including nukes. (yes, I know that Bush did list some evidence that he did- or should have- known were spurious, but there was other evidence)

Assuming that- what does “international law” say about a Nation that THINKS it is carrying out a war of self defense- but it turns out they were wrong? Damn little, AFAIK- IANAL-YMMV. :smiley:

In order to decide that the Invasion was really an ILlegal war, we’d then have to have one of two things happen- either the UNSC saying it was (not gonna happen, dudes) or someone will have to haul GWB’s ass into some Court at the Hague and convict him (not too likely either, eh?).

So- now as far as International law goes- the war was neither legal or illegal. If you want to say that Bush’s invasion was “not legal under International Law” you’d be correct. BUT it also means that you can NOT say “Bush’s illegal war”.

Of course, if you can PROVE that not only was Bush wrong about ALL the evidence of WMD, but he really KNEW there were no WMD- then that’d be different.

58

Just so, Ravenman. Succinctly put, and a model of clarity.

One has to wonder just what is to be gained here. If it were to be determined that the Iraq War (though “Iraq Incursion” might be a better term, if not “The Mother of All Bitch-Slappings”) were, by some technicality, to be deemed “legal”, what of it?

Are throngs of cheering people going to rush into the streets and march behind banners declaring “Not Illegal!!” If some international Matlock were to find some loophole in the UN Charter that renders such actions legal, would the nations of the world suddenly look upon us with glowing approval and unalloyed affection? I think not.

Sooner or later you have to ask yourself: are we citizens of the world, or merely the biggest cur in a zero-sum game of dog-eat-dog?

59

Incorrect. Congress, like the prez, was bound by a ratified treaty. They did not have the authority to give the prez the authority to prosecute a war of aggression.

60

But are these treaties superior to legislative actions?