Posted on 08/05/2017 12:40:27 PM PDT by Lorianne
In July, the White House and Pentagon requested authority from Congress to build further “temporary intermediate staging facilities” inside Syria in order to combat ISIS more effectively. This request, it must be noted, comes in the wake of devastating ISIS defeats in Syria, mostly by the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allied forces.
Shortly afterward, the Turkish state-owned Anadolu news agency revealed previously unknown details and locations of ten U.S. bases and outposts in northern Syria, several of them with airfields. These are in addition to at least two further U.S. outposts already identified in southern Syria, on the Iraqi border.
When asked about these military bases, a CENTCOM (U.S. Central Command) spokesman told me: “We don’t have bases in Syria. We have soldiers throughout Syria providing training and assist to the SDF (the mainly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces in the north of the country).” How many soldiers? “Roughly 1,200 troops,” says CENTCOM.
Yet when questioned about the international law grounds for this U.S. military presence inside Syria, CENTCOM didn’t have a response on hand.
It isn’t hard to conclude that official Washington simply doesn’t want to answer the “international law” question on Syria. To be fair, in December 2016, the Obama administration offered up an assessment on the legalities of the use of force in Syria, but perhaps subsequent ground developments—the SAA and its allies defeating ISIS and Al Qaeda left, right, and center—have tightened some lips in the nation’s capital.
(Excerpt) Read more at theamericanconservative.com ...
So now American Conservative wants the US to be ruled by “international law”?
The pro-Syrian intervention cadre in FR won’t answer the question about legality or constitutionality, either. That the current authorizations would allow for the killing off just about anyone on the planet, anywhere, any time is not of interest. For those of us interested in freedom and liberty, it is of course very much of interest.
As long as they are killing ISIS and radical Islam. I am not for getting rid of Assad.
The Geneva convention is international law. We are a signatory.
I would settle for knowing that they are obeying the Constitution. Of course, they aren’t, but the foreign intervention amen corner doesn’t care. The neocons, (Trotskyites) don’t much care for limited govt, either.
I guess one can “wing it” in international affairs, and just hope that the folks committing acts of war overseas, without legal sanction, don’t decide to turn their weapons on We The People at some future date.
Are you kidding?
POTUS Juan says it’s fine.
Taking down Assad and poking Russia in the eye there are, and have been a “deep-state” American and Saudi/Sunni strategic goal for years.
No one can tell me the exact extent of Saudi support of ISIS in particular, but we do know international Salafism and promotion of sunni-jihad groups is a long-term tool of our allies, the Saudis. Indeed, Obama, Clinton and McCain have pushed Fed.gov to support groups allied with Al Qaeda.
As such, we are playing a double game with radical Islam.
Short version of the media position. It was legal for Obama to send the troops, but when Trump became president it immediately became illegal and an impeachable offense.
Hat wash’t asked of F. DEMOCRAT R.
The simple answer is NO. The U.S. has no more authority to build a military base in Syria than the Red Chinese government would have to build a naval base in Philadelphia.
And here is the background on this so called reporter
“Sharmine Narwani is a commentator and analyst of Middle East geopolitics. She is a former senior associate at St. Antony’s College, Oxford University and has a master’s degree in International Relations from Columbia University. Sharmine has written commentary for a wide array of publications, including Al Akhbar English, the New York Times, the Guardian, Asia Times Online, Salon.com, “
Not much of a source or an analyst
Just because it appears somewhere doesn’t make it true
And uses a lefty RT “analyst” to justify it?
Useless
Big mistake working with Saudi Arabia. They are going down with a thud. Lots of Saudi money has been buying influence in DC. Here comes the Ottoman Caliphate with the formerly unthinkable alliance of Turkey and Persia.
Might as well try international law, the Constitution hasn't stopped the neocon war party yet.
A sovereign is truly only sovereign over that which it is willing and able to control.
Those being aided in Northern Syria are fighting ISIS and other Islamists, not the rump government in Damascus.
There are other large swaths of supposed Syrian territory in other parts of the country that are in complete control by other forces and not the government in Damascus.
That government, Assad’s government continues to exist only at the pleasure of Russia and Iran, whom together can remove the Assad regime any time the chose.
I think there is sufficient evidence for the claim that in spite of the Russian and Iranian backing of Assad, Syria is a failed state, as far as any consideration in international law.
The breadth of the status of “sovereignty” for a failed state is subject to question and various opinions in international law.
What about constitutional law with respect to our military deployment there?
I hear this failed state excuse from the pro-Syria intervention cadre. That script gets an ‘F’.
Whenever, and if, our military goals become “regime change” against Assad, I’ll agree with you.
Right now, limited to helping take back ISIS and other radical Islamist footholds in Syria and returning them to local forces fighting on the same objective, can be interpreted as an international policing action in some area of a failed state.
As far as the regime change agenda that was launched in the first place against the Assad regime, it was wrong for many reasons.
Syria became a failed state in the process and ISIS and other Islamists moved in to areas of that failed state. They have only been reduced in Syria largely by our actions in coordination with locals, primarily the Kurds of Syria who are, yes, aided by Kurds from Iraq as well. I am happy the Kurds did not go to the U.N. and ask for the U.N.’s approval, as strict “international law” might have demanded.
You still haven’t answered how it is that we can be there without a Congressional declaration of war. I know all the neocon and Soros color revolution excuses. What about the Constitutional basis?
Sorry, not everyone who is not expecting a Congressional declaration of war in every situation is working on a Soros, or globalist, or Neocon, or Marxist agenda. I will not stoop to your name calling.
What is the Constitutional basis for military action in Syria? If you feel there is no need to follow the Constitution in this area, what other parts of the Constitution do you believe to be outmoded and therefore to be disregarded?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.