PDA

View Full Version : NYTimes Opinion: Ian Hurd: Bomb Syria, Even if It Is Illegal




Cowlesy
08-28-2013, 06:52 AM
These people have no shame at all.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/28/opinion/bomb-syria-even-if-it-is-illegal.html


Op-Ed Contributor
Bomb Syria, Even if It Is Illegal
By IAN HURD
Published: August 27, 2013 113 Comments

EVANSTON, Ill. — THE latest atrocities in the Syrian civil war, which has killed more than 100,000 people, demand an urgent response to deter further massacres and to punish President Bashar al-Assad. But there is widespread confusion over the legal basis for the use of force in these terrible circumstances. As a legal matter, the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons does not automatically justify armed intervention by the United States.
Room for Debate

Is an Attack on Syria Justified?

Should the United States and its allies launch air strikes against Syria in response to the Assad regime's reported use of chemical weapons?

There are moral reasons for disregarding the law, and I believe the Obama administration should intervene in Syria. But it should not pretend that there is a legal justification in existing law. Secretary of State John Kerry seemed to do just that on Monday, when he said of the use of chemical weapons, “This international norm cannot be violated without consequences.” His use of the word “norm,” instead of “law,” is telling.

--

Of course ethics, not only laws, should guide policy decisions. Since the Rwandan genocide and the Balkan mass killings of the 1990s, a movement has emerged in support of adding humanitarian intervention as a third category of lawful war, under the concept of the “responsibility to protect.” It is widely accepted by the United Nations and most governments. It is not, however, in the charter, and it lacks the force of law.

--

Ian Hurd, an associate professor of political science at Northwestern, is the author of “After Anarchy: Legitimacy and Power in the United Nations Security Council.”



It drives me bonkers that such naivete can be showcased from the Ivory Towers about how the world works.

tod evans
08-28-2013, 06:59 AM
Scary! :eek:

malkusm
08-28-2013, 07:18 AM
We must bomb Syria. We have moral reasons. Our bombs are quite compassionate, you see.

Origanalist
08-28-2013, 07:21 AM
Linky no work, They may have taken it down.

Philhelm
08-28-2013, 07:46 AM
There are moral reasons for disregarding the law . . .

He was absolutely correct, and then he blew it. These people are beyond stupid; every problem is solved by either throwing money or throwing bombs at a problem.

Peace Piper
08-28-2013, 08:14 AM
A fine piece of work, this Ian Turd...

From Bio at the Dept. of Political Science Northwestern University
http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~ihu355/Bio_CV.html

http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~ihu355/Home_files/shapeimage_3.png

My work is on the theory and practice of international politics, and considers how governments relate to international law, norms, and institutions. I have written on international organizations, international human rights law, international relations theory, and the practical problems of international cooperation, including the United Nations, UN reform, labor standards, the International Criminal Court, and other regimes. I am currently writing a book on the rule of law in world politics, and have other projects on human rights instruments, new kinds of diplomacy, international criminal law on torture, and methodology in international theory.

I serve on the editorial boards of Global Governance, Ethics and International Affairs, and the Journal of International Organization Studies.

Excerpt from interview at the Carnegie Council http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/studio/multimedia/20111128/index.html


IAN HURD: Let's take humanitarian intervention. I have said that the UN Charter, if you read it as a text, bans the use of force, including for humanitarian purposes. Since the 1990s, in particular the mid-1990s, countries have maintained that it may sometimes be legal to use force to rescue innocent civilians from, let's say, massacres in other countries, and that this use of force doesn't violate the ban on war, because it's humanitarian....

...So then where do we stand? Well, we have a set of international rules that we expect countries to follow, but there are cases where we see that what countries do makes the rules. It's a recursive relationship.

It's hard to know what it means to follow the rules or to break the rules.

JOHN TESSITORE: Let's try to put it in an example here. Does NATO's activity in Kosovo suggest such a situation? What did Goldstone say about it? It was probably illegal, but—what was his term? Legitimate?

IAN HURD: Legitimate, right. NATO's intervention in Kosovo in 1999 to save civilians from massacre by—

JOHN TESSITORE: Did that change the rules?

IAN HURD: I think it did. It's often cited as a point of change in the understanding of the laws on the use of force.

Remember, the Kosovo intervention was not authorized by the Security Council, and it was not understandable as an act of self-defense. It was something else. What it was legally was an operation by NATO, under the justification of humanitarian intervention. This caused a lot of rethinking among international lawyers and politicians about what the rules really are.


So the illegal 78 day bombing of Serbia was also used to change international law, at least he thinks so.
28 Pages of this muddled "thinking".(PDF) http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~ihu355/Home_files/is%20hi%20legal.pdf *(PDF)

The Serbian War was started by Lies and Chutzpa (http://www.globalissues.org/article/448/backing-up-globalization-with-military-might). Even Henry Farking Kissinger said the Rambouillet Accords were "a provocation"



The Rambouillet text, which called on Serbia to admit NATO troops throughout Yugoslavia, was a provocation, an excuse to start bombing. Rambouillet is not a document that an angelic Serb could have accepted. It was a terrible diplomatic document that should never have been presented in that form.[4]
—Henry Kissinger, Daily Telegraph, 28 June 1999
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambouillet_Agreement
When Henry K calls something "a provocation" it's really something to behold.

Ask people about the Rambouillet accords and they will look at you like you have a communicable disease.
And so the Republic collapsed, because not enough people were paying attention, which costs only time.

Snew
08-28-2013, 08:15 AM
We must bomb Syria. We have moral reasons. Our bombs are quite compassionate, you see.
+rep

TonySutton
08-28-2013, 08:15 AM
Drone Ian Hurd so he better understands how government force is bad.

Cleaner44
08-28-2013, 08:20 AM
At least most of the comments are in disagreement with the idiot writer.

Original_Intent
08-28-2013, 08:28 AM
Polls a week ago said only 9% of Americans supported military involvement in Syria. They will just have Hannity and O'Reilly spew for a few weeks and kkep polling until they have an acceptable level of support.

seyferjm
08-28-2013, 09:11 AM
Good lord, the "R2P" and humanitarian interventionist fanatics are insane. I wish they'd just live up to their own words and go over there already.