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Opinions/Editorials Title: Dumb Question of the Twenty-first Century: Is It Legal? Is the Libyan war legal? Was Bin Laden’s killing legal? Is it legal for the president of the United States to target an American citizen for assassination? Were those “enhanced interrogation techniques” legal? These are all questions raised in recent weeks. Each seems to call out for debate, for answers. Or does it? Now, you couldn’t call me a legal scholar. I’ve never set foot inside a law school, and in 66 years only made it onto a single jury (dismissed before trial when the civil suit was settled out of court). Still, I feel at least as capable as any constitutional law professor of answering such questions. My answer is this: they are irrelevant. Think of them as twentieth-century questions that don't begin to come to grips with twenty-first century American realities. In fact, think of them, and the very idea of a nation based on the rule of law, as a reflection of nostalgia for, or sentimentality about, a long-lost republic. At least in terms of what used to be called “foreign policy,” and more recently “national security,” the United States is now a post-legal society. (And you could certainly include in this mix the too-big-to-jail financial and corporate elite.) It’s easy enough to explain what I mean. If, in a country theoretically organized under the rule of law, wrongdoers are never brought to justice and nobody is held accountable for possibly serious crimes, then you don’t have to be a constitutional law professor to know that its citizens actually exist in a post-legal state. If so, “Is it legal?” is the wrong question to be asking, even if we have yet to discover the right one. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 4. Is the Libyan war legal? No. It's not even constitutional.
#4. To: Godwinson (#1) (Edited) Is the Libyan war legal? Yes. After 9/11, the Congress gave the POTUS a blank check to initiate military action against nations he identified as being a threat to the national seciurity of the US. The Carter Doctrine, which was enforced by every POTUS since, was that any threat to oil production was a threat to the US. You folks were warned about the open ended use of WOT legislation. You didn't listen and I note with irony that those most eaten uip with the Boofers over Libya were the frothy mouthed minions who called me and others opposed to Boy Blunders continued sabre rattling "unpatriotic".
Replies to Comment # 4. You folks were warned about the open ended use of WOT legislation. You folks? Don't link me in with the flag waving rube-Americans.
#7. To: war (#4) Boy Blunders continued sabre rattling It's gone way past "saber rattling" when thousands have been killed in Obushma's war on anyone or anything. The neolib/cons are insane. Do US heroin addicts care if their Afghan poppies are grown under a democracy or sharia law, and what business is it of the US gov?
#8. To: war (#4) You folks were warned about the open ended use of WOT legislation. What does the WOT have to with it? Clinton was bombing women and children in a Christian Nation in support of the Muslims we are now fighting against long before 911. And there were no US interests at stake.
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