Military Action Against Syria by the American government

Military Action Against Syria by the American government

There has been unsatisfactory analysis by the media together with policy makers on the legality of applying military force against Syria. The law ignores the key aspect and it is rather paradoxical in that one of its main justification is punishing the Syrian government because of its blatant international violations. Legality has to be a key element in the process of decision making because if the usage of force is not lawful, it is viewed as vigilante justice, which does harm than good in relation to the international legal order.

There is growing evidence that the Syrian government has committed crimes against humanity against its citizens in the past two years. If there is proof that the government has used chemical weapons in their attacks, this would be a serious violation of the internal law. The reality on the ground is that the crimes do not validate a unilateral usage of force, which means the contemplated military strikes by the American government would be unlawful. Obama’s administration has made little effort to make the case legally justifiable to attack Syria in relation to complying with international norms (Skaaning 450).

Assessing the proposed strikes’ legality requires a scrutiny of the international law on the usage of force established against other states of the U.N Charter apart from a collective self-defense or as endorsed by the United Nations Council. The main aim of all these was restoration of collective security. A country is entitled to use force to defend itself or if some other state has suffered an armed aggression initiated by the target state. In this case, neither condition satisfies the need for attacks against Syria by America. This is because Syria has not attacked any state in spite of baseless arguments claiming specific confrontation with Turkey amount to crimes against humanity. Russia and China who hold permanent membership of the U.N Security Council are against any military action; hence, no authorization is imminent any time soon.

It is noteworthy that one reason that has made Russia together with China to resist authorization on use of military force to defend civilians is the belief that America and NATO obviously abused such power in Libya. The authorization of usage of force in Libya by the Security Council was to create no-fly zones and take necessary actions to protect civilians (Skaaning 455). However, NATO forces commanded and successfully helped the rebels to overthrow Gaddafi regime, which was arguably a violation of the partial authority given by the UN. Whereas Russia has several other self-interested motives for supporting Syria and blocking American interference, it has a legitimate point in refusing any planned Security Council decree granting limited authority to the application of military intervention in Syria. America and some NATO countries are therefore partially accountable for having lately undermined and destabilized the UN security system. An argument on Responsibility to Protect Principle as well as Humanitarian Intervention offers a legal explanation for involvement without the U.N. authority. American policy makers as well as other proponents of the military strikes to Syria flouted NATO air campaign against Kosovo in the year 1999, which was done to prevent a possible Serb killing of ethnic Albanians. This seems as a model, which would validate intervention in Syria in relation to that principle.

It is evident that the humanitarian intervention principle has not established facts, which means Kosovo intervention is usually recognized as unlawful; hence, the same cannot apply in the America-Syria attack. Humanitarian intervention that is a “rising norm” of traditional international law, might be a third exception on the prohibition against military force, which  allow states to adjudicate militarily in a country to prevent any  government from committing any atrocities against their own people (Waldron320). The notion is founded on the R2P doctrine, which states that in case a country fails the responsibility to protect its citizens, it loses the established self-governing rights against outside intrusion in its affairs. At the same time, the international community has the responsibility of protecting citizens of such countries from their own government. Employing force seems permissible in such a situation when used as the last option for the main rationale of defending the victim population against threat since the benefits overshadows the possible harm.

In case the humanitarian principle becomes law, it offers the basis for the international community interventions in a country such as Syria, but at the moment, it has not yet been established into law. There are varied opinions on whether humanitarian involvement should trigger the authorization of the U.N. Security Council similar to the Libyan intervention case in the year 2011. This means it would not be an exemption to the prohibition but a specific reason for action of U.N. Security Council. Conversely, if humanitarian intervention is viewed as a third exception, Syria should be a good case for advancing the process of the norm establishment as the American government motives are clearly mixed.

Other separate arguments stating that the strikes are a response to chemical weapons usage insist that Syria has to be punished because of breaking a taboo and violating a clear prohibition against chemical weapons usage (Waldron 335). Even though the Asssad regime used chemical weapons, which amounts to serious internal law violation, it does not give legal reason for other countries to use military force against Syria. There is a comprehensible moral rage at the crimes, which have been committed in Syria, and a deep frustration at the United Nations’ as well as other international legal system institutions failure to help solve the differences and protect the Syrian people. The engagement of an unlawful force use to punish the Assad regime equates to doing nothing for the Syrian citizens, and definitely will do more damage than good in relation to the international legal order.

Realists view political conflicts as omnipresent, perennial and ineradicable with political moralists considered sanguine on their possibility of attaining normative and practical consensus.  Their attention is on eliminable conflict unlike reasoned consensus, which does not imply that political theory should mostly be intense and valorise disruption over settled arrangements. Politics is often everywhere with tension between the force for stabilization as well as consensus with conflict on the other. The recognition of such enduring duality acknowledges the fact that maxims of law, morality together with economics, will never displace political decisions needs, but remain wavering because of intellectual discipline. Realists emphasize the fact that political disagreement remains different from what is considered intellectual disagreement. On the other hand, American liberals on freedom of speech believe that speech suppression would mostly compel the controversial ideas underground. it remains unclear on what can be termed as less damaging to be aired freely  in public, or even  driving it underground. There is a cost when transparency is lost because it remains unclear whether driving hateful message underground remains a bad thing

Conclusion

Vigilante justice, whereas claiming to be enforcing legal norms  tends to erode  the legal system normative power as it seeks to support, and at the same time challenge the rule of law. Discussions have assumed that the proposed American military strikes in Syria are aggravated by a wish to impose international laws and protect the people of Syria. All these  assumptions are doubtful as it is difficult to defend the military strikes with a basis of humanitarian intervention as  more than 100,000 individuals have been killed in the past  two years with none direct response from the West. X for America to undertake military action against Syria. It will be unjust, unlawful, illegal, for America to undertake military action against Syria since the primary intention is to defend American “integrity,” regardless of the many innocent lives that will be lost and the international lawful order of normative power will be undermined.

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Skaaning, Svend-Erik. “Measuring the Rule of Law.” Political Research Quarterly. 63.2 (2010): 449-460. Print.

Waldron, Jeremy. “Are Sovereigns Entitled to the Benefit of the International Rule of Law?” European Journal of International Law. 22.2 (2011): 315-343. Print.

 

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