US bombs Pakistan

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


And when you can say "we did it because we had information that bad guy X (who's largely responsible for murdering 3000 of our/our friend's citizens) was going to be there, you win the argument. Case closed.

Or, we could just bomb them, and thereby fulfill our obligation to our own soldiers to not place them in stupid situations they shouldn't be in in the first place, short of an invasion.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse

Only because it's made itself one. Because politicians' balls don't shrink quite so much when the risk of loss of men on our side is low.

Bingo.

Large parts of Pakistan are lawless. Explain just how lawless to people, and they will accept, by and large, the need to take a quick walkabout over the line once in a while. On specific occasions. When certain people get dinner invitations.

It would be nice.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by notyoueither


Or, we could just bomb them

And miss, and kill kids.

[notyoueither]

Didn't miss. Got the bad guys , just not the top bad guy.

If you think a firefight in a village would have spared people, you're nuts.

[notyoueither]

Modern doctrine...

Shots ring out from American/NATO forces aimed at the target of the operation. People in the village pick up nearby weapoms and return fire.

American/NATO forces, coming under increasing fire, call in gun-ships.

Helicopter gun-ships arrive, and if not shot down, spray the entire area with high explosive, machine gun, and auto cannon rounds.

How many dead villagers do you figure from that engagement?

[notyoueither]

Dead on our side?

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Slate, a noted left of center publication, is a great article on this which goes to show it most likely was legal. There are three main arguments to be made and the US likely filled them all.

I'm sorry, but that article doesnt say anything interesting except throw two latin words at us and says that some experts say the law should be revised, without actually saying what the old one really is Let me explain:

A unilateral attack by the US on Pakistani soil is against international law as codefied in the UN Charter. Article 2 (4) states that the use of force against another state is illegal. Exceptions exist under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Art. 39 states that it is up to the UN security council to determine if there has been a breach of peace, and can then recommend Art. 41 or Art. 42 countermeasures. THis clearly did not take place, so we cannot say that the US acted under the UN Art. 2(4) and its exceptions in Chapter VII wrt Art. 39.

In Chapter VII, there is also a self defense/ collective defense measure. However, see below.

In Art. 2(7) of the UNC, we see that it is illegal for the UN to get invovled in the domestic matters of a state. International law is a state to state system. (see the Wall Advisory Opinion I think) Individuals and groups are not included in the system. Al Qaeda is not a state, therefore the US cannot act unilateraly under international law to bomb them in another country in self defense ( the other country needs to request the US to do it)

In that respects, the article is right : If Pakistan requested the US to bomb that village, then the US has acted correctly, not under international law, but under Pakistani domestic law.

Now what happens if Al Qaeda exists in a country tacitly. aka they are there, but are not being hunted down by the government. In that case , the US still does not have the right to bomb or invade them, since the existance of such a group in a country is a matter of domestic affaires. Even if said group flies commercial airlines into buildings halfway across the world, it is not a matter of self defense for the US under international law since Al Qaeda is not a state, and since no Internationally Wrongful Act has been committed.

What is an IWA? An IWA can be defined as breach + attribution. A breach is the gap between the international obligations of a state and what it has done. Attribution is that fact that you can clearly attribute this to a state's organs. Without both, you cannot say that you as a state have had your international rights violated and can respond with countermeasures. Since Al Qaeda has no international obligations (doesnt meet the definition of a state; see Duchy of Zeeland case) and since the act on 9-11 and others cannot be attributed to a state (but to a group/ individuals) the US's international rights have not been violated, therefore cannot take countermeasures.

[notyoueither]

NATO disagreed in regards to 9/11, AQ and the Taliban as the de facto government of Afghanistan.

Is what NATO did illegal?

[Sikander]

Originally posted by MOBIUS

Their failure to capture senior Al-Qaeda members in Afghanistan is the reason we have this thread in the 1st place...

Well we may as well all be arguing about the overextension of the Byzantine Empire then, if they hadn't overextended themselves then none of this would have been necessary.

Originally posted by MOBIUS

Sounds like pretty poor foresight to me...

You aren't a good judge of what constitutes good foresight.

Originally posted by MOBIUS

Well that's pretty stupid considering they knew they were going to operate in a mountainous country...

Yea, we should have waited until spring when everyone who wanted to would have been long gone (no chance to capture Bin Laden or other AQ heavies) and everyone else would have been well-prepared. Without chasing off the Taliban from the major population centers they might well have had an opportunity to recruit more troops. Without us bribing the warlords the Taliban / AQ may well have been able to reach accords which would have put the warlords on their side, which is more troubling when you remember that every warlord represents an ethnic or regional population in the country. Tangling with as few of these as possible is one of the reasons that the country has been so easy to occupy.

Originally posted by MOBIUS

Note the word 'portions': doesn't the US have troops capable of climbing mountains? Oh silly me, mountain passes apparently go over the tops of mountains in Siko's world...

Why don't you just try to make a point rather than losing whatever you were trying to say in your confusion over just how to be a smartass?

Originally posted by MOBIUS

Methinks you don't know what you're talking about and have mistaken Operation Anaconda (another colossal US cluster****) for Tora Bora, an easy mistake for anyone uninformed and with a lack of knowledge about the situation at the time...

The US left TB up to their Afghan allies - which is probably why so many enemy fighters (90%?)got away...

They tried to make up for that incredibly dumb shortcoming with a bungled 'hammer and anvil' with OA, but landing on a hot LZ is a really stupid idea...

Oh and apparently US mountain troops "Don't do Mountains"





And you say my appraisal of the situation seems to be uninformed by many of the military, logistic or local political considerations which shaped and constrained the actions of the real commander...

Yeah, you went in half-cocked, ill-prepared, lacking intel, forced to use murderous cutthroat bastards as allies - and ****ed the whole thing up!!!

Wrong!

Where are the archives when you need them!?

I was for the invasion of Afghanistan. True, I wanted the assault to wait until the following spring before launching a properly planned, prepared (mountain training!!?) and intelled attack instead of the botched attempt that unfolded. One of my overriding concerns was the potential human tragedy of the potential mass civilian starvation over winter due to the aid workers keeping them alive through the country's worst drought in decades being forced to flee at the outbreak of hostilities...

You are torn between the (lesser in your mind) need to be logically consistent and your emotional need to hate the U.S. If you were actually clear enough in your mind to be intellectually honest you'd find that the U.S. in fact carried out this operation in a way that minimized civilian casualties (short wars cause far fewer civilian casualties than longer ones), minimized Afghan political and military opposition (by building a domestic coalition and minimizing the number of troops engaged in occupation), minimized the amount of firepower used (because the intel we got by cooperating with the locals was far more than we would have been able to gather from the outside with years of satellite surveillance and intercepts, which in turn allowed us to make far fewer, smaller and better targeted air strikes).

Originally posted by MOBIUS


I like the way you avoid saying 'Al Qaeda' there...

Because the Taliban were only a secondary objective - they were just in the way of the true target of the US: Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. In fact, if the Taliban had agreed to US demands and handed over Bin Laden I seriously doubt they would have lifted another finger against them...

Which is why I declare the US invasion of Afghanistan a botched failure because their main objectives have still not been met: Bin Laden is still free after over four years and Al Qaeda is still seemingly fully operational...

I mean if the US effort in Afghanistan was graded as a school report I'd have to give it a very poor mark...

D-

Primary objectives Failed Completely
Secondary objectives Some success. Patchy results

And the attack on Pakistan must surely be a detention for trying to sneak a peek in the headmaster's office for the answers...

"Must try Harder"

While the apprehension / death of the few top leaders of AQ left on the run would warm the hearts of many of us the world over, it doesn't win the "war on islamo-fascism". Bin Laden and company seem to be able to do little more than release a recorded annual statement. This diminishes their importance to the struggle in a way that "martyring" them would not. They move around constantly in some of the ****tiest places on earth trying not to get blown up as their lieutenants and operatives are regularly killed and apprehended. They can't communicate in real time in the 21st century for god's sake. They are neutered. They've lost their training camps, a lot of their men and all of their political cover.

While the absolute destruction of any entity involved in the 9/11 attacks is politically necessary as the objective, it is a good deal less necessary as a strategic objective. What's more important strategically is to strangle this movement everwhere it can grow (ie the muslim world). Depriving AQ of their own state, operational base and training ground weakens the islamo-fascists far more than killing OBL.

Your grading system is absurd. How can an operation which conquered and occupied Afghanistan (for 4 years now), installed a representative form of government, destroyed most of the AQ infrastructure and forces in Afghanistan be a failure, especially at such a low cost in casualties both civilian and military? Thankfully the only places where you are authorized to grade this operation are places where it is permissable to say almost anything. Thankfully most of the people who frequent this place are well aware of your propensity to throw logic out the window whenever there is a good anti-american rant to be had.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Most international lawyers will say that the invasion of Afghanistan after 9-11 was illegal. I don't agree with them, but I believe that under the interpretation of the law, they are correct.

It's more of a failure of international law to deal with terrorist activity than anything else.

[notyoueither]

And the government of Pakistan's failure to deal with the NW provinces is another failure, isn't it?

In the absence of authority, law is meaningless.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Here's the reasoning for Afghanistan:


I'll try to explain the reasoning:

If the US felt that there had been a breach of peace/threat to peace/ act of aggression (all needed for an Art. 39 determination) they should have gone to the Security Council of the UN, whose job is international peace and security (as laid out in Art. 24 of the UNC) and whose resoultions are binding (Art. 25)

Then if you have a look at Art. 51, you will see that it states that collective self defense (which is what NATO and other defensive alliances are) is legal, but they must still make a claim with the UN security council.

Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.

(Art. 51 interpreted in the Nicaragua case)

Since the US never went to the SC, they were in breach.
There is absolutly no evidence that the Taliban ordered or explicitly sent Al Qaeda to the US.
Nor can we say that a court would find an attack such as 9-11 as an armed attack, equivalent to say 12-7-41.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

What you are now talkin about is Self help (takin military action inside another country who is in breach of law) [lets assume for a moment that pakistan is in breach, but I dont believe so]

In UK v. Albania, the ICJ ruled that even if Albania was in breach, the UK did not have unilateral right to go into their territory. Therefore, self help is illegal under international law.

[notyoueither]

I think the point is that the UN isn't that relevant.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

look, you can argue whatever you want, but you would be wrong under international law. Whether you like the system or not, this is how it is run, and if you don't follow it, you are acting illegally. Period.
Should it be changed? Maybe. But thats besides the point really.