Amidst all the more substantial reflections on the life of Nelson Mandela, it feels ridiculously trivial to keep thinking of my own fleeting moment of meeting him back in 1994. But keep thinking of it I do. I was a terribly junior staffer in the Clinton White House then, a writer and editor of presidential prose, at least...
If this is an accurate report, it doesn't inspire confidence. According to Gordon Lubold and Shane Harris at Foreign Policy, the “migration” of targeting operations from the CIA to the Pentagon “migration of those operations has stalled, and it is now unlikely to happen anytime soon.” Such anonymously sourced reports always need to be taken with a grain...
It has been an eventful news week in the universe of U.S. targeting debates. Amnesty and Human Rights Watch released their reports detailing some of the civilian costs of drone strikes. A bit earlier, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and countering terrorism, Ben Emmerson, issued an interim report on his findings thus far about targeted killing (though I think...
Further to the topic of how the U.S. can/should combat terrorism without, as President Obama puts it, “keeping America on a perpetual wartime footing,” Marty Lederman and Mary DeRosa have a post up at Just Security highlighting the recent U.S. operations in Somalia and Libya as examples of what that future might look like. Among its features, a preference...
The recent raids in Libya and Somalia have, among other things, raises renewed questions about how the U.S. can/should carry out its counterterrorism operations without, as President Obama puts it, “keeping America on a perpetual wartime footing.” Delighted to say we’ll be taking up just that topic in an evening panel I’ll be moderating in New York next Monday. Public...
Marty has a response up over at Just Security to my earlier post on the domestic and international law questions arising after the U.S. actions in Libya and Somalia late last week. Continuing the conversation, a few replies here. (1) Is there a statutory source of domestic authority for the operation in Somalia? Marty’s theory is that the AUMF may well suffice...
As all major news outlets have now reported, the U.S. carried out two armed raids overseas late last week: one in Tripoli that resulted in the successful capture of suspected core Al Qaeda leader Abu Anas al-Liby, and another in Somalia apparently aimed at a leader of militant Somali group Al Shabaab. Both raise complex questions of U.S. and international...
As Ken notes below, the draft UN Security Council Resolution regarding the disposition of Syria’s chemical weapons is now available. While it can’t be construed as authorizing the use of force against Syria to ensure compliance without further Security Council action – entirely consistent with the Council’s past practice in Iraq, Kosovo, and elsewhere with slowly escalating Security...
In about the time it took the ink to dry on Peter and Jack Goldsmith’s helpful analyses of the import of the draft Senate resolution to authorize President Obama to use force in Syria, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved it, by a close vote of 10-7. The bill now goes to the full Senate for debate and vote;...
For those still following along, an interesting array of views on the Syria situation in a conversation this afternoon on HuffPost Live, including Michael Scharf, Jules Lobel, Eric Posner, and yours truly. Would that the link went back a bit farther, you could listen in on a lively Miley Cyrus debate as well. ...
As an adherent of the view that the Constitution requires congressional approval before the President can use military force (other than in certain circumstances of national self defense), I think the President’s decision to seek authorization from Congress was legally required. While Marty is right that presidential practice has at times been otherwise, I don’t think that practice should...
