Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (39986)	8/26/2002 1:49:44 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Here's a question for you to chew on (irrelevant to Iraq but relevant to Al Qaeda): can war be declared if the enemy is not a state? Let's skip all the lawyerly but fascinating stuff on the number of instances, etc. I know enough to know that all that is ambiguous. But I'm not interested in discussing them. The one thing I can say is that, as I recall the little stuff I've seen on the Constitutional debates, it was precisely the designation of the President as Commander in Chief that brought the agreement about to limit his/her warmaking abilities. But I'm no authority and would love to hear more detail from someone who genuinely knows something about this. The Al Qaeda question, also, is fascinating. One of the more interesting pieces I've read in the last several months was the transcript of a talk by the Yale political philosopher whose name escapes me as I type, that the genuinely new thing of the moment is that non-state actors are threats to states. I haven't thought about that argument much, perhaps that's a bit overdrawn as a generalization, but it does suggest that most discussions of the conditions under which war can be deployed assume it's war with a nation state. So I have no answer nor any serious reflections. However, the answer won't address the Iraqi situation. The lack of connections between 9-11 and Saddam kills that. And the recent discussion of Al Qaeda in northern Iraq doesn't offer strong evidence that Saddam, in the language of some of those resolutions, is "harboring" terrorists. So, great question. One that doesn't mean Bush can do what he wants with war declarations. But one that should reshape much of the thought about international relations and foreign policy. I'm convinced, for instance, we will see rather large monographs that attempt to address these questions. Oh, yes, on the Louisiana stuff, I reread Robert Penn Warren's book earlier this summer. Two thoughts. Still a great book and it's clear Joel Klein copied from it when he wrote the Clinton novel.