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Politics : High Tolerance Plasticity -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Suma who wrote (21720)	10/5/2004 3:19:51 PM
From: kodiak_bull	Respond to of 23153

Actually I wrote the response rather quickly. Law, in its Platonic essence, is formed of 3 parts (and luckily we have a tripartite system here, which is why we tend to be a model for modern law, as opposed to, say, Burkina Faso): we write it (legislation), we interpret it (judicial), and we enforce it (executive). It's easy to see how we can do that with sovereignty. If the county has an ordinance about tree cutting, then the county inspectors/police will enforce it, and the property owner can complain about it to the county court. It is clear that the US has the power to create, interpret and execute laws on our territory, but what happens when we are attacked from terrorist bases in Afghanistan as we were on 9/11? Do we have to respect the sovereignty of the Taliban regime, or can we invade and change their regime? Do we simply throw up our hands, hope that the Taliban will, one day, change their minds (through economic sanctions), or that Interpol can catch the bad guys? Clearly if we invade Afghanistan we are in violation of Afghani (Taliban) law; we accept that risk and point our guns toward those who would enforce that law against us. But what international law are we violating? The law against war, against self-defense? Even if there were such a "law" who has the executive authority to enforce it, that is, who does the US (or any nation) answer to in terms of self-defense and national security? And what court has the power to control those executors who seek to enforce it. No, international law should be differentiated from the kinds of laws we deal with every day in the normal social contract. It should be called international voluntary compliance, or something like that. Kb