America’s Illegal Sojourn in Syria
By Philip M. GIRALDI | Strategic Culture Foundation | 01.03.2018
It should come as no surprise to anyone that the Donald Trump administration has recently affirmed that it has a perfect legal right to remain in Syria as long as it wishes because it is fighting terrorism. The argument goes something like this: Congress has approved a bill that permits the US military to seek out and destroy al-Qaeda and associated groups wherever they may be. It is part of what is referred to as the Authorization to Use Military Force or AUMF. According to the White House, an associated group, the Islamic State in Syria (ISIS), remains currently active in Syria and the United States military presence is therefore legal until the group is completely eliminated, requiring no additional legislation or authority to remain in the country.
The Trump legal finding was spelled out in two letters released by the undersecretaries for policy at the State and Defense departments. They were in response to requests made by Senator Time Kaine of Virginia who has for several years been asking the White House under both Barack Obama and Donald Trump to clarify what legal authority has permitted it to base 2,000 American soldiers in Syria without any declaration of war, any United Nations authorization or any invitation by the legitimate government of Bashar al-Assad in Damascus. Kaine has cited the restrictions imposed by the War Powers Act of 1973, which permits a president to use military force in an emergency situation but after 60 days it is necessary to go to Congress for approval.
The State Department letter heightened the ambiguity of the US position with its explanation that “The United States does not seek to fight the government of Syria or Iran or Iranian-supported groups in Iraq or Syria. However, the United States will not hesitate to use necessary and proportionate force to defend US, coalition, or partner forces…”
There are a number of problems with the White House justification to stay in Syria, starting with the fact that al-Qaeda and ISIS are not in any way associated and might best be described as rivals or even enemies, rendering the whole AUMF argument irrelevant. In addition, the reason for American forces being in Syria at all has been variously described by senior administration officials. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has been busy emphasizing that a prolonged stay is needed to block the resurgence of ISIS and also to prevent the Syrian government from retaking areas currently occupied by American-supported rebel groups. He curiously describes such areas freed from government control as “liberated.” He has also stated that the US will stay in place to put pressure on Bashar al-Assad to step down, i.e. regime change.
Tillerson uses the example of Libya to support his argument, observing that Libya was not occupied and “stabilized” by the nations that combined to overthrow the government of Muammar Ghaddafi. He has also cited President Barack Obama’s decision to withdraw US forces from Iraq as a contributing factor in the rise of ISIS, apparently unaware that American military was forced to leave by the Iraqi government.
But last Friday President Trump sent a different signal, stating during the press conference with the Australian Prime Minister that “We’re there for one reason: to get ISIS and get rid of ISIS, and to go home. We’re not there for any other reason and we’ve largely accomplished our goal.”
There is considerable spin being generated by the Administration to support its claims. Nevertheless, it should be accepted that the Syrian regime of al-Assad is nearly universally recognized to be legitimate and sovereign in its own territory, a fact that is even acknowledged by the United States, which is, at the same time, supporting rebels seeking to overthrow that government. And the US intention to maintain a continued presence minus any viable al-Qaeda threat in the country is completely illegal under both domestic and international law.
In short, the continued United States presence in Syria bears all the hallmarks of yet another US policy wrapped in top level ambiguity that is a failure even before it starts. Not only illegal, it is impractical, with 2,000 US advisers spread thin supporting Kurdish proxies who are already heavily engaged fighting the Turks. Eventually Washington will become weary of the effort and leave. May that day come soon.
3 Comments »
Leave a comment
Featured Video
Russia Preparing Retaliation – Oreshnik Deployed & Seizing Odessa
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Noam Chomsky, Kevin Barrett and Academic Freedom
The Kevin Barrett-Chomsky Dispute in Historical Perspective – Ninth part of the series titled “9/11 and the Zionist Question”
By Prof. Tony Hall | American Herald Tribune | August 7, 2016
Noam Chomsky has been much worse than hypocritical in the role he has chosen for himself in the study of 9/11. Chomsky treats the subject of 9/11 as if he’s some sort of master of analysis on the subject of what happened. He presents his conclusions without showing the due diligence of going through the relevant primary and secondary sources in a balanced and scholarly fashion. The primary sources Chomsky chooses to disregard include passenger lists, video and photographic evidence in the public domain, eyewitness accounts, original news coverage on the day of 9/11 and the like. … continue
Blog Roll
Recent Comments
Bill Francis on Chris Minns Defends NSW “Hate… Sheree Sheree on I was canceled by three newspa… Richard Ong on Czech–Slovak alignment signals… John Edward Kendrick on Colonel Jacques Baud & Nat… eddieb on Villains of Judea: Ronald Laud… rezjiekc on Substack Imposes Digital ID Ch… loongtip on US strikes three vessels in Ea… eddieb on An Avoidable Disaster Steve Jones on For Israel, The Terrorist Atta… cleversensationally3… on Over Half of Germans Feel Unab… loongtip on Investigation Into U.S. Milita… loongtip on Zelensky’s Impossible De…
Aletho News- Daniel Davis: Russia Preparing Retaliation – Oreshnik Deployed & Seizing Odessa
- FDA Won’t ‘Rubber-Stamp’ Pfizer mRNA Flu Vaccine Without Better Safety Data
- Bill Gates’ CEPI revives Moderna mRNA bird flu vaccine development with $54M investment after HHS terminated funding
- Government Minister Steps in to Defend Met Office as Fake Temperature Scandal Escalates
- Russia, African Countries Agree to Strengthen Security Cooperation – Lavrov
- Lebanese Detainees in Israeli Prisons: When Silence Becomes Surrender
- US Weighs Port Restrictions on Spain Over Israel Arms Transit Ban
- How Israel hijacked US politics, media and tech – without Americans even realizing
- HHS to Prohibit Hospitals From Performing Sex-Change Surgery on Kids
- Natural Solutions to Bladder Health
- If Americans Knew
- U.S. Pastors Become Willing Ambassadors for Israel’s War
- The 2028 Presidential Candidates – TrackAIPAC Scoresheet
- “Trump Riviera” is back on the table – Not a Ceasefire Day 71
- Commentary editor, a pioneer neoconservative, pushed Republicans, U.S. policy, and Christian evangelicals into a pro-Israel direction
- Despite ceasefire deal, Israel refuses to open the Rafah border crossing, cutting Gaza off from the world
- Palestinian ingenuity shines through adversity – Not a Ceasefire Day 70
- Amnesty: ‘Utterly preventable’ Gaza flood tragedy must mobilize global action to end Israel’s genocide
- Israel Propagandists Are Uniformly Spouting The Exact Same Line About The Bondi Beach Shooting
- Ha’aretz: Free the Palestinian Activist Who Dared to Document Israel’s Crimes in the West Bank
- Garbage Is Poisoning Gaza
- No Tricks Zone
- Der Spiegel Caught Making Up Reports About Conservative America (Again)
- New Study: 8000 Years Ago Relative Sea Level Was 30 Meters Higher Than Today Across East Antarctica
- The Wind Energy Paradox: “Why More Wind Turbines Don’t Always Mean More Power”
- New Study Reopens Questions About Our Ability To Meaningfully Assess Global Mean Temperature
- Dialing Back The Panic: German Physics Prof Sees No Evidence Of Climate Tipping Points!
- Astrophysicist Dr. Willie Soon Challenges The Climate Consensus … It’s The Sun, Not CO2
- Regional Cooling Since The 1980s Has Driven Glacier Advance In The Karakoram Mountains
- Greenland Petermann Glacier Has Grown 30 Kilometers Since 2012!
- New Study: Temperature-Driven CO2 Outgassing Explains 83 Percent Of CO2 Rise Since 1959
- Climate Extremists Ordered By Hamburg Court To Pay €400,000 In Damages
Aletho News 
astounding that the USA is still basing its newest invasions and occupations of sovereign states on its long collapsed assessment that its mercenary terrorism vehicle, Al Qaeda, was responsible for the 911 WTC & Pentagon false flags.
How many million people have been murdered, governments obliterated, military and terrorist occupations initiated and vast resources reallocated, all tributary to the manufactured apprehension of Al Qaeda behind every event, under every bed and behind every shadow.
Al Qaeda transformed the world and justified its PR fabrication with a flow of concentrated global booty vastly out of proportion to its fabulation and operating costs. If Al Qaeda were even a small independent beneficiary of the financial flux it has been used to justify, it would be worth trillions and own the “freeworld’s” governments which it has converted from multilateral nations to a lockstep US oligarchy led arrangement for WTO and dollar based globalization. Maybe if you discover who operates the freeworld governments, you will find who created Al Qaeda etc.
Compared to Al Qaeda, the old cold war Soviet Union was a dud at justifying and conveying plundered wealth to the allied elites of globalization. Now it seems the elites’ privileged entitlement is an unbreakable addiction.
Do you think these elites may be returned to old fashioned hardwork capitalism when their fabulous terrorism ride is over, or are they hoping to retain expanded terrorism as an all purpose justification for even more extreme plunder, despotism and oppression?
Perhaps, What the elites really need now is a better enemy, one which they don’t and can’t control but is just as committed to elite expropriation and impoverishment, as their current fearsome incarnations of Al Qaeda & ISIS are dedicated to worldwide Wahhabism, Jihadism and the fanatical imposition of anti-secular relgious extremism. What infantile superhero comic books were the authors of ISIS & Al Qaeda reading?
But, could a really altruistic and dark agency create an even better propaganda construct and global threat to concentrated power which is utterly committed to expropriating concentrations of obscene wealth and its restoration to the commons, –towards the evolution of benign progress? Is that not so fearsome spectre what the USA sees developing from Putin’s Russia? Make it so! Hmmm, possibly a story idea for a new Margaret Atwood type novel…
m\\l
LikeLike
When you have amassed as much wealth and power as our elites have, capitalism is a real threat to your continued dominance.
But in order to retain global supremacy, a market economy is required.
No wonder that the destruction of Russia is a priority.
LikeLike
“Congress has approved a bill that permits the US military to seek out and destroy al-Qaeda and associated groups wherever they may be”.
Al Qaeda was conceived and born in the back rooms of the CIA prior to “9/11″………It, along with ISIS, ISIL, Daesh etc etc, were ‘Born in the USA’, as “Bogeymen” who ‘threaten the world'(and are also very useful in keeping the American people terrified in their beds at night).
If the Government of the USA slapped a surprise audit on the CIA, ‘cockroaches’ would scatter in all directions. Particularly the ones who “did” 9/11.But the Government won’t of course because the people who run the CIA, also run the USA.
LikeLike