Iraq Unravels

[Cloud Cover]

Yet another bizarre, inflammatory, misguided tweet from POTUS:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1213919480574812160?s=20



“Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
These Media Posts will serve as notification to the United States Congress that should Iran strike any U.S. person or target, the United States will quickly & fully strike back, & perhaps in a disproportionate manner. Such legal notice is not required, but is given nevertheless.”

 

[The Bread Guy]

A bit more on the IRQ Parliament resolution from a source that tends to do its homework ...

Iraq's Parliament Votes to End Security Agreement with U.S.
by Katherine Lawlor, Institute for the Study of War

Key Takeaway: Iraq’s Parliament, the Council of Representatives (CoR), passed a non-binding resolution to cancel the request for military aid from the government of Iraq to the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition. The resolution does not require a U.S. withdrawal, which only the Prime Minister can order by rescinding the 2014 executive agreement with the U.S. It is unclear whether caretaker Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mehdi has the authority to do so. The CoR resolution sets political conditions to justify subsequent Iranian proxy attacks on U.S. forces and installations, however. Nationalist Shi’a Cleric Muqtada al Sadr also called for the mobilization of new “resistance” groups to support such attacks.

Iraq’s parliament passed a non-binding resolution rejecting the presence of U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. 172 members of the Iraqi Council of Representatives (CoR) convened on Sunday, January 5 in an “extraordinary session” to discuss the U.S. airstrike that killed Iranian IRGC Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi Popular Mobilization Committee Deputy Chief and Kata’ib Hezbollah commander Abu Mehdi al-Muhandis on January 3, 2020. Kurdish political parties boycotted the session, as did many Sunni political parties. Caretaker Prime Minister (PM) Adel Abdul Mehdi submitted the resolution. It passed with 170 votes.[1]

The resolution does not require an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces. The CoR’s resolution asks the Government of Iraq (GoI) to cancel the 2014 military aid request from the GoI to coalition forces. The resolution does not explicitly ask the GoI to revoke the Strategic Framework Agreement between the U.S. and Iraq, which only allows for a U.S. troop presence in Iraq “at the invitation of the Iraqi government.”[2] The resolution does state, however, that the GoI “must work to end the presence of any foreign troops on Iraqi soil and prohibit them from using its land, airspace or water for any reason."[3] It also calls on the Iraqi government to establish a timetable for the withdrawal of all foreign troops. The CoR cannot itself cancel the 2014 request for coalition support, which requires executive action from the PM. It is unclear if PM Mehdi has the legal authority to do so given his status as a caretaker PM. Mehdi resigned on November 29, 2019 during mass protests.

Nationalist Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr may participate in attacks on US forces and installations. The leader of Sadr’s Toward Reform bloc issued a statement to the CoR on Sadr’s behalf that included demands for an even greater response. In addition to withdrawing from U.S. security agreements, Sadr called for the immediate closure of the “Embassy of American Evil in Iraq,” the closure of U.S. bases in the country, the “humiliating expulsion” of U.S. troops, the “criminalization” of any communication with the U.S. government, and the boycott of American products.[4] In a tweet following the session, Sadr condemned the CoR resolution as insufficient and called on “the Iraqi resistance factions in particular and the factions outside of Iraq for an immediate meeting to announce the formation of “international resistance groups.”[5]

Implications: This resolution renders the maintenance of a U.S. or coalition military presence in Iraq politically difficult but does not yet legally require a U.S. withdrawal. However, it solidifies the Iranian narrative of a U.S. “occupation” of Iraq and sets political conditions to justify subsequent attacks on U.S. forces across the Middle East. These escalations will likely come not only from Iran’s direct proxy militias, but also from a pan-Shi’a resistance movement that Muqtada al-Sadr is now attempting to generate. The Iraqi Security Forces have up until this point depended on coalition military support to sustain pressure on the Islamic State (ISIS). Any withdrawal of coalition forces from Iraq offers ISIS increased freedom of movement and improves conditions for ISIS to reconstitute itself inside of Iraq and Syria.

Footnotes/further info on sources @ link.

 

[FJAG]

Yet another bizarre, inflammatory, misguided tweet from POTUS:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1213919480574812160?s=20

“Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
These Media Posts will serve as notification to the United States Congress that should Iran strike any U.S. person or target, the United States will quickly & fully strike back, & perhaps in a disproportionate manner. Such legal notice is not required, but is given nevertheless.”

:facepalm:  :brickwall:  :worms:  :trainwreck:

 

[brihard]

Yet another bizarre, inflammatory, misguided tweet from POTUS:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1213919480574812160?s=20



“Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
These Media Posts will serve as notification to the United States Congress that should Iran strike any U.S. person or target, the United States will quickly & fully strike back, & perhaps in a disproportionate manner. Such legal notice is not required, but is given nevertheless.”

I love the smell of facepalm in the morning

 

[dimsum]

Yet another bizarre, inflammatory, misguided tweet from POTUS:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1213919480574812160?s=20



“Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
These Media Posts will serve as notification to the United States Congress that should Iran strike any U.S. person or target, the United States will quickly & fully strike back, & perhaps in a disproportionate manner. Such legal notice is not required, but is given nevertheless.”

...and perhaps commit a war crime or 52.  :facepalm:

Also, is he now confirming that his tweets are official policy?  So there can be repercussions from what comes of them?

 

[tomahawk6]

I don't understand your post concerning war crimes. Some of our Democrats have thrown that around in ignorance. Since 2002 Congress authorized any President to be able to strike terrorists without having to get permission of Congress. In this way Bin Laden and Al Baghdadi were killed. Obama flew a number of drone strikes in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

 

[brihard]

I don't understand your post concerning war crimes. Some of our Democrats have thrown that around in ignorance. Since 2002 Congress authorized any President to be able to strike terrorists without having to get permission of Congress. In this way Bin Laden and Al Baghdadi were killed. Obama flew a number of drone strikes in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Yesterday Trump said that 52 targets have been identified for the next round of reprisals, if necessary. He specifically noted that some would have ‘cultural’ import, which while not explicit, leaves a huge question mark hanging in the air. To attack cultural sites without military necessity is of course a war crime.

Today he expressly entertained the notion of deliberately and specifically disproportionate strikes. Proportionality is a key concept in customary international law of armed conflict.

So: it’s fair at this point to consider the possibility that Trump is actively entertaining future military action that would clearly and deliberately constitute war crimes. He has already shown in the recent round of pardons and judicial meddling that the laws of armed conflict are not something he holds in any particular regard.

None of this paints any picture of certainty. It’s merely a situation where a person has the means to do something, has expressly supported by both words and actions that he considers certain laws to not be applicable or important if he so decides, and where he has not clarified his words and actions to provide clarity.

Each of us can hold our own personal opinions of what he is and isn’t capable of doing if he decides he wants to.

 

[Good2Golf]

I don't understand your post concerning war crimes. Some of our Democrats have thrown that around in ignorance. Since 2002 Congress authorized any President to be able to strike terrorists without having to get permission of Congress. In this way Bin Laden and Al Baghdadi were killed. Obama flew a number of drone strikes in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Amongst others, are concerns regarding POTUS’ statement regarding potential destruction of things culturally important to the Iranian people.

Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. The Hague, 14 May 1954.

:dunno:

Regards
G2G

 

[Retired AF Guy]

Other than Soleimani and al-Muhandis, the other name I've been able to find was Mohammed Ridha Jabri. He was the PMF's public relations chief, and was travelling with Soleimani. If he was head of PR, that might explain the slower response on the PR front by PMF, but I'm of course speculating.

Interesting that the two of them were traveling together.

According to this BBC report those killed included Soleimanis son-in-law and a member of the Lebanese Hezbollah. That's five deaths, to which we can add the two drivers. Initial reports indicated seven killed but later reports said eight killed.

 

[Baz]

There is also this:

Violent threats policy
Overview
March 2019
You may not threaten violence against an individual or a group of people. We also prohibit the glorification of violence.
https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/violent-threats-glorification

Somehow I doubt it will be enforced in this case...

 

[brihard]

There is also this:

Violent threats policy
Overview
March 2019
You may not threaten violence against an individual or a group of people. We also prohibit the glorification of violence.
https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/violent-threats-glorification

Somehow I doubt it will be enforced in this case...

An aside, but here’s a fun one for a law nerd: Are presidential tweets public record that Twitter now has a responsibility to help preserve regardless of terms of service violations?

 

[Brad Sallows]

Proportionality applies to collateral, not military, damage.  Trump's (as usual) unclear statement didn't specify what he wants to be disproportionate about, and you can be as disproportionate as you want when writing down military forces (it's usually encouraged).  There is no prohibition, for example, on taking out 10 of their generals for every 1 they take out of his.

 

[FJAG]

An aside, but here’s a fun one for a law nerd: Are presidential tweets public record that Twitter now has a responsibility to help preserve regardless of terms of service violations?

Don't know about Twitter's responsibilities but the White House may need to. Presidential Records 44 U.S.C Chap 22 provides:

§ 2201. Definitions

(1) The term "documentary material" means all books, correspondence, memoranda, documents, papers, pamphlets, works of art, models, pictures, photographs, plats, maps, films, and motion pictures, including, but not limited to, audio and visual records, or other electronic or mechanical recordations, whether in analog, digital, or any other form.

(2) The term "Presidential records" means documentary materials, or any reasonably segregable portion thereof, created or received by the President, the President’s immediate staff, or a unit or individual of the Executive Office of the President whose function is to advise or assist the President, in the course of conducting activities which relate to or have an effect upon the carrying out of the constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President. Such term--

(A) includes any documentary materials relating to the political activities of the President or members of the President’s staff, but only if such activities relate to or have a direct effect upon the carrying out of constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President; but

...

(3) The term "personal records" means all documentary materials, or any reasonably segregable portion thereof, of a purely private or nonpublic character which do not relate to or have an effect upon the carrying out of the constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President. Such term includes--

...

§ 2203. Management and custody of Presidential records

(a) Through the implementation of records management controls and other necessary actions, the President shall take all such steps as may be necessary to assure that the activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies that reflect the performance of the President’s constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties are adequately documented and that such records are preserved and maintained as Presidential records pursuant to the requirements of this section and other provisions of law.

https://www.archives.gov/about/laws/presidential-records.html

You decide. But I wonder what server all this stuff is stored on? I bet it's not a secure government one.

I do wonder sometimes as to whether we'll all just wake up one day like Bobby Ewing on Dallas and find out that the last three years were just a bad dream.

:cheers:

 

[dapaterson]

They’re allowed to kill our people. They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural site? It doesn’t work that way.

#WarCriminal

https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1213980369776762880

 

[brihard]

#WarCriminal

https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1213980369776762880

I had to check, and yup- he did say that, verbatim to a pool of reporters. He's openly repudiating international law that exists to protect civilian cultural sites from military attack. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/476868-trump-doubles-down-on-threat-to-iran-cultural-sites

He also said this:

There was also this:

President Trump said Sunday that the United States would not leave Iraq on “friendly” terms and threatened to impose sanctions on the country if forced to withdraw American troops.

“If they do ask us to leave, if we don’t do it in a very friendly basis,” Trump told reporters about Air Force One Sunday afternoon when asked about the vote by Iraq’s parliament to end U.S. troop presence in the country.

“We will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever. It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame,” Trump continued. “If there’s any hostility, that they do anything we think is inappropriate, we are going to put sanctions on Iraq, very big sanctions on Iraq.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/476869-trump-says-hell-sanction-iraq-if-us-troops-forced-to-leave

So- you're there, purportedly at their invitation. They decide to rescind that invitation after an assassination on their soil, and that becomes grounds for sanctions will apparently "make Iranian sanctions look tame"? Wonderful. Clearly the words of a well-balanced genius.

The man is...




Staff edit

 

[brihard]

Further on the 'cultural property' thing, to prove there is an onus that America is legally obligated to respect:

http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13637&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict with Regulations for the Execution of the Convention 1954

Article 4. Respect for cultural property

1. The High Contracting Parties undertake to respect cultural property situated within their own territory as well as within the territory of other High Contracting Parties by refraining from any use of the property and its immediate surroundings or of the appliances in use for its protection for purposes which are likely to expose it to destruction or damage in the event of armed conflict; and by refraining from any act of hostility, directed against such property.

2. The obligations mentioned in paragraph 1 of the present Article may be waived only in cases where military necessity imperatively requires such a waiver.

3. The High Contracting Parties further undertake to prohibit, prevent and, if necessary, put a stop to any form of theft, pillage or misappropriation of, and any acts of vandalism directed against, cultural property. They shall refrain from requisitioning movable cultural property situated in the territory of another High Contracting Party.

4. They shall refrain from any act directed by way of reprisals against cultural property.

5. No High Contracting Party may evade the obligations incumbent upon it under the present Article, in respect of another High Contracting Party, by reason of the fact that the latter has not applied the measures of safeguard referred to in Article 3.

Amierca, Iran, and Iraq are all state signatories to this convention. This is international law that America is party to, beyond being an uncodified jus cogens peremptory norm.

America's president is expressly stating that notwithstanding this law that he and America are absolutely bound by, "it doesn't work that way". Congress needs to get a friggin' grip on this.

 

[FJAG]

Further on the 'cultural property' thing, to prove there is an onus that America is legally obligated to respect:

http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13637&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict with Regulations for the Execution of the Convention 1954

Amierca, Iran, and Iraq are all state signatories to this convention. This is international law that America is party to, beyond being an uncodified jus cogens peremptory norm.

America's president is expressly stating that notwithstanding this law that he and America are absolutely bound by, "it doesn't work that way". Congress needs to get a friggin' grip on this.

We desperately need a 'mouth hanging open in utter disbelief' emoji.

Sometimes  :brickwall: just isn't enough.

:cheers:

 

[OldSolduer]

Congress has abdicated their responsibility over and over again.
Only the US Congress may declare war but I doubt they have the necessary intestinal fortitude to stop the current POTUS from starting one.

Or am I being cynical?

 

[FJAG]

Congress has abdicated their responsibility over and over again.
Only the US Congress may declare war but I doubt they have the necessary intestinal fortitude to do so.

Or am I being cynical?

They previously had it against Iraq but have had massive buyers' remorse since then. Sometimes it's not a bad thing to be a little gun shy. Bottom line is that the people should decide as to whether to invest the blood and treasure in a war and the last time I looked, the people of the US, by virtue of section 8 of the US Constitution, gave that power to the Congress.

:cheers:

 

[Cloud Cover]

One thing is certainly emerging in big letters: the use of vanity social media by elected officials and especially those in charge of government, needs to be significantly regulated, perhaps even abolished. Maybe the world won’t go from zero to the kill button with a thoughtless tweet.