Author: Kary Love

President Trump has “commander in chiefed” an end to the illegal US role in the war in Syria. And there are reports the Commander in Chief may order a draw down in Afghanistan, the war that keeps on giving! Knock me down with a feather! Turns out it ain’t that hard to end a war! It must be a Christmas Miracle! In the lifetime of the post 9-11 generation, the USA has started many a war, but ended nary a one. Is this a new era? Is it evidence that this Christmas Christ may return? I do not know how else to understand it.

Of course, the usual suspects are grumbling about this, Lindsey Graham among them, but let us give Trump credit for standing up to the war profiteers and their bought and paid for apologists, peace may break out before anyone thought possible! Even the Senate has gotten into the act, moving to end the US war on Yemen fought by Saudi Arabia, a lapdog dependency if ever there was one, so the USA could pretend it was just “supplying aircraft fuel.”

Can this Christmas Miracle continue? Dare one hope it spread? Imagine, as John Lennon musically urged, no war. Impossible? That is what Christmas Miracles are all about, accomplishing the impossible.

Continue reading “A Christmas Miracle? USA Stopping a War?”

John Bolton, President Trump’s new (and improved) National Security Advisor argues a nuclear first strike against North Korea is "legal."

I am just a country lawyer, but I read the Nuremberg Judgments to condemn aggressive war. Hitler was allegedly guilty of aggressive war when he launched first strikes against other countries. The USA hanged some of his followers for following Hitler’s orders to do so. In fact, the USA hanged some of his followers for planning and preparing for those aggressive wars before they started, arguing the law must condemn and punish those who planned for such criminal wars in times of peace, or else the planning and preparation would make the temptation irresistible.

Pearl Harbor, you may recall, was a criminal first strike aggressive war. The USA hung some of those accountable following the Tokyo war crimes trials. Aggressive war, a/k/a "first strikes" are criminal in all cases under the law of humanity. Claiming a first strike is defensive because the guy on the other side is preparing to strike first seems a weak argument for an exception. It sounds like an argument Hitler would make. Certainly, the Japanese believed they had to attack Pearl Harbor because US actions threatened to cut off the Japanese oil supply "necessary" for their military expansion they were undertaking in Asia.

Continue reading “If John Bolton Is Right, Pearl Harbor Was Perfectly Legal”

Your correspondent attended the November 4 Harvard University colloquium on the topic: Is Nuclear First Strike Legal or Just? The intellectual firepower contained in the panels convened by Elaine Scarry and Jonathon King was impressive: William Perry, former US Secretary of War; Zia Mian, Princeton physicist and a leading expert on the nuclear conundrum of Pakistan and India; Bruce Blair former US Missile launch officer, Princeton Professor and co-founder of Global Zero among others.

The facts adduced justified the convening by the appropriately named Professor Scarry: if one was not scared witless within the first hour (the colloquium ran 9 to 5) then one was simply beyond scar(r)y.

Continue reading “Nuclear First Strike: Is It Constitutional, Is It Lawful, Is It Just?”

Okay, I am prejudiced, I admit it. Like you, I am a "Designated NonSurvivor" if the US and NK actually fulfill their threats to use nuclear weapons. Designated Survivors are individuals in the presidential line of succession, who are ordered to a secure and undisclosed location when the President and the country’s other top "leaders" are gathered at a single location. This is intended to guarantee continuity of government (COG) in the event of an occurrence that kills the President and many officials in the presidential line of succession.

I am not writing this to complain about being a Designated NonSurvivor. I will be in good company – practically everyone in the world! All the artists and builders, farmers and singers, the young and the old! Not a shabby group to belong to.

Continue reading “I Am a Designated Nonsurvivor”