{"id":251401,"date":"2016-06-22T19:43:40","date_gmt":"2016-06-22T19:43:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/us-bombing-syrian-troops-would-be-illegal\/"},"modified":"2016-06-22T21:50:38","modified_gmt":"2016-06-22T21:50:38","slug":"us-bombing-syrian-troops-would-be-illegal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/us-bombing-syrian-troops-would-be-illegal\/","title":{"rendered":"US Bombing Syrian Troops Would Be Illegal"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"260.33524695635\">\n<p><strong>Exclusive: <\/strong>Secretary of State Kerry met with dissident State Department \u201cdiplomats\u201d to hear their call for U.S. airstrikes on Syrian government troops, but the plan is both dangerous and illegal, writes Marjorie Cohn.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-19929\"\/>By Marjorie Cohn<\/p>\n<p>In an internal \u201cdissent channel cable,\u201d 51 State Department officers called for \u201ctargeted military strikes\u201d against the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, a proposal that\u00a0President Barack Obama has thus far resisted. However, were he to accept the cable\u2019s advice,\u00a0he would risk a dangerous \u2013 possibly catastrophic \u2013 confrontation with Russia.\u00a0And, such a\u00a0use of military force in Syria would violate U.S. and international law.<\/p>\n<p>While the cable decries \u201cthe Russian and Iranian governments\u2019 cynical and destabilizing deployment of significant military power to bolster the Assad regime,\u201d the cable calls for the United States to protect and empower \u201cthe moderate Syrian opposition,\u201d seeking to overthrow the Syrian government.<\/p>\n<p>However,\u00a0Assad\u2019s government is the only legitimate government in Syria and, as the sovereign, has the legal right to seek international support as it has from Russia and Iran. There is no such legal right for the United States and other countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey,\u00a0to arm Syrian rebels to attack Assad\u2019s government.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_9964\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" readability=\"37\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/kerry-syria-remarks.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-9964\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/kerry-syria-remarks-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Aug. 30, 2013, claims to have proof that the Syrian government was responsible for a chemical weapons attack on Aug. 21, but that evidence failed to materialize or was later discredited. [State Department photo]\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/kerry-syria-remarks-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/kerry-syria-remarks.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-9964\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/kerry-syria-remarks-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Aug. 30, 2013, claims to have proof that the Syrian government was responsible for a chemical weapons attack on Aug. 21, but that evidence failed to materialize or was later discredited. [State Department photo]\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/kerry-syria-remarks-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/kerry-syria-remarks.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Aug. 30, 2013, claimed to have proof that the Syrian government was responsible for a chemical weapons attack on Aug. 21, but that evidence failed to materialize or was later discredited. [State Department photo]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The\u00a0dissent cable advocates what it calls \u201cthe judicious use of stand-off and air weapons,\u201d which, the signatories write, \u201cwould undergird and drive a more focused and hardnosed US-led diplomatic process.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Inside Syria, both the United States and Russia are battling the Islamic State (also known as ISIS)\u00a0as ISIS and other jihadist groups seek to overthrow the Assad government. But while the U.S. is supporting rebel\u00a0forces (including some fighting ISIS and some fighting Assad), Russia is backing Assad (and waging\u00a0a broader fight against \u201cterrorists,\u201d including Al Qaeda\u2019s\u00a0Nusra&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2016\/06\/22\/us-bombing-syrian-troops-would-be-illegal\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Exclusive: Secretary of State Kerry met with dissident State Department \u201cdiplomats\u201d to hear their call for U.S. airstrikes on Syrian government troops, but the plan is both dangerous and illegal, writes Marjorie Cohn. By Marjorie Cohn In an internal \u201cdissent channel cable,\u201d 51 State Department officers called for \u201ctargeted military strikes\u201d against the government of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-251401","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire","7":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251401\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}