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Riddles of Armageddon: Legal Enigmas of a Nuke Launch
Order
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Alex
Brandon/AP
Recent
back-and-forth between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President
Donald Trump over who has the bigger "nuclear button"
raises the question again of procedures, policies and circumstances
surrounding the use of nuclear weapons.
Bob Eatinger,
former
CIA senior deputy general counsel, examines the Commander-in-Chief's Constitutional
authority to give such a command — and whether a military office
should obey it:
- "It
is common knowledge that military personnel are required to obey
the lawful orders of their superiors, and those who know
the order to be unlawful must refuse to obey it...If an officer
refuses to obey in the belief that the order is unlawful but is
determined to be wrong in assessing the legality of the command,
that officer can be court-martialed for failing to obey a lawful
order."
- "The
delegates to the Constitutional Convention were deliberate in
choosing not to give the president the power to declare war. The delegates wanted it to
make it difficult for the U.S. to get into a war and thought it
unsafe to entrust the president with both the power to declare war
and the power to make war."
- "The
devastating power of nuclear weapons has made it more important than
ever
to know what the Constitution’s deliberate division of our nation’s
war powers means with respect to whether there are limits on when the
president can order their use. At the same time, the lack of a
definitive answer, when a nuclear launch could start a total war
that might last only a few hours, may have rendered the
Constitution’s deliberate division of our nation’s war powers meaningless."
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Is Team Trump Tilting at Windmills in Syria?
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In this week's
'Fine Print' column, TCB's Walter Pincus examines whether or not the
Trump administration has a viable strategy for Syria, in the wake of
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's Jan. 17 speech at Stanford University.
- "Neither
the American public nor Congress have shown a great desire to get deeply involved in
Syria, and there has been no statement by President Trump explaining
any specific policy or its goals."
- Multiple
justifications: "State
Department spokesperson Heather Nauert, speaking to reporters on
Jan. 16, trotted out the administration’s standard line: 'The United
States is in Syria to defeat ISIS.'"
"However,
the next day,
Tillerson, her boss, described much broader goals. He said he was
seeking to explain 'why it is crucial to our national defense to
maintain a military and diplomatic presence in Syria, to help bring
an end to that conflict, and assist the Syrian people as they chart
a course to achieve a new political future.'"
- "Tillerson
said the 'strategic threats to the U.S.' in Syria were coming
from 'principally Iran,' instead of the
diminished ISIS and al-Qaida terrorist forces that remain in
Syria."
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The UAE works side by side with the US to confront Al Qaeda, ISIS and
other extremist threats. It’s part of a shared commitment to preserve
stability in the Middle East. That’s why the UAE has participated in six
military coalitions with the US over the past 25 years. The UAE and US are united
in security.
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McLaughlin: Remembering Former CIA Chief Stansfield Turner
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Former CIA
director and retired Adm. Stansfield Turner passed away last week at 94. Former CIA Acting
Director John McLaughlin offered this remembrance.
- "Stansfield
Turner arrived at CIA in March 1977 at a tumultuous time — the
nation was still shaking off Watergate and the Nixon
resignation, and it had an unusual new president, Jimmy
Carter."
- "I
was a very junior officer at the time and was impressed that he
learned my name and remembered it. I had occasion to brief him a
number of times, mostly on classic Cold War issues, and found him
smart, approachable and courteous."
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