The War Against al-Qaeda Is Over

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/266-32/18727-the-war-against-al-qaeda-is-over

But the president did not take the next step of declaring an end to the war with al-Qaeda or even explaining how citizens will know when it is over. International law provides guidance. The standard for when a legally recognized "armed conflict" exists between a state and an armed group appears in the protocols and official commentary to the Geneva Conventions and has been fleshed out by various international tribunals. An armed conflict requires a certain level of hostilities - judged by factors such as the number, duration and intensity of individual confrontations; the use of military weaponry; the number of participants in the fighting; and the casualties and displacement caused. It also requires the antagonists to possess armed forces under a command structure with the capacity to sustain military operations.

The al-Qaeda threat to the United States, while still real, no longer meets those standards. At most, al-Qaeda these days can mount sporadic, isolated attacks, carried out by autonomous or loosely affiliated cells. Some attacks may cause considerable loss of life, but they are nothing like the military operations that define an armed conflict under international law.

Obama himself has said that the core of al-Qaeda - the original enterprise now based, if anywhere, in the tribal areas of northwestern Pakistan - has been "decimated." Its affiliates, such as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, are more robust armed groups but have limited capacity to pro­ject their violence beyond their regions.

These affiliates are significant actors in Yemen and northern Africa, but it is far from clear that they pose a threat to the United States greater than, for example, Mexican drug cartels or international ­organized-crime networks - organizations for which few would characterize U.S. containment efforts as "war." That the United States continues to deploy military force against al-Qaeda is not enough to qualify that effort as an armed conflict, because if it were, a government could justify the summary killing of "combatants" simply by using its armed forces to do so.

Admitting that the contest with al-Qaeda is no longer a war does not mean that the United States is defenseless or even that lethal force is forbidden. In the absence of war, U.S. conduct is governed by international human rights law, which favors arrest and prosecution but still permits lethal force, if necessary, to stop an imminent threat to life.

[AgingAmerican]

1. Goldstein is still on the loose!

It's true, it's really true! Eastasia must be vanquished!

[PorridgeGun]

3. Bingo!

The "enemy" will never be broken, never surrender, and never be defeated.

He will always be out there, lurking in the porta-johns of your next charity 5k, or deep in some "militia" (2 middle aged fatties with gunz) "compund" (decrepit doublewide) with an "arsenal" (shed + old ammo cases), and would surely get you but for the NSA and what used to be your local police department, now transformed into a bunch of family dog slotting goons who've fallen all too obviously in love with playing seal team 6 dress-up.

I had hoped Orwell would be proved wrong in his prediction of the future as a boot stamping on a human face forever, but he's looking increasingly prescient to me.

[Uncle Joe]

2. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, eridani.

[Robb]

4. Well intended, but misses the point.

Obama is best utilized in precisely the role the author appears to lambast -- launching the notion that Al Qaeda are beaten. This is a message we've been hearing more and more from this administration, and it's a critical one.

Because the action of the Congress will be required to terminate the AUMF which has been leveraged into this perpetual war, not that of the President. Until Congress is convinced the threat is diminished -- or more accurately until their constituents force them to admit as much -- that AUMF is going nowhere.

It is a public opinion battle, and Obama can be a valuable asset in that battle. But he can't win it unilaterally. I've opined elsewhere that it will be a court challenge to specific action taken by the government against a US citizen under the auspices of the AUMF that will tip the scales; again, stacking the courts before that happens is another place we can expect help from the President.

[morningfog]

5. Authorization to use force is not a requirement to do so.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. Yet the admin closes more than 20 embassies and consulates

and issues a global travel warning for a threat from al Qaeda. And Interpol notes that hundreds of al Qaeda members have escaped from prisons in the past month.

http://www.rferl.org/content/us-terrorism-alert/25065782.html

I don't think they are trying to say al Qaeda is beaten yet.

[Robb]

8. Fair point. nt

[KG]

6. no reason not to build another aircraft carrier or nuke sub or 2....