[26] Marjorie Cohn `Foreign Policy` (AlterNet, July 31, 2008) accessed December 27, 2012 [1] “Human and Budget Costs to Date of the U.S. War in Afghanistan, 2001-2022: Figures: Costs of War.” The Cost of War, August 2021. watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2021/human-and-budgetary-costs-date-us-war-afghanistan-2001-2022. More generally, now that the United States has withdrawn all the United States. The Biden administration faces a number of difficult legal questions: Will the United States finally abandon the eternal martial law paradigm of fighting terrorism in Afghanistan? Will the United States adopt a broader scope for IHL and ius ad bellum for Afghanistan-related operations? And if the answer to those first two questions is no, will the administration use political guidance to address tensions that are sure to arise as the U.S. conducts counterterrorism operations related to Afghanistan? Four U.S. presidents from across the political spectrum have been surprisingly consistent in their assumption of an eternal martial law paradigm for post-9/11 extraterritorial counterterrorism operations against al-Qaeda and “allied forces.” Although Biden drove U.S. forces out of Afghanistan and declared an end to the war there, Biden`s speech in August was. 31, 2021, explicitly emphasized that the United States “will continue the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan and other countries.
We simply don`t need to fight a ground war to do it. We have so-called over-the-horizon capabilities, which means we can attack terrorists and targets without U.S. ground troops, very few if necessary. On all these issues, the jury is still waiting. The Biden administration`s distorted legal reasoning in the Guantanamo dispute suggests that it will be difficult for the US to leave the warpath as long as Guantanamo remains open, including in Afghanistan. But isn`t it high time for the United States to withdraw from the global war paradigm of counterterrorism as a legal issue, not just as a policy? To be sure, the case for closing Guantánamo as soon as possible has never been stronger. This essay attempts to analyze whether the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was legal under international law. Reference is made mainly to the Charter of the United Nations and customary international law. Moralistic and pacifist arguments are not widely used in this essay, because the purpose here is to assess the conflict in a legal context.
The work of lawyers, academics, journalists and politicians is also analyzed to determine the legitimacy of war. [15] Schmitt, Eric. “No U.S. troops will be punished for the deadly attack on Kabul,” the Pentagon chief said. The New York Times. The New York Times, December 13, 2021. www.nytimes.com/2021/12/13/us/politics/afghanistan-drone-strike.html. [25] David Ray Griffin “Did 9/11 Justify the War in Afghanistan?” (Global Research, June 24, 2010) Retrieved 26 December 2012. [23] Ben Smith and Arabella Thorp “The legal basis for the invasion of Afghanistan” (Parliament, February 26, 2010) accessed December 26, 2012 Even if the U.S.
does not legally reject the paradigm of war in Afghanistan, the withdrawal of U.S. forces is likely to become a greater reliance on ius ad. bellum to lead each “beyond the horizon”. Use of violent operations there, potentially revealing differences between the United States, its allies and others in the interpretation of jus ad bellum elements. In addition, the withdrawal should lead to a deeper examination of the relatively restrictive US approach to the role of international human rights law (ECF) in offshore counterterrorism operations, both in terms of the use of force and detention issues, particularly for those detained at Guantanamo. These developments could, for better or worse, lead to increased reliance on what I have elsewhere called “legalistic national security policy,” which helps resolve disagreements between the United States and its allies, other states, international organizations (IOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) over the scope of international humanitarian law and the interpretation and role of ius ad bellum and IHL in these operations. Opponents of the war claimed that the attack on Afghanistan violated international law, constituted unwarranted aggression and would result in the deaths of many civilians through the bombing campaign and prevent aid workers from bringing food into the country. According to one estimate, about 5,000 Afghan civilians were killed in the first three months of the US invasion. [1] [2] The death of Osama bin Laden has led many to question the effectiveness of America`s continued fighting in Afghanistan. Too often, any meaningful discussion of the legitimacy of the war on terror in Afghanistan, where the US has promised to continue fighting at least until 2014, is rejected.