Was the Iraq War in 2003 legal?

A Jacksonian covers the bases with his usual thoroughness.

Conclusion: Yes.

Explanation: Desert Storm 1 was a war undertaken to drive Iraq out of Kuwait. After Saddam Hussein asked for a ceasefire the war was in truce, but it was not over. The truce had terms, and Saddam kept on breaking them. Yet nobody did anything about it, until finally, in 2003, the US had enough, plus there was a realization that even distant threats can have terrible effects at home. The definitions of all these terms are defined in the ancient and venerable Law of Nations, which is a extra-Constitutional legal code that preceded the Constitution and paralleled British Common Law.

He covers the entire range of questions from an originalist perspective, from treatment of captured Air Pirates and other illegal enemy combatants (not soldiers, who must by the laws of war have a uniform to distinguish them from civilians) to what it means to seize a country's embassy and kidnap its staff (an act of War).

Read it all.

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