There is an area of law that probably would have been among my professional publications if my body had held together a bit longer but it will have to be arranged at some point and I am not liking the direction it all seems to be heading: can a treaty trump the Constitution?

It’s too glib to even state it that way. Hard to explain without a concrete example, so here ya go:

The U.N. treaty contains a mechanism to protect world peace by doing violence. Do I believe that is possible? Oh HELL yes it is possible. An international bully can often be stopped just the same way a playground bully is stopped and the result will be less harm.

So it is lawful in international law terms to contribute to a UN police action authorized by the Security Council. My recollection is the duty of member states is pretty vague, amounting to “do the best you can with what assets you can contribute.”

Does this amount to an AUMF?

If so, Clinton’s bombing of Serb forces to protect Kosovars in imminent peril was lawful. It certainly was morally correct. I remember my late wife brought to tears by the violent ethnic cleansing but still not wanting our forces involved.

I think most folks without a dog in the fight would look back on it and agree that we saved lives, and we saved more noncombatants than soldiers. This is one of those deals to throw in the face of knee jerk anti-Americans who claim that when the US military is involved there has to be some nefarious dealing somewhere.

Another involvement that cost a lot of money but involved no shooting was Clinton’s dogged diplomacy over Ireland. I confess I did not think it would last, but the peace that broke out in our repeated hammering has lasted so far.

Jimmy Carter’s demonstration about how to broker peace in the Middle East has unfortunately been forgotten. It’s really simple: we can’t be honest brokers if we are unwilling to call out Israel when appropriate.

ANYWAY, I presume the POTUS can spend all the time and money he wishes trying to tamp down a war and Congress need not agree.

What about, though, violent intervention to the same purpose? Enforcing Security Council decisions in the former Yugoslavia with some (non-nuclear) bombs, arresting some Serbs for shipment to The Hague.

But then there’s the biggie. What we call the Korean War was a Security Council police action that was authorized because the Soviet Union was boycotting UN activities and so did not show up to cast a veto. The Chinese seat was at that time held by Taiwan.

In international law terms, what we did to reconstitute the 38th parallel was a lawful use of force. What about legality in municipal law? Is the treaty a floating AUMF or “declaration of war”?

Note that Truman fired MacArthur because the general wanted to take action beyond the Security Council mandate (not to mention using nuclear weapons). Plainly, our commanding general did not give a rat’s ass about the legal limits…. It was much more than the clash of egos between the self-perceived hero of the Pacific front in WWII and the haberdasher from Kansas.

Oh, one more thing about the unpleasantness in the former Yugoslavia. A friend of mine is married to a lady who entered the US as a refugee from that nasty business. They live in a particularly picturesque place and once when I was visiting, I asked him if she enjoyed the view. His response: “She enjoys any place where nobody is shooting at her.”