Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Conclusion

So where have these past few blogs been leading you might ask? I have tried to make the following points.

1. A government is amoral. Only the people, who are alive, have a sense of morality.

2. The only law that binds all American’s is the common law. This law is the minimum standard below which we will not suffer a citizen to behave.

3. The laws of this nation apply only to those who live within our borders. We can pass all the laws we want and they don’t apply to peoples living in other nations. The War Powers act only applies to what goes on within the United States. We have to declare war in order to commit aggression against the sovereignty of a foreign state.

4. Just because a President has the capability to commit aggression or thinks he can get away with it, either by hiding the fact, having other nations wink and look the other way, or not being held accountable, attacking another nation is prohibited by International Law. It is undertaken only through a declaration of war.

5. As much as American’s might dislike the Iranians and fear how they might use a nuclear weapon if they acquire one, that is not justification for attacking them with a weapon that destroys physical infrastructure and potentially threatens the lives of inhabitants in a foreign land. We are not at war with Iran.

6. Turning loose the STUXNET worm on the Industrial Infrastructure of Iran, a sovereign nation, was an act for which the President had no authority to order, even if he felt morally justified, safe from getting caught, or brought to account.

7. Such thinking falls below the lowest threshold of law and can be justified only if the President considers himself a deity for whom the law is whatever he decides it should be.
This kind of behavior might be justified by Machiavelli, get the "thumbs up" from Bismarck, or be winked at in Chicago, but it goes far beyond anything the President is empowered to do.