Slogans claiming the supposed "illegality" of every phase of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq demonstrate a lack of even the most basic research and/or understanding of the applicable international law.
Letter to The Canberra Times
Wednesday, 09 December 2015
(published Monday, 14 December 2015)
Steve Ellis (Letters, December 9) not only evades every point in my letter of December 4 but even begins by claiming that — at some time undefined and conveniently uncited — I somehow "labelled those who criticised the 2003 invasion [of Iraq] as traitors".
This never occurred.
Steve's extensive misquotations of what my letter actually noted when challenging blanket sloganeering about Afghanistan and Iraq being "illegal wars" further evades the issue.
As the vast majority of international law scholarship agrees, different phases of both conflicts all had — or in only one case might not have had — the required legal bases.
Perhaps Steve could address facts, complexity and what is actually said in explanation, rather than resort to ad hominem attacks in particular and misrepresentation generally.
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