Congress Demands Legal Justification for Trump's Syrian Missile Attack

by Nomad

Dear Mr. President

You might not have seen the joint press release from Congressman Adam Schiff and Senator Tim Kaine issued yesterday. It was in regards a letter they sent to the Trump administration concerning legal matters and the Syrian missile attack earlier this month.

An interesting letter it was, too.

Washington, DC – Yesterday, Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA), Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee, and Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), a member of the Senate Armed Services and Senate Foreign Relations Committees, sent a letter to President Trump asking that he detail the legal basis for the strike against, which has yet to be provided to Congress and the American people.
Schiff and Kaine stated that a full understanding of the domestic and international legal basis for the strike is of great importance to Congress in exercising its constitutional responsibilities.

As the letter states, “By articulating a legal basis for military action, as well as laying out a strategic vision for such action, a president provides a justification for the use of the momentous power to commit American lives to a cause, but also an understanding of the limits of those powers.”
Both Schiff and Kaine believe that Bashar al-Assad must be held accountable for his atrocities and war crimes, but have argued that the missile strikes on the Syrian regime without congressional approval were unlawful.
The full text of the letter is below:

Middle East Mayhem: Why Trump's Foreign Policy in Syria is a Disaster in the Making

by Nomad

Recently Foreign Policy magazine conducted an in-depth analysis of President Trump's domestic and foreign policy strategy.
The article is bluntly entitled Trump’s Grand Strategic Train Wreck and was authored by Colın Kahl and Hal Brands, The pair examined Trump's stated policies objectives and came up to one stunning conclusion: as hard as it might seem, Trump really does have a grand strategy.
That's the good news.
The only problem is, however, it's not so grand. In fact, it's a nightmarish mess.

If you have a few sober hours without distractions, the Foreign Policy article's a must read. But don't expect to walk away feeling buoyant and relieved. Au contraire, mon beau amis, anticipate a feeling of exasperation with a touch of despair. 

According to the article, none of the pieces of the Trump grand strategy seem to actually fit together.

According to some analysts, Trump’s endless streams of erratic and apparently improvisational ideas don’t add up to anything consistent or purposeful enough to call a grand strategy. We see it otherwise. Beneath all the rants, tweets, and noise there is actually a discernible pattern of thought — a Trumpian view of the world that goes back decades. Trump has put forward a clear vision to guide his administration’s foreign policy — albeit a dark and highly troubling one, riddled with tensions and vexing dilemmas.

Troubling is an adjective that just doesn't quite capture the full scale of the problem.