David Kaye

so many words, but he speaks and posts at a grade school level. it's astonishing really.

dear leader has a very limited vocabulary

propagandists all around: "Altman said the Department of Defense 'displayed a deep respect for safety and a desire to partner to achieve the best possible outcome' in their interactions."

from what i can tell, so are the house and senate armed services committee!

i was curious about this because a very establishment org invited a DoD official to speak (ugh 1) and referred to him as an official of the DoW (ugh 2).

they have talked about supporting 'targeted regulation' & responsible scaling, not to mention 'promulgating' a constitution for claude. agree it'll be interesting to see if the DoD fight changes anything for them.

i had reason to look at this the other day and it seems that NYT, WSJ, Reuters the same.

A reminder that we can’t trust anything that any high government official in any of these countries says.

Crowdsourcing: of all the coverage on the Iran strikes in U.S. media and elsewhere today and leading up to today — how much of what you’ve seen has mentioned the UN charter? I have yet to see *any* mention.

wright is one of the only commentators to genuinely care about the charter and intl law

I was hesitant to do book promo during this awful moment but if you're looking for context on US policy toward Iran, please check out my book.

for those who want a quick-and-dirty overview, marko milanovic unsurprisingly delivers

does carney believe there's an iran exception in the un charter?

Or, to put another way, we aim to be both principled and pragmatic – principled in our commitment to fundamental values, sovereignty, territorial integrity, the prohibition of the use of force, except when consistent with the UN Charter, and respect for human rights, and pragmatic and recognizing that progress is often incremental, that interests diverge, that not every partner will share all of our values.

this is the same guy, hardly two weeks ago

i'm trying not to be snarky or mean...

a hearty thank you to those reminding that the us & israel are not parties to the rome statute. that wasn't my point. regardless of enforcement (generally or ag the criminal leaders of these govts), this definition is in fact pretty widely embraced & has deep roots in law.

NYT: Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada and his foreign minister, Anita Anand, backed the American action. “Canada supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security,” they said in a joint statement.

so much for that davos speech

This war could end tomorrow and the US and the region will be living with the consequences for many years.

You cannot put what Trump unleashed back in the box.

this is so weak, passive, & unconvincing.

empires & superpowers disbelieve constraints of any kind

☝️ thank you

honestly that sounds like the most hopeful outcome...

and i'm sure ppl will say, sure, but presidents have used force without congressional authorization for decades. and yeah, that's true. but nothing like this. not even the pretext of a legal argument, the motion of seeking public & congressional support. we are so far beyond norms.

for those fixated on congressional authorization, i get it. this is a massive violation of our constitutional order.

even so, congress *cannot* legitimize an illegal war. there is nothing congress can do to make it legal under int'l law.

lawlessness on every level

He’s a maximalist when it comes to law breaking. Why violate one international law when you can violate several at the same time

department of war indeed

But what remains unclear is how exactly the Iranian people are supposed to 'take over' their government. none of this was thought through.

trump's promise of indiscriminate violence: "...to the great, proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand. Stay sheltered. Don't leave your home. It's very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere..."