What is an illegal war?

Question

With all of these people ranting about "illegal wars," I'm curious to know what your definition of one is.

Answer 1

"Immoral" is probably a better word choice; "legal" implies there is some code of laws. And, I'd say initiating an unprovoked act of agression and causing the needless deaths of 10's of thousands of innocents certainly qualifies as an Immoral war..

Answer 2

According to the Constitution, only Congress has the authority to declare war. If a war is undeclared by Congress, it is illegal. The Korean War? Illegal. The Vietnam War? - illegal. The Iraq War? Illegal
If it were only in this area that we ignored the Constitution, it would be bad enough, but the Pres. and Congress ignore it on a daily basis.

Every1 who talks about international law is WRONG!

Answer 3

One might call Iraq an illegal war but that makes no different we are there. It is against our constitution to invade a country that has not attacked us. But our presents there inflames an already hostile environment. Since we are not trying to win we should work with all the countries to broker a peace. We could have Iran a Shiite nation and Saudi Arabia a Summi nation replace our troops. We need our troops home to handle the illegal immigration problem costing more than forty billion dollars a year in lost taxes.
Containment does not work. The policy of containment cost us fifty thousand unnecessary troops.
A war needs to be quick and decisive and with enough force to do the job. 16,000 troops, containment 150,000 A force able to do the job.

Answer 4

Illegal War, maybe a war that was based on deception thus resulted in invading and occupying a country without any just reason, or maybe that everything else associated with that war is illegal, like torture, no charges on people that have been captured and released some 5 years later, etc.
Oh! not to forget all the other illegal activities on the home-front based on the lie that it will secure.

Answer 5

I have never really liked the term "Illegal War"

Because if it is a war that goes against international law how many wars since 1900 started off as a legal war.

Somewhere along the lines whoever starts a war invaded someone, and I bet they didnt ask for anyone's permission to do so.

Illegal war IMO is just in the eye of the beholder if they think the invader had proper reasons to invade.

Answer 6

I a nation's military goes to war without the sanction of it's government, that would be an 'illegal' war.

You could invoke 'international law' - but then virtually all wars would be illegal. Wars are the last resort of international politics, by the time there's a war, 'international law' has failed.

Answer 7

I wonder why the people calling for Bush and Blair to stand trial for an "illegal war" are not also trying to find out who is responsible for the conflicts in places like Chad and the Sudan?

Or are those wars/conflicts not "important" enough?

Answer 8

According to truth seeker, the civil war was an illegal war, since it's known down south as the war of northern agression.

According to the rest of the libs, it is a war that was voted on and approved by a large majority of congress, including a large majority of both parties, but then becomes unpopular. Maybe illegal mean unpopular in liberalese. We intelligent people just don't speak that language.

Answer 9

A war that goes against the "Rules of War"--a war of agression--a war that is fought for any purpose other than that which was stated and voted upon!! The "war" in Iraq!!

Answer 10

Going to war when there is no real provable reason to do it or going to war when the reason is personal gain for family and friends.