What is it that establishes the relationship between the two norms: “power” and “righteousness”? The answer is that the law sets the relationship between them.
Unfortunately,
the only way that nature sets a limit on power, is when the mighty abuse their
power and come under the law of diminished return, or when the abuse backfires
on its practitioner. For example, if the wolves become so gluttonous as to eat
all the lambs, the wolves will after that, starve to death. To prevent this
kind of calamity from happening, every ecosystem on Earth has devised a method
by which to maintain a balance between preys and predators; a balance that serves
the requirements of all the species so that they continue to exist.
You may think
of this as the law of the jungle, which would be a good reason why the human
species, which thinks of itself as above all that, has come up with a different
way to balance the relationship between power and righteousness. In fact we,
humans have set up a system we think of as advanced; one that may be called “humanity’s
laws.” So that we appreciate its importance, the French fabulist Jean de La
Fontaine wrote a fable to show how absurd life would be if we lived by the law
of the jungle instead of humanity’s laws.
The title of La
Fontaine’s fable is: “The Wolf and the Lamb.” It is the story of a lamb that
was drinking from a creek. A hungry wolf comes along and accuses him of meddling
with his drinking water. No, says the lamb, I am downstream from you; I could
not be doing that. The wolf goes on to invent a series of excuses to maintain
that the lamb is guilty of something, but the lamb refutes them all. The wolf
insists that the lamb or his kinfolks hurt his interests, and vows to get even.
He jumps on the lamb and devours him. The moral of the story is that the
excuses of the mighty are always the most valid.
Being enlightened
and determined to be more civilized than that, we humans, put down laws that established
rights and obligations, and made them apply to everyone regardless of status or
how much power someone wields. This move necessitated that there be a system of
enforcement, which would be maintained by enforcers of the law. And there lies
the problem. It is that to check the abuse of power, human beings who can be
corrupted, are appointed and given power they are themselves prone to abuse.
The perplexing question that points to this paradox goes like this: But who
will police the police?
A real life
example that illustrates this problem was discussed in an article that came
under the title: “An Unauthorized War,” and the subtitle: “The Shaky Legal
Ground for the US Operation in Syria.” It was written by Brian Finucane, and
published on January 11, 2022 in Foreign Affairs.
The legal grounds
which are referred to by the author in the title and subtitle, come in the form
of International Laws and American Laws that were violated by successive
American administrations, and continue to be violated with total disregard to
what is proper or what is righteous. Here, in condensed form, is how Brian
Finucane discussed that ongoing double infamy:
“Under international law, the UN Charter assigns to
the Security Council the responsibility for authorizing use of force in the
service of maintaining international peace and security. The US Constitution,
meanwhile, gives Congress the power to ‘declare War.’ For example, the United
States has waged the war on terrorism under the war authorization passed
by Congress a week after 9/11. The 2001 Authorization for Use of Military
Force, or AUMF intended to allow the US military to fight those responsible for
the terrorist attacks. However, the authorization has been used by the
executive branch in the 20 years since to justify US military operations against
an ever-expanding raft of groups, many of which didn’t even exist in
2001”.
How was it that the various administrations could get
around the American and International Laws for two decades, thus ruined America
financially and fought wars that everyone knew could not be won, or if they could,
would yield nothing useful for America? Well, those administrations used a variety
of tricks to get around the law; tricks that were discussed in detail by Brian
Finucane. For example, under the section headed: LAWYERING UP, Finucane gave
the following example, reproduced here in condensed form:
“In order to accommodate the inconvenient facts of US
combat in Syria, the executive branch has resorted to creative lawyering. The
Trump administration shoehorned attacks against pro-Syrian government forces
into the 2001 AUMF through a theory of ‘ancillary self-defense.’ Under this
interpretation, US forces and their partners were undertaking a mission authorized
by the 2001 AUMF. Under international law, the Trump administration relied on a
similar theory of ancillary self-defense”.
So, here you
see it, my friend. It is the very definition of corruption. Whereas lawyering
is the system we created to set us apart from and above the animals, lawyering
is what we now use “creatively” to get around the law of humans, and live by
the law of the jungle.
No wonder the
smaller powers of the Planet are feverishly mastering the technologies that
have become the modern day great equalizers. The small powers do it so that
they may give the middle finger to the big powers who relentlessly threaten to
use all the options they have on the table. Oh yeah, exclaim the smaller powers!
We too have the means to conduct cyberwar and launch hypersonic missiles. In
case it escapes you: You will push us around no more.