• SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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    3 months ago

    The UN is a forum for diplomacy to happen. It’s not the fucking world police LOL.

    International law is just a collection of treaties that countries may or may not have signed on to. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could be considered an illegal invasion because it violated treaties.

    There was no such treaty prohibiting the US from invading Afghanistan, in fact there were UN security council resolutions in support of it, here’s some light reading for you on the UN supporting combating terrorism in Afghanistan after 9/11: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_1386

    While there isn’t actually a world police, NATO is the closest thing to it. 9/11 triggered Article 5 of NATO, so basically Al Qaeda punched the world police in the face and the Taliban tried to protect their Al Qaeda buddies.

    Also remember the Taliban wasn’t recognized as the government by the UN. So in “UN law” terms, NATO was going into Afghanistan to support the UN recognized government (The Northern Alliance, previously called the Mujaheddin) against a terrorist group (al Qaeda) and their allies (Taliban). This was done with explicit endorsement by the UN security council.

    Maybe you should read up on international law, it’s a little more complex than you’re assuming it to be. There are actually justifications for military action, like when a terrorist group attacks another country. Afghanistan also may be more complicated than you think with all the various factions within the country.

    • JTskulk@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      The big thing I remember hearing at the time was that it was an illegal war because Congress didn’t declare war and only they can. I thought the Russians calling their invasion of Ukraine a special military operation was a slightly tongue in cheek jab at the US since that’s basically what we called the invasion of Afghanistan.