Shadow Warriors and the Law_part5

Legal Aspects of US Special Operations and the New Covert Warfare. Sponsored by the Medill National Security Journalism Initiative.
A briefing on President Barack Obama's efforts to ramp up a clandestine war, relying on Special Forces to track down Al Qaida leaders around the world, and administration officials are attempting to create a legal framework for the expansion of targeted warfare. Yet important questions remain unanswered: Are these operations effective against terrorists -- or are they creating further unrest and aiding terrorist groups? Are special operators, wearing civilian clothing, protected by Geneva Conventions -- or considered to be spies? To what extent are clandestine operations in sovereign nations legal -- or acceptable by U.S. standards? These and other urgent issues will be discussed.

Speakers: Gary Solis, Georgetown University law professor and author of The Law of Armed Conflict: International Humanitarian Law in War; Benjamin Wittes, senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, and author of "Law and the Long War: The Future of Justice in the Age of Terror." Former Washington Post editorial writer; Tara McKelvey, Carnegie Corporation Fellow of the Medill National Security Journalism Initiative and author of Monstering: Inside America's Policy of Secret Interrogations

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• special operations
• law
• warfare