My letter to Senator Carl Levin, Senator Debbie Stabenow, and Representative Dan Benishek:

Surely you cannot be unaware that to bomb Syria would be to commit the crime known as aggressive war, defined at Nuremberg as “the supreme international crime”, regardless of Congressional “authorization”. Surely you must know that under international law, there are only two conditions in which the use of force is considered legitimate: if in self-defense against armed aggression or authorized by the U.N. Security Council. Syria has not attacked the United States of America. Nor has the U.N.S.C. authorized any use of force.

Your position on this issue thus makes you complicit in the crime of conspiracy to commit aggression, for which we also hanged Nazis at Nuremberg. And if the U.S. does wage a war of aggression against Syria – indeed, it arguably already has been for some time by training and arming the rebels, whose ranks include Islamist extremists and al-Qaeda affiliated groups – you will be complicit in “the supreme international crime”. The blood will be on your hands.

I urge you to reconsider your position on this issue and take a stand against lawlessness rather than participating in it.