American Foreign Policy The Civil War And The Conflict...

American foreign policy has forever been a controversial topic in international discussions. Questions regarding America’s military presence, intent and use of force have long been centers of controversy and debate. Recent American involvements in the Syrian Civil War and the conflict with ISIS have raised questions about the ethics of US involvement and her justifications for force. As ISIS began to grow stronger and the list of crimes it committed began to augment, America began to use force to combat ISIS’s growth citing legal American precedents and humanitarian urgency as the major justifications for involvement. However, critics of American involvement contend that America’s involvement violates both American and international law,†¦show more content†¦One of the more notable of these crimes was the treatment of the ethnic Yazidis. The Yazidis are an ethnic minority living in Iraq that are one of the few groups that are not Muslim, and therefore we re deemed to be infidels by ISIS dogma. In 2014, thousands of Yazidis were trapped on Mount Sinjar and were on the verge of being victims of an imminent genocide at the hands of ISIS. So President Obama carried out airstrikes against ISIS forces stating, â€Å"we have a mandate to help ... and when we have the unique capabilities to avert a massacre, then I believe the United States of America cannot turn a blind eye† (LaFranchi 2014). Aside from the humanitarian side to strike ISIS, the United States carried out airstrikes to â€Å"protect American personnel† in the region (Salman and Spetalnick, 2014). On August 8, 2014 President Obama authorized airstrikes on advancing ISIS forces to protect the â€Å"US consulate and military advising teams† stationed in Erbil (LaFranchi 2014). Notwithstanding, the Obama Administration’s most pressing reason for using military measures against ISIS is the â€Å"imminent threats to national security† that ISIS p osed to the United States (Mulrine 2014). To justify the immediate threat to national security, President Obama evoked two legal precedents as grounds for military involvement; the Authorization for Use of Military Force Act (AUMF) of 2001 and the War Powers Act. The AUMF was passed by the Bush Administration in the wake of