I’m a leftist and former practicing attorney who has interest in geopolitics and public international law - I studied this world as my niche previously.
They’re not correct. Constitutionally, the Executive has very broad powers in international affairs. The War Powers Resolution (WPR) was an attempt to constrain this. Administrations have largely been careful to state their actions are “consistent with” the WPR. Courts have not properly come to any real decision of its bounds, keeping this lane very gray and deferring to inherent Executive authority regarding foreign affairs. Obama was the only one who partially paid it some heed when he asked for Congressional authorization to militarily intervene in Syria as al-Assad began use of chemical weapons on his citizens in the midst of the Syrian Civil War (who remembers the red line to not be crossed…that got crossed?). The legal framework authorizing the use of force has basically been the AUMF, plus other broader, vaguer legal concepts that have held up under judicial review.
Anyway, big fan of the Justice Democrats and always concerned with U.S. use of force abroad, especially after it became apparent how fascist despots like Trump can come to power and do great harm to international peace and security. But on this topic - Biden’s within legal bounds, by all accounts.
Yes. As far as I’m concerned, with notable exceptions of stuff like Andor (this is AMAZING), the real Star Wars story is the pre-Disney EU, which was, contrary to popular refrain, fairly consistent once they got the “keeper of the Holocron” to make sure the stories were relatively cohesive and didn’t contradict one-another.
A bunch of the authors even worked to retcon-remove the Dark Empire storyline with the reborn Emperor in their various series by referring to that as “mere rumors” and whatnot.
That’s not to say the entire EU was marvelous. But I read the vast majority of it - overall it entirely eclipses what Disney has been doing in terms of quality and depth. Not to mention…Disney, with their tabula rasa, still have stories contradicting one another and introducing inconsistencies…
For me, Disney’s Episodes 7-9 never happened. I consume and recognize anything that doesn’t materially contradict the prior EU - I’m O.K. with smoothing over, explaining away, and massaging stuff to make it work. But “Kylo Ren” is a dollar store knock-off of Darth Caedus.