Every time something like this comes up....a few folks proclaim the war "illegal".
Is there anything from a credible source or legal authority anywhere, that has condemned the war as being "illegal" and based their opinion upon specific citations of law?
I am not talking about Barrack's Lawyers here but actual, real, binding venues of legal standing?
Unless someone can provide that.....to me, the answer is simply the war is legal.
We may not like it...we may not agree with it...but shy of some proper authority with the legal standing to declare the war illegal, anything else is mere personal opinion of which each of us is welcome to have and express but has sod all to do with the reality of the war in question.
When nations decide to go to war....does it really matter in the end if it is legal or not. Until the majority of the opposing military forces elect to sit it out on the sidelines....the war is going to be fought.
Think back to the reasons for wars in the past.....an assasination, a trumped up attack upon a German Radio station, the claim to territory clear to the opposite end of the world by a former colonial power, the building of an air strip, the mugging and physical assault upon a Naval Officer and his wife....UN Resolutions....what does it really matter?
If you serve in the military and are given orders to go to war....you throw your Bergen on your back...pick up the rifle and go fight the chosen enemy.
The only thing that makes a war legal or illegal is the decision by the winner who gets to write the After Action Report for the affair.