Bush’s Move Based on International Law : Policy: The U.S. aid for Aquino gets bipartisan support in Congress.

President Bush’s order directing U.S. warplanes to help suppress the insurgency in the Philippines was legal under a provision of international law permitting governments under attack to seek outside help, U.S. officials and non-government experts agreed Friday.

The President’s decision to authorize use of armed force in defense of Philippine President Corazon Aquino’s government drew immediate applause from Democrats in Congress, including some who have expressed doubts about involvement of U.S. military power in Third World conflicts.

Pentagon officials, departing from their usual reticence about military rules of engagement, said the F-4 jets were armed and authorized to secure airspace over Manila “with force if required.” These officials emphasized that Aquino was given all the help she requested, but nothing more.

“If President Aquino thought she had everything under control, she probably wouldn’t have asked for our help,” a senior defense official said.

“We were coming to the assistance of a democratically elected government that requested our assistance,” said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. “That is totally in conformity with international law.”

Barry Carter, a Georgetown University professor of international law, said it always is legitimate for a nation to respond to a plea for help from a recognized government.

“An invitation (from a government facing attack) is a genuine basis under the United Nations Charter and international law for the use of force,” Carter said.

That theory has been cited frequently in recent years. For instance, Washington invoked it in responding to an appeal from the governor-general of Grenada to restore order on that Caribbean island after a hard-line Communist coup in 1983, and France cited it in helping the government of Chad expel Libyan occupiers from the North African nation.

The Soviet Union also said it was acting in response to a government invitation when it invaded Afghanistan in 1979. But shortly after Moscow’s troops arrived, they deposed the government and installed a puppet leader.

The U.N. Security Council ultimately determined that the Soviet presence in Afghanistan was illegal. But Soviet forces remained there for a decade, clearly demonstrating that international law can be flouted with impunity, especially by a superpower.

International law--derived mostly from treaties, compacts and longtime precedent--generally has no means of enforcement. Nevertheless, nations usually try to at least appear to abide by its provisions because they are reluctant to be branded as outlaws.

At least at the outset, Bush’s use of air power in the Philippines seems to have generated less opposition than any military deployment in decades. Aquino, credited with ousting the authoritarian government of the late Philippine leader Ferdinand E. Marcos, is immensely popular in the United States. Moreover, the U.S. government, which maintains its largest overseas military bases in the Philippines, has a clear interest in preserving stability in Manila.

“It is hard to think of a case where the use of force from our point of view and that of the rest of the world would be less controversial,” said Richard K. Betts, a senior fellow of the Brookings Institution in Washington. “If you are ever going to do that anywhere, this looks like as good a case as you can find.”

The initial reaction from Capitol Hill seemed to prove Betts’ point. Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) called Bush’s action “prudent and appropriate.” Rep. Stephen J. Solarz (D-N.Y.) said the President “took the kind of measured action required.”

Bush’s prompt backing of the Philippine government was in sharp contrast to his failure to take decisive action when rebel officers recently tried to overthrow the dictatorship of Gen. Manuel A. Noriega in Panama. But Administration officials insisted that the two situations were far different.

“This is a legitimate and popular government (in the Philippines), as opposed to the situation we saw in Panama, where an unknown and suspect officer was trying to overthrow the government,” said an Administration analyst. “Here, we’re saving democracy. This is mom-and-apple-pie stuff.”

The Administration also was on much firmer international legal ground in the Philippines. Even though Noriega’s regime is widely regarded as illegitimate, it remains the only effective government of Panama. Therefore, there was no government that could request U.S. intervention.

Nevertheless, some specialists suggested that Bush might have moved more quickly this time because of criticism that his actions were halfhearted in Panama.

“You’ve got a good lesson learned and applied there,” said Dov Zakheim, a former Reagan Admistration official. “There needed to be clarity in a highly fluid situation where there were American interests and lives at stake.”

BACKGROUND

Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Base are America’s largest military facilities outside the continental United States and are vital for the protection of U.S. strategic interests in the Pacific and Indian oceans. Large stockpiles of fuel and ammunition are maintained at Clark, from which the United States can stage airlift operations--as it did in the early days of the Vietnam War--and train combat pilots based there. Subic Bay is the main rest and repair stop for the U.S. fleet operation from the mid-Pacific to the Persian Gulf. While they are an increasing sore spot to nationalist-minded Filipinos, the two bases, situated north of Manila, contribute substantially to the Philippine economy, providing employment for 68,000 Filipinos.