Garrett Epps is alarmed that no one in Washington or the media seems to care about Trump’s blatantly illegal attack on Syria:

What terrifies me about Trump’s apparently impulsive decision to strike at Syria is that it appears to be illegal under U.S. and international law; that the president will not deign to explain why he thinks his actions were within the law; and that the same wise heads TV and newspaper heads—the green-room crowd of lawmakers, think-tankers, and newspaper columnists who tell us all what to think—display no interest in the issue. Leaders of Congress display no enthusiasm for discharging their constitutional responsibility to decide when the country may go to war.

Instead of challenging the legal basis of the strike, the institutions we regard as “checks” on the president have simply fawned and simpered.

It is alarming that there has been scant opposition to Trump’s illegal act. Apart from a few notable exceptions (e.g., Paul, Murphy, etc.), members of Congress haven’t said anything about it unless they are endorsing it. The illegality of the attack doesn’t occur to most pundits and analysts except as a minor difficulty to be dismissed, and even most Trump critics that would surely love to find proof that he broke the law seem unmoved when they are handed that proof on a silver platter. Trump had no authority to do what he did earlier this month when he ordered that attack, and far from challenging that action the collective response from most of Congress and the media has been to cheer him on.

Part of this stems from the excessive deference both Congress and many in the media give to the president in these matters. The political class’ default support for U.S. military action–whatever it is and wherever it happens–makes that problem even worse. Another part of it comes from permitting unauthorized wars to continue for months and sometimes years without question. If Congress and the media can’t bother to question the legality of the Libyan war or the war on ISIS, they certainly aren’t going to make a fuss about a few dozen missiles launched into Syria. Even so, Trump’s attack was notable for clearly having no justification in domestic or international law. That should have made it extremely easy for his critics to call him out on it, and yet for the most part they simply don’t care.