SW Question: What is the legal basis for the Clone Wars?

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**Manchu**

Read Tales of the Jedi.

**Frazzled**

What exactly was the purpose of the Jedi Knights again?
*They're not security guards (Revenge of the Sith)
*They're not soldiers -aka don't fight wars (Phantom Menace)
*Yet they act as the senior officer corp for an army (AOTC)
*Negotiators but apparently have no skills or training in negotiation (Phantom Menace) and view killing as negotiation (ROTS) - how very Somali of you!
*They seem to like to investigate stuff, sort of, but without any technology. (AOTC)

What exactly do they do again?

**Manchu**

They call themselves peace keepers in the prequel trilogy. Obi-Wan says the same in ANH.

**Flashman**

Frazzled wrote:
What exactly was the purpose of the Jedi Knights again?
*They're not security guards (Revenge of the Sith)
*They're not soldiers -aka don't fight wars (Phantom Menace)
*Yet they act as the senior officer corp for an army (AOTC)
*Negotiators but apparently have no skills or training in negotiation (Phantom Menace) and view killing as negotiation (ROTS) - how very Somali of you!
*They seem to like to investigate stuff, sort of, but without any technology. (AOTC)

What exactly do they do again?

They're the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy. A bit like the UN...

...and evidently, just as effective.

**Frazzled**

Peacekeepers, remarkably like the nuke, not the vulcan negotiator types.

Stay peaceful or die! Its like if Frazzled ran the State Department....

**squidhills**

Manchu wrote:
I suppose we could also assume that Lucas made a conscious decision to leave the legality of the Clone Wars ambiguous so as to further highlight the corruption of the Jedi and the Senate. The Jedi Council is clearly a creature of the Senate via the office of the Supreme Chancellor. Despite whatever personal misgivings certain Jedi may harbor as individuals, the institution of the Jedi takes for granted the legitimacy of the Supreme Chancellor and the Senate. Something similar can be said for the Senate, which is itself more and more the creature of the Supreme Chancellor -- so much so that by ANH, the Emperor can summarily disband the Senate. I guess Lucas could be trying to depict a suspicion of institutions and how they infringe on the individual capacity to act. It's not just the Jedi who fail to question the legality of the Clone Wars; we never hear a peep from Bail Organa, Mon Mothma, or Padme Amidala. Even though they eventually lobby for Palpatine to give up his emergency powers, they do not seem to seriously question how he uses them. And of course the most important evidence for this theory is that the Jedi are absolutely blind to Palpatine's identity as a Sith Lord precisely because of his other identities as a Senator and then as the Supreme Chancellor.

I honestly think you are giving Lucas way too much credit. If this were true, I would expect the EU writers to have been told about it and developed it in their novels/shows/comics.