You ** can’t ** be serious
I am very serious. This for for the courteous and rational Lemur, too, who invites me to “put up or shut up”, and speculates with a total lack of basis that I am misinformed by anti-American news services.
From the New Statesman:
“We believe they deserve”? What happened to the rule of law? Has judgment already been passed?
From ABC’s website:
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/military_tribunals011115.html
Cheney on this occasion, according to the [pro-Western, English language] South China Morning Post, 21 November 2001, was speaking to the American Chamber of Commerce.
Cheney (also in that speech): German saboteurs under WW2 military tribunals were “executed in relatively rapid order”.
So, we have:
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a Vice President who believes that these people do not deserve a fair trial to determine their innocence;
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a Vice President who impliedly states that an expeditious execution is the logical conclusion of any proceedings before a military tribunal;
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an Attorney-General who thinks it is fit that the US Constitution can be pulled like a carpet whenever he and his fellow members of the Bush administration thinks fit.
The US carrier group with USS Carl Vinson (sp?) was in Hong Kong harbour until today. I saw some of the sailors on the train. They stood out like sore thumbs - moustaches, short hair cuts, big belt buckles. As I stepped off the train, I wished them luck. They kind of smiled nervously. (Maybe they didn’t understand my accent, in retrospect.)
I have admired the courage that Americans faced the 11 September attacks, and I have long admired the US for its dedication to freedoms and liberties. Seeing those guys on the train reminded me that the reason they are en route to the Persian Gulf is to preserve those freedoms and liberties. But why send them at all if the Vice-President of the United States is doing a far better job than any terrorist could ever do?
Please let me know where I said this. I’d be curious to read it. Must be hard to type with that flag tangled in your fingers, and blinkering your eyes.
The quotations you supply do not even remotely support the foregoing characterizations.
An official of a government that chooses to** bring** charges is not likely to harbor a great deal of uncertainty about the propriety of that decision. What do you expect an American official to say: "Yeah, we’ll charge Osama if we ever catch him, but for all I know, he might be completely innocent. We’re actually clueless about whether he’s involved at all or not, but we had to charge ** someone , and so we picked a name out of a fucking hat. Osama’s name came up. Go figure." ??? Nor should you be surprised to learn that persons who choose to bring ** capital charges in particular both (1) think those charges are appropriate and (2)are hopeful that such punishment will be carried out expeditiously. Again, you expected someone to say, “Even if he ends up being sentenced to death, we’d prefer to see an interminable delay between trial and execution.” ???
The extent to which war criminals are or are not entitled to precisely the same procedural protections as are afforded to civilian defendants under the US Constitution is a matter on which reasonable people might disagree. Legal scholars certainly do. One can also reasonably debate the wisdom of capital punishment in this, or any other, instance. You apparently have your opinions on these matters. It cannot fairly be said, however, that anyone who happens to disagree with you on that point has “cast himself in the same mould as Osama.” And anyone who persists in making such inane assertions will have a very difficult time being taken seriously around here.
Whew you walk away for a week end.
OK a few posts have completely missed the fact that the Prison riot, due to the questionable nature of the incident, is not the War Crimes I’m referring to.
It certainly demands investigation but if it was as early reports indicate a group of armed prisoners fighting the guards they would in fact be legitimate targets as combatants.
Now what I am referring to are the summary executions and torture of prisoners and supporters in the cities captured. Even in news footage we see random beatings of prisoners before they are carted off.
Personally I’m sick of the “Oh that is just war” argument.
Being a student of history (Modern Western history which includes a great deal of Warfare) I know the nature of war and I also know the strides that western democratic countries have tried to make to create rules and treaties on how a country should conduct itself during a War. Why have they bothered? Because the leaders and the people want to believe that even in war we still maintain the values which make our nations great.
Sure we didn’t do anything against the Soviet Union after World War II, but there was no way we could have. Remember the Cold War?
In this case the Northern Alliance is not untouchable.
We can reduce our air support and supplies or threaten taking unilateral action ourselves if they don’t straighten up.
All I want to know is why we are fighting against terrorists whose aim is to destroy our freedom etc etc by allowing others to act the same way as those we wish to destroy?
I think that’s a fair question, king and I’ve done what I can to answer it. Like you, I think the prison riot is turning into too murky (and tragic) a situation to lump into the war crimes category. Reading London’s link was like reading The Heart of Darkness.
I don’t want to derail the discussion of the specific things you’ve raised any further. But I thought I’d post some links to recent tragedies: which isn’t to say that these necessary constitute war crimes.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia_china/story.jsp?story=108045
This one will only be available for a few more days before its archived for fee-viewing.
I have no idea of the military options available at that precise time and nor have you. In fact, it doesn’t matter whether there were options to mine the road, take out the first in the convoy (to discourage) or otherwise utilise the advantage of night vision because the simple goal, one assumes, was to send a stark message to the Taliban in Kandahar:
“You ain’t going nowhere under any circumstances (to fight another day) and you will make a last stand”
One assumes the message was clearly understood. That is the only perspective that matters with regard to the point I made (I.e. that a second purpose of the deployment of Marines was to close the back door escape route thus preventing the foreign Taliban from surviving in order to regroup in other countries). Anything else you want to try and construct from my statement is, IMHO, not helpful.
BTW, the BBC have now chimed in with their take on the events at the Fort:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1681000/1681513.stm
<quote>
Some of the 500 Taleban prisoners - all thought to be foreign fighters, including Chechens, Arabs and Pakistanis - had apparently managed to conceal weapons in their clothing.
Reports from Mazar-e-Sharif suggest that it was the presence of American agents in the fort that set in motion the bloody chain of events.
</quote>
I don’t believe that reports details allegations that it was the CIA/ Special Forces who suggested pouring oil into the basements in order to finish off the survivors – I stress ‘allegations’ ; as in ‘worthy of further investigation’.
Heart of Darkness, indeed.
War sucks, but unless you’re taking a stand of near-absolute pacifism, L_C, I would remind you that a rather major goal of war is to kill the combatants on the other side. If that means pouring gasoline into the hole where the bad guys who refused to surrender are hiding and and setting their hole on fire, that’s what happens–and doing so is emphatically not a war crime. Nor is killing every last one of a column of combatants advancing on your position.
I don’t follow here. You claim to have no specific knowledge of the situation, yet you know exactly what the message was that the Marines intended to send by attacking the convoy? In my opinion, that is just as much speculation as is talking about the military options.
How can you say the message wasn’t “You ain’t going nowhere under any circumstances, so you better give up now while you still can?”
Fighting against suicidal last stands is typically unpleasant. It’s generally a bad idea to influence your opponent to such a course of action.
Well, thank you for the warning that I won’t be taken seriously around here, and for your interpretation that anyone who disagrees with me is in the same mould as bin Laden (you should have a safety net beneath you when you make such leaps of logic). But allow me to ignore those insights and continue anyway.
The quotations need to be looked at in the light of the balance of the extraordinary steps taken by the US government. I had hope to avoid giving a lecture on this, but it seems I need to justify myself.
The United States is a democracy, and principles of good government and rule of law. It is also a hegemon. If you don’t accept that, here is the definition from the OED:
That’s not an insult to US world leadership (its not to be confused with “imperialism”), its just the way it is, and from the repeated use of the term in Foreign Relations (the journal) I think its pretty much an accepted conclusion.
Hegemons have set the rules, and require the members of the hegemony to comply with them. It also means that in order to perpetuate the validity of the hegemony the hegemon must play by the rules (A cite for this is Chris Brown’s book, Understanding International Relations - no page number, as I don’t have it at hand). So, in a global anarchy (without a global government), a hegemon’s rules are the closest guidance one gets to law.
The rules in some cases are obvious - the strictures of the WTO enforced by the US Trade Representative using Super 301 - but generally embody the principles of Western democracy - the rights of the individual, the rule of law, democracy and the separation of powers, private property, etc. (cite: Huntington’s book, The Clash of Civilisations and the Re-making of the World Order, book not at hand so no page number. I know Collounsbury and others have trashed the thesis of this book in the recent past, but I don’t think anyone can successfully attack this particular premise).
With the attack on 11 September, some individuals, with the tacit consent of the government of Afghanistan, trampled all over the hegemon’s rules, and challenged the hegemon’s authority.
The US has two ways of reacting to that: continuing to play by the rules, or ignoring them as well. We have the establishment of the military tribunal by executive order to be applied at the discretion of the President. In doing this, the US government has bypassed the established judiciary (separation of powers), bypassed the legislature (democracy), bypassed several well-established legal notions which are necessary to fairness in trial (rule of law).
My comment about the willingness to get “down and dirty in the same mould as bin Laden” arises from two main issues:
- In relation to al-Qaeda and the Taleban, the US has reacted to their failure to play by the rules by no longer playing by the rules themselves. The US government has taken the attitude that the mass destruction and death apparently caused by al-Qaeda needs to be met with equal ruthlessness and a lack of fairness. If the al-Qaeda will not play by the rules, then neither will the US.
(This will have long term repercussions on the US’s relationships with other countries who it insists or in the future will insist that they play by the rules. Malaysia, Singapore and other countries already argue that the rules are Western-centric and have no place in their cultures. The future argument will be “If the US doesn’t play by the rules, then neither shall we”.)
- the clearly inappropriate comments of Cheney and Ashcroft. I entirely disagree with your assertion that the quotations do not support the statements I made. Look at it from this way: you have the executive arm of a government set up a military tribunal and then make public statements as to the anticipated outcome of any trial before the tribunal. It appears to be a foregone conclusion to Cheney and Ashcroft. That is just plain wrong. The rules have gone out the window.
Why is this happening? In not playing by the rules, the US is sending a message to its enemies: “If you don’t play fair and play by the rules, we won’t either. Bomb our citizens, and we will drop to your level: we will hunt you down and you will not be entitled to the protection of the rules you have spurned. The men who have set up the court for you have, in public statements to their people and the world, pre-determined your fate.” While this is a clear message, it doesn’t make it right.
Without the rules, what is the US now? Not “imperial” - I checked yesterday when I was thinking about this issue: there is no definition which would support such a contention. Still a hegemon, perhaps, but now changing the rules for its own ends.
There is someone I can think of who has little respect for the sanctity of life, the rule of law, democracy, freedoms and liberties, and right now he’s in a cave in Afghanistan. The other man who fits that bill right now is Cheney. Before anyone else chooses to leap on me for that, I add that the degree of similarity is not anywhere near the same: I would not suggest for a moment that Cheney (nor Ashcroft) would advocate flying planes into buildings to kill thousands of civilians without warning (although, thinking about it, I’m sure that in certain circumstances they’d have no compunction about using nuclear weapons on civilian targets). But all three men appear to have no hesitation to do what needs to be done to achieve their ends, and the rules be damned. Osama bin Laden’s objective was to strike terror into the heartland of America: Cheney’s objective is to have terrorists tried without the (important and precious) safeguards afforded to the accused in ordinary criminal trials. They are each hard men, who pay little attention to the niceties of the law which protects individual freedoms (part of the rules), which would get in the way of achieving their individual objectives.
To be as clear as possible on my point, the gulf between the conduct of the two is immense, but the ideology is the same: achieve your objective, and avoid or ignore the rights of those who face the consequences of your conduct.
I am a little saddened by the entire issue. It was perhaps naive to think that the US would continue to play by the rules, and to afford to any captured Taleban the same rights and protections afforded to its own citizens. The US cannot maintain (if indeed it ever did) that it is a bastion of universal rights and freedoms.
I take nothing away from the commendable restraint that the US military has shown in endeavouring to avoid civilian casualties in Afghanistan. Part of this is trying to show the world and its own people that the US is the good guy - that it plays by the rules - but the motivation doesn’t matter as long as civilian lives are spared.
The major goals of war are to win the war and the peace. IMHO, the foreign Taliban are not viewed as being contusive to establishing the latter and so won’t survive Kandahar (if it can be at all helped) regardless of their degree of commitment, or otherwise, to a futile cause.
Lets see how many survive.
Not if you attack from 30,000ft.with Special Forces pinpointing targets - all day and night at the moment, if reports are to be believed - and you employ the services of friendly locals to mop up.
The constitution guarantees civil rights to persons, not just to citizens, but to all persons that the government deals with. The right to a fair and speedy trial, and the right to assistance of counsel is guaranteed to all. NOTHING, not war, nothing can set that rights aside.
I think it is the duty of every American to protest these proposed kangaroo courts. It may be expensive, difficult, and even dangerous to provide trial in open court, but to do otherwise is far too costly. Too many have fought to secure those rights for me, for all those that fall under America’s jurisdiction for whatever reason for us to let them be casually dropped when inconvenient.
What is Bush afraid of that he wants these trial to be secret? And why is he saying that not even the Uniform Code of Military Justice will be followed? How did he get the insane idea to try these people in a military court but not use any established code? He is making this up as he goes!
I won’t shed a tear for those convicted in open courts, even those sentenced to die, but the thought of killing people convicted using drumhead justice makes me weep.
Do you have a cite for the avoidance of the Uniform Code of Military Justice? Hadn’t heard that one before.
From the New York Times December 2, 2001
Thanks for that. More cause to be deeply disturbed by this tribunal.
I see this thread has taken a turn towards the topic of military tribunals. There is another thread about this where I have posted at length expolaining why I think the executive order is so wrong so I will not repeat myself here but lee I am 100% with you.
No the major goal of War (according to Clauswitz) is the political goal which instigated the war in the first place. That being said you have to understand what the political aim of this War is.
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To Destroy the al-Qaeda terrorist Organisation and capture or destroy its leadership to prevent them from attacking the United States
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To Remove the Taliban from power in retaliation for their support of the al-Qaeda. And prevent Afghanistan from being used as a staging ground for this organisation.
No where in these goals is there anything that would support murdering prisoners.
Also the goal is not to merely kill all of the enemy, but to render them ineffective as a fighting unit. This can be accomplished either by driving them from the field or breaking their will to fight.
Yes sometimes that involves killing them in great numbers but that is not the case of this war.
The Armies were bombarded and their command infrastructures were so damaged that many of them have merely given up the fight and either retreated or surrendered.
There is once again… no need to kill POWs.
But, in order to do that, we must replace the Taliban with an indigenous government that supports us and will not work with terrorist groups. The only option right now, therefore, is to work with the NA.
The NA murders prisoners.
Therefore, what do you suggest? That we remove all support from the NA? In that case, we either welcome the Taliban back into power (which voids 1 & 2) or we occupy the country ourselves for the next ten years until the Afghanis come up with their own working government that agrees to fulfill all basic human rights (see Never-neverland, mixed with Vietnam).
Once again, it is easy to deplore the shooting of prisoners. However, to state that there is anything that can be done about it, other than wringing hands and moaning pitifully, is folly. In order to break al Qaeda, we need to put a friendly government in power in Afghanistan. The NA is the closest thing we have to a friendly government.
True. But the discussion from which you took my quote was about a prisoner uprising. Once they again took up arms, they became legitimate targets, to be killed by any available means.
Or killing them. It is ridiculous to imply that a nation must or even should first attempt the less lethal methods of destroying the enemy’s ability to resist instead of killing them at every opportunity.
“Retreat”? As in “to fight another day”? Nope, unless they’ve actually surrendered, they’re fair targets.
Yep. But there weren’t any POWs in that prison basement.
Ok, I think I have it now. They’re in the same mold and on the same level, and their conduct is both equally ruthless and fits the same bill, but–lest be you be misunderstood–their conduct is actually not anywhere near the same in degree, for their conduct is so different as to be separated by an immense gulf.
Self-cancelling gibberish, all of it.
I think it was plain. Read it again and see if you understand it this time.