CONVICTED PAEDOPHILE PLUNGES TO DEATH IN FAULTY GUARDRAIL SCANDAL
Quite a few people have mailed me over the last couple of days, asking for my feelings about the death of Osama bin Laden. Read the headline above and you’ll have a rough idea. On the one hand, yeah, it’s a disgrace that the municipal authority has allowed a vital safety feature to get into such a lethally dangerous state. On the other hand – well, couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
But someone sure as shit needs to fix that guardrail.
Instead of which, from the prevailing media current in the US it seems that opinion runs more along the lines of “Hey, that’s cool, a broken guardrail – just what we need! With a bit of luck, a whole bunch of other violent offenders are going to fall through that gap and smash on the rocks below!” The thought that any decent god-fearing folk like you and me might get hurt seems not to have registered. The idea that broken guardrails are a bad idea in general seems not to have penetrated the public consciousness very much.
Then again, is anybody very surprised? The problem is that political debate – particularly in the US, but increasingly in the UK as well – has reached such levels of dumbed-down emotive populism that we no longer seem able to disentangle two very VERY basic philosophical concepts from each other – the concept of Who and the concept of What. And if I were asked to name a single characteristic that differentiates the Civilised from the Barbaric, then it’s exactly that – the basic ability to think in terms of objective facts rather than subjective emotional ties. To ask the question what happened? rather than who was involved?
Barbarism is punishing a crime if it’s committed by someone you don’t like, but cheerfully approving of it if the perpetrator is your pal. Barbarism is law enforcement for other people, and laissez faire for ourselves. Barbarism is human rights for us over here, rendition, torture and summary execution for you guys over there.
Civilisation, by contrast, is accepting that the law needs to apply without prejudice to everyone. And it’s a tough gig. Because it goes against all our ingrained tribalistic sensibilities, our self-serving, self-deceiving self righteousness and our bloodthirsty appetite for scapegoats and vengeance. And nor, by the way, is this in any way a simple dichotomy of left and right wing. We’re all susceptible to this failing, you just have to re-tune slightly to get each person’s particular tribalism focused. Recall, if you will, the various leftist pundits gleefully declaring after 9/11 that, well, dreadful business, to be sure, but hey, those Americans really had it coming, didn’t they. Go back further still and recall the insane twistings of logic so beloved of all those hardline socialists justifying tanks on the streets of Budapest and Prague while simultaneously decrying imperialist intervention in South America and Vietnam. Moronic tribal myopia is by no means the exclusive preserve of the Republican right.
So do I care that Osama bin Laden was shot dead, despite being unarmed and offering precious little in the way of resistance? No. He was an evil old fuck, he had it coming. I have better things to do with my compassion than waste it on guys like that. (Things, for example, like be impressed by and thankful for the SEAL training that enabled a mission in which random women and children – for once – didn’t bear the brunt of the massive collateral damage that usually accompanies western military intervention. Is this a better model than drones and aerial bombardment? You bet it is.)
However – do I care that the US (and probably the UK, in its slavish puppy-like Me-tooism) seems to feel it has the sovereign right to send out death squads and murder with impunity wherever its geo-political interests are threatened. Hell, yes, I care. That is no way to run a civilisation. Because next time, it might not be guys as accomplished as SEAL team 6. Or next time, the intelligence might be of the standard we more normally associate with the C.I.A. (i.e for shit, or a loosely bundled pack of hegemony-serving lies). Next time, we might be back to drones because it’s just so much easier to pull off.
Next time, someone who doesn’t deserve to die might get hurt. Because generally that’s the way it goes. Iraq, anybody?
So by all means let’s celebrate the immaculately-effected death of an evil old fuck who really had it coming. You’ll get no argument from me on that.
But meantime, let’s also for fuck’s sake get that guardrail looked at. Before something happens that wipes the smile off everybody’s face; something that leaves us casting about in our barbarian hypocrisy for some grubby Fox News tribal justification or other to cover up whatever new atrocity it is we’ve just permitted in our name.
In other words, let’s try to do civilisation like we mean it.
This guy should write books – he’s really good! What? – he does?? Excellent!!
Seriously tho, nicely put Mr Morgan, nicely put.
A friend and I were discussing this very thing. Our heart is telling us to celebrate, and our head is telling us to celebrate goes against what we state we believe in. What my friend and I are wondering is: who does the military (CIA?) go after once all the obvious bad guys are gone? Go after the perceived bad guys, then the ones who just disagree with us?
CONVICTED PAEDOPHILE PLUNGES TO DEATH IN FAULTY GUARDRAIL SCANDAL
Some Americans might say God put the faulty guardrail there to punish the wicked.
Anyway, thanks once again for your input (especially about the drones. I’m very uncomfortable with the military’s comments about how it’s saving American lives, but never a mention about how they indiscriminately kill innocent people) – you always make us think a little more.
There is a lot of well balanced thinking in this article. Good read, I only hope some of the more blockheaded politicans would start using their brains again. Reading this article would be a good start.
Mr. Morgan,
“However – do I care that the US (and probably the UK, in its slavish puppy-like Me-tooism) seems to feel it has the sovereign right to send out death squads and murder with impunity wherever its geo-political interests are threatened. Hell, yes, I care. That is no way to run a civilisation.”
What do you think about Pakistan’s relationship with the West vs. terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda? It’s my understanding that our (the U.S.’s) relationship with the Pakistani government is rough and complicated because we cannot be guaranteed that they have been completely forthcoming with their information and willingness to help us. Indeed, many folks had serious concerns about telling the Pakistani government our plans to infiltrate bin Laden’s hideout because we could not be assured the camp would not be tipped off. (I mean, he was living right in their back yard, wasn’t he? With a whole entourage? How can that be explained?)
I bring this up because the only counter to this argument that I have heard has been that the Pakistani government is a little shaky, and one hand might not necessarily know what the other is up to, so it would be folly to sever ties with whatever help we can actually get from them. This seems plausible to me but honestly I don’t know enough facts of the situation to draw any conclusions.
To me, the legitimacy of this mission depends entirely upon the U.S. government’s ability to trust Pakistan. Apparently they were not willing to do so, which is the measure by which I think our government chose its actions.
Agreed.
Now, let’s have a look at these $60 million next-gen helicopters that we aren’t supposed to know exist…
I’ve definitely been curious on what your thoughts on the whole Bin Laden shooting was, not disappointed in your summation.
Between the people rioting in the streets in joy, the various entities trying to politicize the thing, and that very lovely subset of people trying to act like Bin Laden wasn’t a mass murdering fuck whose death can only be seen as one of the few net positive gains we’ve had in the so called “War on Terror”, I’ve found very few people with whom I can whole heartedly agree.
Well put indeed. I wonder though, is civilisation something you canur?
And while I’m not crying over the death of that “evil old fuck” I can’t help wondering if taking him in front of real court might not have been a more civilised way of dealing with him.
But…. couldn’t you argue that civilisation did play its part? That a decision was made at the highest of levels to actually leave that guard rail a bit loose on purpose? There was informed consent about the whole situation?
My understanding was that issues were weighed and choices made, decisions taken at top levels. Was that not civilisation in action?
Clearly we knew here in the UK at our highest and military levels too, no coincidence surely that the happy couple cancelled their honeymoon and instead had a weekend on a military base?
I would argue it was a civilised choice against the consequences of alternative approaches, such as capturing him and setting him in front of 12 good men?
Or maybe…. I just prefer to know the evil bastard is well and truly dead. How terrifying it would be to know he was held awaiting trial. Doesn’t bear thinking about. The results of that action would truly not be civilised.
@ Raphael
The usual explanation I’ve been hearing is that capturing him alive would have triggered a host of terrorist reprisals, capturing civilians and holding them in exchange for ransom. Though this explanation strikes me as much more likely to be an excuse masquerading as world weary realism.
I guess the big question when it comes to Bin Laden is what jury would you bring him before? Are you likely to find a jury which hasn’t already formed a strong opinion on the subject of his guilt? Would his trial have actually been a legitimate trial or more or less a mockery of the system? And would such a trial be legitimately more civilized, or merely playing at it? Then again we did give the Nazi’s trials so…
Thanks for this.
I’ve been trying to gather my thoughts about what happened here. My main problem is that, as you express here, that, well, it’s complicated!
Richard
I’m no expert on international law, any kind of law really, but aren’t there UN courts for all kinds of crimes? I would suggest such a court, since the crimes he committed or ordered were acts against many different nations.
Arguing that his capture would bring about more crimes is a problem, since the argument doesn’t even work in the same legal category. You can’t just kill people because an orderly trial might bring about problems, no matter the severity of these problems. If you use that excuse once, you can just give up the whole concept of courts and trials. Also, you have to think about who decides which cases are problematic enough to just outright kill and which might be given to a judge to decide.
Putting him in front of a court and holding an official trial in the open and visible for everyone would have been the better, not the easier way.
@Raphael
Very good point, the US was hardly the only country he victimized (A fact that often seems overlooked regardless of political and geographical divide).
Though I think your 2nd point is a bit of a slippery slope argument. Does the avoidance of courts in cases of likely mass murder as reprisal invalidate trials in all cases?
Once again, I think the whole argument that reprisals would be a definite outcome of his capture is rather specious.
And the choice to just kill him, it was certainly the easier choice, and most certainly not one that can be stated as the clearly more moral choice. However we must also think about other factors that may have been involved in the decision.
For one thing, none of us were actually in the room or witnessed the shooting, in the end the moral justifications for or against it are all matters of conjecture.
My basic memory of the current official version of events is that Bin Laden was stated to have resisted capture, though he was unarmed. This could be double speak for “We shot him in the head while he cowered in a corner” or “He charged toward us when we entered the room, we fired due to the risk he may be armed.” One is a clear case of a soldier trying to act with the best interest of the safety of himself and his squad while in a live combat situation, the other is a cut and dry murder.
Yes, I’m oversimplifying it quite a bit, but for me it’s a matter of principle. If a nation, represented by its leaders, does not respect the law in such a blatant manner, then the whole system is undermined.
If the threat of violence, no matter how vague orconcrete, is enough to sanction execution without trial, then where do you draw the line?
It also is a cowardly way of bowing to the terrorist’s logic. A strong nation should not give in to such threats and give up its legal and moral principles.
I aggree however, that I have the privileges of hindsight and not having all the facts. I am also not a citicen of any nation that has suffered much under Bin Laden’s crimes (not directly in any case), so I have no emotional stakes in this.
Well, given the folk who were rioting in the streets singing “We are the Champions” I’d say a lack of emotional stakes is probably a positive.
I think the main issue is whether or not one chooses to buy the official story: That the Seal Team was under orders to capture him alive if he surrendered, not just shoot him out right.
This of course doesn’t even begin to cover the USA’s various other “surgical strikes” that received the tomahawk missile treatment, but that is an even more depressing conversation.
Honestly, I cannot imagine a scenario where bin Laden would NOT be armed. It only seems logical they would assume he was armed, or at the very least there would be weaponry in the room.
Re: all the cheering outside of the White House after the announcement: these were mostly college kids from Wash. Univ. and I assume they’d use any excuse to party. At the baseball game, they’re yelling and cheering anyway. At Times Square, mob rule, though not an unruly mob. Still yet, it reminded me of the Middle East footage years ago of the mobs shouting and burning the U.S. flag.
But it’s so much more dramatic if a team of seals bust into a house rather then death from above by the drones ( RC toys for adults).
Love the “god-fearing American” aspect of everyone talking in here lol. Looks like I’m the only atheist yank again, and again.
He should have been taken alive and paraded in every city of the world so we could all take turns pissing on him. Civilisation be damned!
One thing in pakistan’s defence, to be fair, is the fact that they have helped in the capture or captured at least 5 of the 10 high ranking al quaeda terrorists that have been caught so far.
not saying they are perfect, by any means. But coming out of this operation, they do seem to have been pissed on alot by american officals.
I’m puzzled by the idea of a trial had bin Laden survived and been captured alive. Didn’t he in fact already claim responsibility for the terrorist attacks on 9/11/01? So what’s the trial for other than to sentence him to death, which seems absurd all around. Then there are all the logistical issues: where to hold it, how to get an impartial jury, blah, blah, blah… essentially an impossible task. It would remain in limbo forever. He’d probably either be murdered in prison or live there until he died of natural causes.
I am an American. I lived in New York on 9/11/01 and witnessed the plane strikes of the WTC and the buildings collapse out my office window in Brooklyn. It was a shocking and dreadful day that I won’t soon forget. That said, it is a little discouraging to see other Americans shouting in the streets for joy at the death of one, though obviously highly visible, terrorist leader when it is as easy pie to replace him.
Really we should look at our imperialistic attitude to the globe. Perhaps if we reign that in, some of these messy problems like all the wars, violence etc. might settle down. Instead we keep doing the same dumb things over and over again and the same crap happens over and over in response, yet we remain amazed that the rest of the world doesn’t adore us every time. That is my definition of insanity.
Having confessed to a crime doesn’t preclude a trial in any way. It is a matter of principle and sentencing him to death, a sentence he would most likely not have received from an international court, in an official trial is something entirely different from sending a murder squad after him. The one thing is the reaction of a civilised nation that has laws and respects them, the other is stooping down to the level of organized crime and terror organisations. Once you descend to their level, the terrorists have already succeeded in bringing down the civilised order and culture of the western world.
There’s a difference between just and lawful and under the law not everyone gets what he deserves. But this doesn’t mean that we should abandon law when we feel like it to satisfy our deeper needs and feelings for revenge.
The voice of reason.
Well said, Richard. Have been having desperate arguments on exactly these points with both Americans and Brits on fb. It’s amazing how many people just don’t get it.
Yep, these damn Americans did it again — after 10 years, we tracked the man responsible for extremely heinous acts and killed him. How barbaric of the US.
I personally don’t believe it uncivilized to have sent a team into Pakistan in order to kill Bin Laden — and to the points made above, a civilized society will then review those actions, question and debate them, and then integrate that analysis into future decision-making. Thus, I am thankful that we live in a society that can argue these points and discuss them openly.
What I would say is that just because we killed Bin Laden in this manner does not then infer that America no longer respects any sovereign rights nor the right to a trial. The issues are not that black and white and neither is the world.
Final point – some are quick to dismiss the idea that capturing Bin Laden alive would have presented more risk to society — if Bin Laden were being held in a prison or were placed on trial in NYC, does anyone truly believe that would not then become the prime target of Al-Qaeda? If we had him as prisoner, how many people do you think would be taken hostage with the demand to release Bin-Laden in exchange — that’s a real possibility. Bin Laden is dead and he deserved it (And the US was never unclear regarding their intentions.)
I agree – it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. And that at least innocent people weren’t killed in this latest SEALs’ operation. Very well put. The guardrail analogy is perfect.
I’m scared shitless that America thinks the right thing to do is to abandon the rule of law when it suits. Crazy. The only way I can feel better is by telling myself it’s because, in political terms, they’re a relatively new country. They need to catch up, though. And quickly. The sooner Obama puts ‘Animal Farm for Dummies’ back on the shelf and re-reads The Bill of Rights the better.
Not putting Bin Laden in front of a court to avoid the possibility of further terrorist acts is giving in to blackmail and hypothetical blackmail at that. A nation that sees itself as strong should not do this.
Defending moral principles when it suits you and is easy is not in fact following any moral principles, it is the opposite.
All these points stand, no matter which nation is responsible, it has nothing to do with any special treatment of the USA.
An_Irish_Brit says: “I’m scared shitless that America thinks the right thing to do is to abandon the rule of law when it suits.”
So what is the relevant law that governs international terrorism? What court (if any) has Jurisdiction? When does a country have a legal right to act against terrorists?
Where is the line between war and crime? Where does terrorism go on that spectrum or is it it’s own thing?
What’s the impact of the fact that AQ/Taliban actively consider themselves at war with the US, despite not being a recognized sovereign nation?
You want to talk rule of law? Okay, let’s hear the law then.
@ Travis and James Kennedy
I think the key issue here is the whopping great grey area – I don’t think anyone’s very surprised that there was a kill order out on Bin Laden , and to be honest it’s hard not to sympathise with said order. But this is not what the American authorities are claiming. To that extent, James, the US was, and remains, unclear on the subject. Most Wanted – yes. Designated for Cold Blooded Assassination – hell, no, because we’re civilised, we don’t do that shit (nudge, wink, grin). Even now, the line for public consumption goes; we would have taken him alive if he hadn’t resisted. To which my response is pretty much Yeah, right. And if you buy that, I’ve got a bridge across the Thames you might want as well. Interesting, isn’t it, how Saddam Hussein, far more of monster and with far more blood on his hands, but with no specific crimes against the US on his docket , was successfully taken alive by US forces.
Truth is, no-one really believes the official line, and no-one really cares. We’re not expected to believe it. We’re all glad the fucker’s dead, and we’ve been handed a fig leaf of civilised justification (“no, no, he’d be facing legal justice if he hadn’t resisted arrest”) with which to cover up our more naked visceral satisfaction.
If Bin Laden were the only feasible victim of that dynamic, I wouldn’t care – but the same let’s-all-pretend dynamic has been used to justify extensive human rights abuse at Guantanamo, Bagram and elsewhere – and a lot of those people were innocent of anything except muddled thinking or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Let’s-all-pretend has been used over the past decade to permit rendition, torture and the widespread flaunting of established civilised legal norms (the Geneva Convention being one such, the American Constitution another). And that’s without even getting into America’s extra-legal adventures in South and Central America over the past century, its bombing of Laos and black ops in Vietnam, its toppling (with British collusion) of elected governments from Australia to Iran.
I think we’re all a bit sick of Let’s All Pretend.
If the United States wants to sponsor international legislation to permit the designation of certain terrorists as assassination targets, well, fair enough, let’s get to it. There’s some precedent in the antique legal sanction of Outlawry, maybe it could be addressed along those lines. But this needs to be overt – firstly because it is then restricted to very specific, named targets and doesn’t run the risk of the sprawling illegality which the US military and intelligence community is so fond of, and secondly, even more importantly, because we would then have to admit to ourselves who we are and what we’re really about – instead of feeding the world the usual facile bullshit about freedom, democracy and the rule of law.
Oh, yes, we are so totally sick of Let’s All Pretend. One reason I appreciate Wikileaks. Overt, sanctioned Assassination – you’re right about that too, good idea, except we might have to openly admit what we really are, and at least Americans are always told we do what we do because we’re the good guys.
In C J Cherryh’s latest series (Foreigner) the alien civilization does have legalized assassination, but you have to have permission from the government and warn the person they’ve been targeted.
Well. First my comments are that if someone is going to claim that the US ‘disregarded the rule of law’ they should have some idea what the law and then we can discuss the law. Otherwise he/she is just talking out of the anus area.
The next part is that there is a dramatic differance between what is legal from a law enforcement perspective and what is legal from a warafare perspective.
Even the most stringent readings of LOAC (Law Of Armed Conflict) don’t require you to announce yourself and give an opportunity to surrender. (It does say you aren’t suppossed to kill people who DO surrender but nothing about being proactive in trying to get them to do so).
There are very real reasons, legal, practical and moral, to consider AQ members as a combatants, not as criminals (note that they are ‘illegal combatants’ and not subject to some of the provisions of the Geneva conventions, but combatants nonetheless). If we take all the 9-11/AQ/Taliban facts and the ONLY thing that was changed was to make it a nation state rather then a religous organization launching the attack we would call it a war. (In fact we do indeed call it the ‘war in Afganistan’ not the ‘arresting people in Afganistan’).
Bin Laden was a perfectly legitimate military target as far as his role in the war went. He wasn’t an ‘assasination target’ he was an active member of an attacking force who’s role both as a spokesperson and as an active leader made him a higher profile target then the villagers lugging around RPGs but every bit as much a combatant.
And ‘look at all these other bad things that happened’ is actually outside the scope of the question, “was attacking Bin Laden” legal.
Travis:
“Well. First my comments are that if someone is going to claim that the US ‘disregarded the rule of law’ they should have some idea what the law and then we can discuss the law. Otherwise he/she is just talking out of the anus area.”
Can you explain the public international laws to us, so we can start discussing the law?
Sorry I hit the return button too soon – good post!
A) The burden really ought to be on the person making the claim. Anybody who says “B is a criminal” ought to be able to articulate both the facts and basic principle of law relevant to Bob. Same thing if you are going to say that “US disregarded the rule of law”.
B)Note there has been no response by the writer of this statement. Even if you don’t set out why you think ‘Bob is a crook’ up front you need to be prepared to respond. Otherwise you are basically conceding that your claim has no merit. “Bob’s a criminal” “Really, why do you say that?” [Silence]. Notice how unpersuasive that is?
C) I’ve already started to explain the law and the distinction between LOAC and criminal law in my last post.
D) Here’s some articles to get you started on understanding the law a little better:
http://www.fas.org/man/eprint/reid.pdf
http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/7951.pdf
http://media.leidenuniv.nl/legacy/Final%20Report%20Counter%20Terrorism%20Expert%20Seminar.pdf
https://www.law.duke.edu/shell/cite.pl?15+Duke+J.+Comp.+&+Int%27l+L.+281#H1N6
http://escholarship.org/uc/item/7kt6n5zf#page-6
http://www.fed-soc.org/publications/pubID.107/pub_detail.asp
Realistically I should probably just give up on this idea that ‘if people want to discuss the law they should know the law first’. I’m not asking for a perfect understanding of the nuances, just the overall ‘big picture’. It’s pretty clear that most people’s legal knowledge doesn’t extend past a headline or 15 second soundbite. Not even the bulk of a news article, most people can’t make it that far before they formulate an opinion. Sure everyone has a right to an opinion but an uninformed opinion is worse then useless. It’s like me having an opinion on how to solve the Fukushima reactor issue. I’ve a ‘right’ to my opinion. BUT I DON’T KNOW SHIT ABOUT NUCLEAR REACTORS. Anything I say is essentially, “Gosh Billy, I just don’t like this’. (Not completely true but it serves to make a point. In actuality anything I said would be parroting a particular physicist because I did read the whole article).
Left off one of the websites for further reading:
http://untreaty.un.org/cod/icc/index.html
I was briefly involved in a debate on another website regarding the legalities (before it got dreailed by a troll that refused to get back under his bridge at least). My over-riding point was that the killing was not “murder”.
If OBL was classed as a hostile combatant then under the Laws of War he could be killed at any time (armed or not), without warning UNLESS he was explicitely attempting to surrender.
If he was a criminal then under UK law (which in this regard is very wishy-washy compared to US law and probably Pakistani law), a case can be made very easily for said criminal not giving himself up when ordered to do so. Given the crimes he has alleged (and indeed personally baosted about) to have commited, given the number of videos released with him armed etc. then it would be a VERY valid to asume weapons were close at hand. Was the use of force reasonable? “Reasonable” is now defined in UK law as:-
1/ was force required to be used (for self-defence/prevention of crime/making an arrest etc.)
2/ was the force used proportionate to the threat faced?.
As I wrote in an earlier paragraph the UK leghal system is very hot on excessive use of force and there have been a number of cases where the victim was more heavily punished than the criminal due to the employed force not being “reasonable” when questioned in court. But with the information released so far either of the two versions above fits the legal tests I have outlined. Where it fits in International Law is such a grey area as to be a virtual irrelevance…
For me the two central issues that have not got the air-time they deserve (more of that superficial media coverage you’ve mentioned several times Richard) are the attrocious handling of the press releases and the PR machine going into overdrive (for his legion of other faults at least the Shaved Chimp let the professionals at the pentagon handle the relavent press releases rather than his own tame spin-doctors) AND the issue of the violation of the Sovereign Territory of an ally in the WoT.
http://www.asil.org/insights110505.cfm
Thats a press release from the State Department attorney. The relavent section for my point being this:- “… However, an important exception to the requirement that the acting state request that the territorial state act arises where the acting state has strong reasons to believe that the territorial state is colluding with the non-state actor, or where asking the territorial state to take steps to suppress the threat might lead the territorial state to tip off the non-state actor before the acting state can undertake its mission.”
The section I’ve quoted may as well be accusing Pakistan of sheltering OBL (or at least FACTIONS within Pakistan with enough power to make the protection a de facto policy of state).
That wording for me basicaly says “We are sick of you pretending to be our friends, taking our aid money and doing nothing worthwhile for it. We don’t trust you and we don’t think you do anything to benefit us without being bought off or bribed. Well now we are changing the game.” Not comented on the right or wrong of it yet (the “unofficial” change in diplomatic stance), but I’d opt for right. Pakistan can’t claim to be our valued ally agaist radical terrorism while sponsoring it for their own purposes.
Here’s another point as well. Everyone who want to take issue with the raid is phrasing the discussion as ‘criminals vs. combatants’. (I even fell into this trap in an earlier post).
There is nothing that prohibits someone from being both.
If this were not the case the idea of ‘war crimes’ would be nonsensical; that is it would quite literally be a term without logical meaning. As several of the articles I referenced show there are very good reasons to consider the 9-11 attacks ‘Acts of War’ and respond militarily. But let’s look at criminality a bit anyway.
Since no has bothered to comment about the law other then to think that it was somehow disregarded, let me help you out (kind of).
US law does extend jurisdiction to crimes committed in the US by people elsewhere. So yes, if the 9-11 attacks are considered a crime UBL/AQ could be tried in US courts.
But there is a wee bit of reality that needs to be addressed.
No one connected to the 9-11 attacks was ever going to show up in court through law enforcement and diplomatic channels. The normal procedure to get someone from another country into a US court would be to file an extradition request with the country in which the perpetrator is concealed. But the Taliban, who did indeed control much of the country, were only recognized as a nation by 3 countries in the entire world.
The International Criminal Court may also have jurisdiction. Some of the terms governing the ICC convention are not clearly defined. To prosecuted for “crimes against Humanity” the attacks would have to be a “widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population.” While 9-11 was certainly a major attack it’s hard to say that it was ‘widespread or systematic,’ it was more of a ‘one-time special’ killing.
But by attacking civilians the 9-11 attacks would fall under the ‘war crimes’ provisions.
If we are considering the attacks as ‘acts of war’ (let me call your attention once again to: http://media.leidenuniv.nl/legacy/Final%20Report%20Counter%20Terrorism%20Expert%20Seminar.pdf which does support the contention that ‘Acts of War’ can be perpetrated by non-state actors) then this is all well and good. But it also means UBL/AQ/Taliban are combatants engaged in a war, or at least ‘Acts of War’. Which puts us back to looking at LOAC and back to UBL as a valid target as David and I have already shown.
Further, no legal framework, anywhere, has ever attempted to get sovereign nations to abrogate the inherent right of self-defense. This is in fact a central tenet of International Law and means that UBL/AQ were valid targets, not for what they had done, but for what the would do in the future given the opportunity.
Ultimately, from a legal standpoint, showing the UBL COULD be prosecuted doesn’t mean that he HAD to be.
Whew, that’s alot for one day.
“CONVICTED PAEDOPHILE PLUNGES TO DEATH IN FAULTY GUARDRAIL SCANDAL”
Did anyone else notice that that is pretty much the opening scene from the BBC series Luther?
What an odd piece of confirmation bias.
All interesting points above. However I will have agree with Richard’s points. Good riddance, like an infected wound finally healed. But we must prevent ourselves getting sores, not keep treating them in ways so that others suffer for them.
There may be leftists saying that the US had it coming and there may even be an argumet there, hard as it may seem. I have no loyalty, I value evidence and rational argument. I can clearly see how the US foreign policy since 60′s has been completely suicidal and counter-productive. Evidence a-plenty. So it’s not the fault of the US people who suffered and died, but it IS the fault of a deluded political elite of wealthy ideologues who genuinely think they have the mandate of power to instill their will on the world, regardless of the suffering.
You reap what you sow. Simple.
So far there has not been a lot of preventing yet. Business as usual from where I can see it, it could be some slow progress since te American power is wavering due to influx of morons in functions of power, degrading credibility and effectiveness of said power. The Trump-Palin effect.
Exceptionalism and the insane ramblings of Ayn Rand are not a basis for sustainable existence and well-being. They are the basis for pain and suffering and I think/hope the Americans are starting to see that.
Richard, great post (as usual)! Can’t wait to read ‘The Cold Commands’. More Tak, please!
I would like to make a counter-comment to Linda P. Words matter, and I find it very irresponsible for you to say that the US military ‘indiscriminately kill[s] innocent people’. I have been working in Afghanistan and Iraq for almost three years now and I can tell you that our military – certainly not perfect – is perhaps the most restrained and, yes, discriminating in the world. They take great care to try and not harm civilians, no matter the mission or the tools being employed. Of course they are not always successful but they *always* try.
Indiscriminate killing of innocent people is what the Taliban, al-Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba practice. It saddens me that people can’t see the difference.
Alain
@ An_Irish_Brit Your post manages to be uninformed and condescending at the same time. Uninformed because you assert that America abandons the rule of law when it suits, but you offer no proof to support this assertion. Condescending because you say that we are – as a nation – just kids. That kind of thinking is not worthy of Richard’s thoughtful post and the rest of the discussion on this thread. Please try and do better next time.
Damn, Richard. Nice blog. Really interesting viewpoint. Loved all three Takeshi Kovacs novels. Just finished Woken Furies on the train to work today. Beautiful stuff, coming to me right when I need it in my life.
Very entertaining,and best of all, despite your cartoon characterization of the American right of center, and a center that has moved far to the left here in the “tribal” USA, a much appreciated absence of “Bush was behind 911″.
I love the dystopian stuff you generate. Market Forces was great fun. Minus the road warrior ethic, Corporations do run the show, and just about ultimately express the biologic imperative as groupthink.
Where is it really taking us? The struggles between right and left is just popular theater–and as you note, “political debate – particularly in the US, but increasingly in the UK as well – has reached such levels of dumbed-down emotive populism”, the banks blow the people’s earnings and then through the “government/banking complex” stick it to the taxpayer for the losses. Bush’s gang got Clinton to end Sarbanne/Oxley,to compete with European Banks, no less, and all the bad players show up like bad pennies in Obama’s gang, forcing through qualitative easing that will crush the dollar, a strategy Obama decried as unworkable as a candidate. As goes Greece, so will go the USA.
I’m sort of inclined to disagree with the guardrail analogy. There was basically international consensus that Bin Laden’s actions were one of two things: an act of war (by a non-state actor) or very, very criminal. Never mind that he was a cunt, let’s look at the implications of those two things.
If he was carrying out an act of war, then it is to be expected that he will be dealt with militarily. Military acts are pretty much always going to step on _someone’s_ toes, and in this case there are some bruised feet in Pakistan. And a body or two.
If he was a criminal, then he needed to be extradited and tried for his crimes, either in the US against US citizens, or in the ICC for crimes against humanity. The problem is that he was almost certainly being sheltered by elements of the Pakistani paramilitary, and no process exists to extradite him from his clandestine existence. This doesn’t even start to look at second order effects of putting an ideologue like him behind bars.
This is where it gets tricky. He isn’t quite either of those things, and on top of all of that, he remains a security threat to the US, apportioning responsibility to the nebulous DoD somewhere awkwardly between the military and the CIA. It’s their job to mitigate risks to the US public from external sources.
At the end of the day, someone had to make a decision. There wasn’t a rule in the book on how to deal with circumstances like this, because they’re Special Circumstances. I think there’s a lot to be said for Iain Banks’ interpretation of the responsibility of a liberal democracy to sometimes do things that it considers reprehensible itself. Note that I’m not arguing the US is a liberal democracy, only that moral imperative and justification exists for even whiter bodies than the US to do even blacker things.
At the end of the day, all things considered, I think the right decision was made, and it was conducted in the best manner possible.
Gratuitous US-bashing? Really? Get over the superiority complex. Last time I checked, we didn’t have a nation full of looters burning down multiple cities (including the capital) over days.
Looks like England is loaded with cunts.
@ Takeshi
First of all, you’ll notice the liberal use of “we” and “us” in my post – where the US goes, the UK habitually slavishly follows, so any indictment of the US here is equally an indictment of my own country (with an extra serving of contempt because we’re not even acting in our own interests when we misbehave, we;’re just toeing the Special Relationship (arf arf) line)
Second, what’s under discussion is not the US itself, but one aspect of its foreign policy; only a tribalist would see this as “US-bashing”
And third – yeah, we had some riots. What of it? How is this relevant to the subject?
Richard, this is my first visit to your site and the first read of some of your blog. The title caught my eye and I have read it and all the comments. Thanks for a well worded and thought out piece. I tend to agree with pretty much all you said, and I am pleased to have been able to read all the comments, that for the most part are also well made.
Takeshi – I’m sorry, you may not have had any riots recently, but the US has had its fair share of riots over the years, and looters (New Orleans springs to mind), so the US isn’t immune to these problems. A couple of thousand thugs from a population of 62 million doesn’t make us a nation of looters, and I don’t see what it had to do with the discussion at hand, other than a bit of childish name calling.
Hi Richard, We haven’t corresponded in a while, not since I reviewed ‘Altered Carbon’ and we spent several enjoyable nights initially discussing the effects of gun shots, and winding up discussing politics. We both seemed to change our minds on some topics after sharing the logic that formed our opinions about them… I came away from it with some new ways to objectively look at some issues that I knew I couldn’t fairly discuss at the time. I have deeply appreciated those new skill-sets over the years.
As I said in our initial conversations, and have maintained ever since, you always seem to perfectly put into words, ideas that I have struggled (and failed) to communicate to my own satisfaction.
I’ve waited until now to see what you had to say on this subject, because it’s bothered me deeply since the story broke… yet again I knew a few things that I was worried wouldn’t allow me to be objective. In fact, the only comments I’ve made about it publicly have been a few short variations on the same basic theme of: “Awesome! Glad the Fucker’s gone!”
That’s all I could fairly say on the subject until I could put my finger on what was bothering me about the event, so I came over here to see what your finger was on, and why.
In the case of Bin Laden, Not only was *he* deprived of due process for whatever reason, but more importantly to me, *WE* were all deprived of his due process… without that due process (leaving all non-public information out of it for this discussion) we’ll never know his ACTUAL role in many different events he was accused of being involved in around the world. How was he involved exactly? We know he didn’t personally train the people at “Terrorist camps”. We know he wasn’t “The Master Mind” who actually planned ANY of the events he is said to be linked to, so what was his role? If you listen to his comments before 9/11, it’s clear that he only considered himself a “Non-Member Guest” when he attended Al Qaeda events. He seemed to mostly consider himself a Supporter who donated money to Al Qaeda. When we see the famous videos of Bin Laden touring a Terrorist Training Camp, and shooting an AK-74 (It looks like an AK-47, but was actually an AK-74 in .223), we’re not seeing “The leader inspecting his troops at his camps”… we’re seeing a VIP Guest being schmoozed by members of Al Qaeda who are hoping for more financial support from him. If what those videos seem to show has been twisted, what else do we think we know that’s not accurate? At least after the trial of Saddam Hussein, I knew exactly what he was accused of, his actual role in every event, and that he ordered the atrocities we saw himself.
Here’s the main thing bothering me about the US Government depriving ANYONE of due process… When our Founding Fathers wrote our Declaration Of Independence, and then later Our Constitution and Bill of Rights, they went to an enormous amount of trouble to make one reoccurring theme especially clear: “We believe that EVERYONE on the face of the Planet has the same Rights just by virtue of being born!” ‘Everyone’, Not just us.
…and then they listed a few examples of those rights that they felt were especially relevant at that time in history; Life, Liberty, the pursuit of Happiness, The Right of People to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, The right to a fair and speedy trial, The Right to Due Process of Law, etc. Again, The documents I referenced don’t “give” anyone any rights, they only list some important examples of Rights that you already have.
The sole purpose of the new and radical government that was established over 230 years ago, was to protect the rights that we said ALL People EVERYWHERE already had simply by being born. In a nutshell, the people were telling this new Government, “You were established to protect our rights from anyone, anywhere (including this government itself), that may try to stop us from exercising those Rights!” Yet, most people don’t seem to realize that our Founding Fathers said EVERYONE on Earth has these rights! Those people seem to believe that this country has a Constitution that benevolently GIVES it’s Citizens some rights, and if you’re NOT a Citizen, then you don’t have any! Also, they seem to believe that as long as we keep you outside of our borders, you don’t have any rights, and we can do anything we want to you. Honestly, I don’t think it’s “just people” that think like this; I don’t think our Politicians know any better either!
It’s always about “Us” and “Them” I guess… Over the years I’ve found that we can do anything we want to people as long as we can make them appear “different” enough to be thought of as “One of Them” instead of “One of Us”
Richard,
This may not be the right place for this, but I just started reading the Cold Commands and I had to stop and write this. Like right this instant, before it was gone.
It’s beautiful. Really. Beautiful and painful in some odd combination. Perhaps it’s due to having recently had a baby with my wife and that’s making me emotional, or sleep deprivation, or, or something, but it’s really good.
I like the Steel Remains very much, and I was effected by all your Sci-Fi as well. I had a feeling you bulled through The Steel Remains in parts, just falling back onto your sharp prose to push through parts where you weren’t feeling it. That’s not a critical comment, on any day your prose is to mine what a cleaver is to a pen knife. To steal a well regarded metaphor, I think it stung like a bee more than it floated like a butterfly.
Back to The Cold Commands. I seriously just started. I’m on like page 30 or something, so it may drop off really soon and I’ll have to come back, but I just had to say, it feels right somehow. I said Painful and beautiful, so I’ll stick with that.
It’s Painful in the way morning mist would be as it blew over a field of swollen corpses, or as painful as a smile on the face of a suicide. It’s an alien beauty, like a machine as vast as the universe, with no messy life to spoil its slow and grandiose precision. It’s beautiful like a rose in a corpse garden.
Anyway, I just wanted to say, you may have really cracked this fantasy stuff. I know ultimately I’m some guy on the internet and it probably doesn’t mean a great deal, but it’s good, be proud of it. Good work sir.
Thanks,
L
P.S. Congrats on the baby.
Between digging up falsities and spreading your own shit, how do you have any time on your hands, Rich turd.
O beautious creature to behold;
I created her for you to love;
Betray her you must you feel to this day!
How for longer can I stay?
Lady star dust sang a song…
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