| GREG-STRANGE.COM |
"If you haven't found something strange during the
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
PROVIDING SUBSTANTIVE COMMENTARY ON THE
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
International Law That Sticks In The Craw
"The United States defines Saddam Hussein as a prisoner of
war. At the end of an occupation POW's have to be released
provided they have no penal charges against them." --- Nada
Doumani, spokeswoman for the International Committee of the
Red Cross (ICRC), expressing the opinion that Saddam must
either be released from custody by the June 30
hand-over-of-power date or formally charged if the U.S. and
Iraq are to conform to international law.
So, if for any reason the charges against Saddam haven't
been formally lodged by June 30, then we should just fling open
the cell door and let him waltz out of the place? Does the ICRC
have any other useful suggestions? How about if we provide
Saddam with a new suit of clothes, a pocket full of dinars and a
bus ticket home to the Sunni Triangle? Oh, and maybe some
grief counseling to help him deal with the loss of his two sons?
Honest to goodness, what is the point of making such an
abjectly silly statement? Now, in all fairness it should be
mentioned that the ICRC is not only concerned about the legal
rights of Saddam, but those of thousands of other prisoners
currently being held in U.S. custody in Iraq. That's fine, but
any rhetoric that includes the suggestion that Saddam should
be freed if some legal technicality of "international law" isn't
met, falls under the category of extreme asininity. Here's a
news flash for the ICRC: Formal charges by June 30th or not,
Saddam Hussein ain't walkin'.
But let's talk about international law for a moment. When it
comes to matters of life and death, what good is it, really? For
all practical purposes, one man's international law is another
man's poppycock. Take Saddam Hussein, for instance. It was
obviously poppycock to him since despite its existence, he was
able to run a fascist, totalitarian dictatorship for nearly thirty
years using rape, torture and mass murder as his chief
governing tools.
Or is that not against international law?
Under Saddam's rule, children were tortured in front of
their parents, human beings were dropped head first into
shredding machines and people were fed to lions at his
psychotic son's private zoo. Saddam invaded surrounding
countries, openly financed terrorism against Israel, gassed the
Kurds and was personally responsible for the deaths of at least
a million Muslims. Surely at least some of that was against
some international law or other.
But in all that time, did you ever see any of the disciples of
international law down at the Hague, or anywhere else, getting
hot under the collar about any of it? But try uttering the words
"Abu Ghraib" in their august presence and watch them be sent
into fits of apoplexy that can only be stymied by harebrained
talk about American war crimes.
See, there's this maddening tendency among
America-bashers, both international and homegrown, to take
something like what happened at Abu Ghraib to try and show
that America is a flagrant and hypocritical violator of
international law, that Bush is no better than Saddam and on
and on. Some rant and rave, like the slovenly, overgrown
adolescent Michael Moore who cranks out his reality-averse
schlockumentaries to the dazzlement of jet set crowds at
Cannes every year. Others take a more sober and reasoned
approach.
In the latter category is Jonathan Tepperman, senior editor
of Foreign Affairs magazine, who recently wrote an article for
the New York Times in which he lamented the Bush
administration's reluctance to accept full legal responsibility
under international law for Abu Ghraib. In the article,
Tepperman explains about the "doctrine of command
responsibility," under which "officials can be held accountable
for war crimes committed by their subordinates even if they did
not order them . . ."
He goes on to point out how the doctrine is actually the
result of an American initiative at the Nuremberg tribunals
which aimed to assign responsibility for wartime atrocities to
Nazi leaders.
Tepperman's ultimate point is that if the U.S. doesn't apply
the doctrine of command responsibility to itself in the case of
Abu Ghraib, then at the very least it is a miserable hypocrite
and at the worst, an international outlaw. Either way, the U.S.
is bad, bad, bad.
Let's get one thing straight. The things that happened at
Abu Ghraib were not atrocities. Worse has been done at
fraternity hazings. They were humiliations, and indefensible
ones at that, but they weren't atrocities and anyone who refuses
to recognize the difference and uses Abu Ghraib to vilify
America, isn't fit to spit shine the boots of American soldiers
serving in Iraq.
If the international law fetishists and the
tiptoe-around-the-terrorists Eurotopians had their way,
President Bush, most of his administration and all his generals
in the Middle Eastern theatre would be arrested, whisked away
and tried for war crimes at the Hague. Their crime? Daring to
overturn one of the world's worst monsters and install some
semblance of freedom in a region that has never been allowed
to experience that privilege.
That the world's terrorists and outlaw regimes would
oppose this comes as a surprise to no one. That the world's
modern, civilized states would, and based on some warped and
persnickety reading of international law, is enough to leave one
agape, agog and aghast. Nonetheless, such is the prevailing
attitude these days in all the tonier European capitals--all of
which are free, by the way, compliments of America and its
military.
"The United States defines Saddam Hussein as a prisoner of
war. At the end of an occupation POW's have to be released
provided they have no penal charges against them." --- Nada
Doumani, spokeswoman for the International Committee of the
Red Cross (ICRC), expressing the opinion that Saddam must
either be released from custody by the June 30
hand-over-of-power date or formally charged if the U.S. and
Iraq are to conform to international law.
So, if for any reason the charges against Saddam haven't
been formally lodged by June 30, then we should just fling open
the cell door and let him waltz out of the place? Does the ICRC
have any other useful suggestions? How about if we provide
Saddam with a new suit of clothes, a pocket full of dinars and a
bus ticket home to the Sunni Triangle? Oh, and maybe some
grief counseling to help him deal with the loss of his two sons?
Honest to goodness, what is the point of making such an
abjectly silly statement? Now, in all fairness it should be
mentioned that the ICRC is not only concerned about the legal
rights of Saddam, but those of thousands of other prisoners
currently being held in U.S. custody in Iraq. That's fine, but
any rhetoric that includes the suggestion that Saddam should
be freed if some legal technicality of "international law" isn't
met, falls under the category of extreme asininity. Here's a
news flash for the ICRC: Formal charges by June 30th or not,
Saddam Hussein ain't walkin'.
But let's talk about international law for a moment. When it
comes to matters of life and death, what good is it, really? For
all practical purposes, one man's international law is another
man's poppycock. Take Saddam Hussein, for instance. It was
obviously poppycock to him since despite its existence, he was
able to run a fascist, totalitarian dictatorship for nearly thirty
years using rape, torture and mass murder as his chief
governing tools.
Or is that not against international law?
Under Saddam's rule, children were tortured in front of
their parents, human beings were dropped head first into
shredding machines and people were fed to lions at his
psychotic son's private zoo. Saddam invaded surrounding
countries, openly financed terrorism against Israel, gassed the
Kurds and was personally responsible for the deaths of at least
a million Muslims. Surely at least some of that was against
some international law or other.
But in all that time, did you ever see any of the disciples of
international law down at the Hague, or anywhere else, getting
hot under the collar about any of it? But try uttering the words
"Abu Ghraib" in their august presence and watch them be sent
into fits of apoplexy that can only be stymied by harebrained
talk about American war crimes.
See, there's this maddening tendency among
America-bashers, both international and homegrown, to take
something like what happened at Abu Ghraib to try and show
that America is a flagrant and hypocritical violator of
international law, that Bush is no better than Saddam and on
and on. Some rant and rave, like the slovenly, overgrown
adolescent Michael Moore who cranks out his reality-averse
schlockumentaries to the dazzlement of jet set crowds at
Cannes every year. Others take a more sober and reasoned
approach.
In the latter category is Jonathan Tepperman, senior editor
of Foreign Affairs magazine, who recently wrote an article for
the New York Times in which he lamented the Bush
administration's reluctance to accept full legal responsibility
under international law for Abu Ghraib. In the article,
Tepperman explains about the "doctrine of command
responsibility," under which "officials can be held accountable
for war crimes committed by their subordinates even if they did
not order them . . ."
He goes on to point out how the doctrine is actually the
result of an American initiative at the Nuremberg tribunals
which aimed to assign responsibility for wartime atrocities to
Nazi leaders.
Tepperman's ultimate point is that if the U.S. doesn't apply
the doctrine of command responsibility to itself in the case of
Abu Ghraib, then at the very least it is a miserable hypocrite
and at the worst, an international outlaw. Either way, the U.S.
is bad, bad, bad.
Let's get one thing straight. The things that happened at
Abu Ghraib were not atrocities. Worse has been done at
fraternity hazings. They were humiliations, and indefensible
ones at that, but they weren't atrocities and anyone who refuses
to recognize the difference and uses Abu Ghraib to vilify
America, isn't fit to spit shine the boots of American soldiers
serving in Iraq.
If the international law fetishists and the
tiptoe-around-the-terrorists Eurotopians had their way,
President Bush, most of his administration and all his generals
in the Middle Eastern theatre would be arrested, whisked away
and tried for war crimes at the Hague. Their crime? Daring to
overturn one of the world's worst monsters and install some
semblance of freedom in a region that has never been allowed
to experience that privilege.
That the world's terrorists and outlaw regimes would
oppose this comes as a surprise to no one. That the world's
modern, civilized states would, and based on some warped and
persnickety reading of international law, is enough to leave one
agape, agog and aghast. Nonetheless, such is the prevailing
attitude these days in all the tonier European capitals--all of
which are free, by the way, compliments of America and its
military.