Billmon:
But what about when the terrorists are wearing the uniform?
Back to Main
July 2, 2006
WB: Legal Conundrum
Comments
Both deserve the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty, the right to counsel and to humane treatment. If we start deciding that we can deny/award these rights to certain groups because of their political or religious affililation, we are making a mockery of the rights and freedoms we claim to be defending and/or exporting.
Posted by: ralphieboy | Jul 2 2006 20:52 utc | 1
here’s a link to go w/ billmon’s most recent post
cryptome eyeballs cheney’s new maryland residence
Posted by: b real | Jul 2 2006 21:31 utc | 3
They’re called bad apples when they are wearing the uniform.
Posted by: YY | Jul 2 2006 23:10 utc | 4
Generally problem is that west world decided to give up on law. USA is leading there. Who needs it anyway when being the only superpower they can decide freely what to do with others from case to case depending on their interests. It’s just scary how open and obvious it is.
For example today news from Hague is:
http://www.beta.co.yu/default.asp?h=English,en
BELGRADE, July 2, 2006 (BETA) – Serbian officials are extremely dissatisfied with the sentencing of Naser Oric, former commander of Bosnian Muslim forces in Srebrenica, to two years behind bars for crimes against Serbs. Since Oric was in custody more than two years, he was immediately released.
Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica was quoted by B92 as saying that the sentence “is an open mockery of justice and the innocent victims.”
“The Hague tribunal, which was conceived as the highest instance in world justice, is becoming its exact opposite, injustice, with sentences such as these,” Kostunica added.
…
Anton Nikiforov, spokesman for the ICTY prosecution, said he was surprised by the leniency of the judges.
***
It depends whose uniform “terrorist” are wearing.
Actually it was always like this …selective use of law…it’s just more visible today due to informative revolution and Internet…
Those USA solders should be prosecuted for murder and if they are found guilty they should face capital punishment as law predict in case of premeditated murder in USA.
But I am not going to bet on it!
Australian government is making deals with foreign governments in favor of drug dealers but at the same time is not willing to check on their citizen’s legal rights in Gitmo.
Posted by: vbo | Jul 3 2006 2:10 utc | 5
one thing bugs me about billmon’s post. it is the view the terrorists are enemy. what on earth are people supposed to do against a murdering superpower? we reflexively admit: oh, but these are civilians. but, what of the millions slaughtered by u.s. power? this is a basic moral dilemma in support of “homeland.” as a citizen, one cannot defend acts of terror against “us” even when it is plain the resources available to resist empire are mostly reduced to such possibilities of terror. I sense in billmon what I certainly know about my self. 9/11 proved in an exhiliratingly horrible way the vulnerability of power, even while this evil hope was and is immediately negated by the devotion to kill anybody who’d want me dead.
Posted by: slothrop | Jul 3 2006 3:16 utc | 6
and to be sure, this contradiction I mentioned is a enormous ideological asset for bush, et al. “w/ us or against us.”
Posted by: slothrop | Jul 3 2006 3:18 utc | 7
The eyecatcher is that the people under investigation are from the same platoon as the two soldiers who were abducted, tortured, murdered and one of them beheaded later in June in what looks very much like revenge Main and Central pointed this out of Friday pointing to the article in the Tinmes on Friday.
From the bottom of the WAPO article Bimon linked to y’day:
Those troops under investigation are from the same platoon as two soldiers kidnapped and killed south of Baghdad this month, another official said Friday. Their mutilated bodies were found June 19, three days after they were abducted by insurgents near Youssifiyah, southwest of Baghdad.
Posted by: Chuck Cliff | Jul 3 2006 3:49 utc | 9
b real
that aint no shit. a magnificent trap caught even our billmon.
Posted by: slothrop | Jul 3 2006 3:55 utc | 10
Bin Laden seeks far too much credit for 9-11 and he gets it because it suits his and his adversaries’ political needs. Where a state would run in the opposite direction of any act resembling one of terror as it would undermine legitimacy and endanger continued existence, for a non-state actor like Bin Laden it defines his role. So for Bin Laden the
9-11 crew would not be “bad apples” acting on their own. While he may have received reports, given blessing, and coordinated sources of funds, it would give him far too much credit to deny that the prime culprits for 9-11 perished with the attack. It is very much conceivable that similar thing could have occurred with or without Bin Laden although it would still have required financial support from private sources in the gulf (and not in Afghanistan). One needs to begin to accept that there are independent belligerents with sometimes common purpose who have political objectives and are not just insane criminals or monsters. And when they are serious and intelligent they will risk their own lives to prove a point. Aside from the occasional lucky commando or cruise missile strike, it is basically a hopeless exercise to form military strategies to combat terrorism as it is not a militarily defeat-able entity.
1)Control proliferation of small arms and explosives. This is done by not necessarily supporting unstable political entities by providing weapons that get diverted.
2)Avoid making life long sources of blow-back. Similarly by avoiding support of regimes that motivate violent popular reactions.
3)Begin to recognize much earlier the political agenda that is being espoused by these elements and where possible find accommodation. Where not, try not to get involved and hope some national political consensus emerge that will defuse it wherever it maybe.
4)Buy resources and access to resources by paying real money at fair value and do not try to steal. Do not try to hijack other governments to facilitate theft.
5)Accept differences in cultural norms. Sometimes their gods are bigger than yours.
Posted by: YY | Jul 3 2006 4:06 utc | 11
i seem to remember a couple of British special forces picked up in Basra by Iraqi police. They were wearing arab clothing and carring questionable military (bombmaking) material. The incarceration of the soldiers, was reported by British authorities to be “a serious diplomatic incident”. I suppose it was only a serious diplomatic incident and not a case of terrorism, as so defined by the lack of a uniform, because of the occupation’s immunity to all Iraqi (and I guess international) laws.
That was’nt so hard now was it.
Posted by: anna missed | Jul 3 2006 4:14 utc | 12
from edward herman’s 1992 book, beyond hypocrisy: decoding the news in an age of propaganda,
One of the most potent weapons of the western establishment designed to justify beating up smaller countries is the need for defense against “terrorism.” … terrorism is a fuzzy notion that can be employed with great indignation against selected enemies while ignoring, supporting, and carrying out similar actions by ourselves and allies. This can be accomplished only if a cooperative media will not look closely, ask questions, and challenge double standards and propagandistic usage. And the U.S. mass media have been more than cooperative.
…
An important element of word manipulation is the confinement fo “terrorism” to acts of violence and intimidation carried out by individuals and small groups. Dictionary definitions have always extended the reach of the word to governments, and in years gone by, terrorism was associated primarily with governments. This was based on the quantity and quality of violence carried out by state and non-state actors, as only states use systematic torture as a method of intimidation, and the scale of their acts of violence makes the terrorism of individuals and small groups look relatively insignificant. The concepts of “retail” and “wholesale” terrorism capture the fact that individual and rebel group violence is on a small (retail) scale, whereas state violence is on a large (wholesale) scale.
The shift to using “terrorism” only for small-scale violence was a highly political choice of word use, corresponding to an identifiable political agenda. In 1981 President Reagan and Secretary of State Alexander Haig announced that they were shifting U.S. priorities from “human rights” to “terrorism.” … The point of the newly invigorated concern over retail terrorism was partly to divert attention from the now “constructively engaged” state terrorists, who were unleashed to invade and kill on a large scale in Lebanon, South Africa, and Central America, and partly to justify other Reagan era policies (rearmament, the upward redistribution of income, etc.), which required a patriotic, confused and thereby more manageable public. The media went along with these new priorities and the related system of doublespeak and propaganda about terrorism without noticeable dissent.
Confining “terrorism” to the acts of retail terrorists is sometimes rationalized on the ground that they attack innocent civilians, whereas state terrorists are presumably more discriminating. While this stance is made plausible by airline hijackings and airport bombings, it is a false generalization. Retail terrorists are often highly selective, and state terrorists frequently engage in deliberate intimidation by murder of large civilian populations.
…
Another important doublespeak device for rationalizing one’s own and friendly terrorism is to describe it as “retaliation” and “counter-terror.” The trick here is arbitrary word assignment: that is, any violence engaged in by ourselves or our friends is ipso facto retaliation and counter-terrorism; whatever the enemy does is terrorism, irrespective of facts. Of course, the enemy always says that his violence was provoked by prior acts of ours or our clients, that he designates as terrorist, but the enemy claims are never allowed; our claims and those of our allies are never questioned.
in addition to the institutional use of torture, the array of military hardware & technical weaponry including clusterbombs & daisycutters, and collective punishment via the obliteration of population centers & infrastructure, state terrorists also have the advantage of employing death squads & advanced covert operations, sanctions & economic leverage to obstruct the inflow of life’s necessities, sophisticated psyop campaigns, and seemingly bottomless funding with which to carry out these acts of terrorism.
the revolt of the occupied against the occupiers is the closest thing there is to pure patriotism; the nature of the ideologies involved is largely irrelevant — camille rougeron
Posted by: b real | Jul 3 2006 5:07 utc | 13
anne:”…we go into a country, disband their military then call them insurgents who aren’t protected under geneva, neat trick.”
slothrop:”…one thing bugs me about Billmon’s post. it is the view the terrorists are enemy. what on earth are people supposed to do against a murdering superpower?”…“ 9/11 proved in an exhiliratingly horrible way the vulnerability of power, even while this evil hope was and is immediately negated by the devotion to kill anybody who’d want me dead.”… and to be sure, this contradiction I mentioned is a enormous ideological asset for bush, et al “w/ us or against us.”
This from Cloned Poster on an earlier thread : “Well Mr Billmon, you want to execute all those US funded Taliban terrorists that fought the Russians in Afghanistan?”
And b real’s post #13 citing a 1992 book about the same hypocrisy sums it all up.
Similar thoughts for sure, and sometimes Billmon and Juan Cole disappoint me as being too much “establishment like” for lack of a better word(s). But after being away for two days, I’m way late to that party held here on MOA. Funny the public or even independent media have not questioned this hypocrisy to a greater extent regarding defining terrorists. Bush et al did change the label and started calling the Iraqi fighters ‘insurgents’ instead of terrorists probably for this very reason. For sure, the GOP are experts at using ideological assets, just look at how labels like “liberal” and “conservative” have been convoluted. Many words have become politically abused over time, especially with the media machines (Rush Limbaugh and Fox News). Even on the street here in the south, I hear so often how the U.S. must protect Israel, “God’s chosen people”. Hypocrisy is everywhere. This is beyond exceptionalism.
@sloth one thing bugs me about billmon’s post. it is the view the terrorists are enemy. what on earth are people supposed to do against a murdering superpower?
i’m not sure that is applicable for this post. billmon’s usage of the term ‘terrorists’ in this case was applied to the superpowers soldiers who plotted,raped, burned and murdered when he wrote “But what about when the terrorists are wearing the uniform? What kind of legal protections do they deserve?”
there’s nothing wrong pre se w/ calling people terrorists when referring to ones who initiate violence or thinking of them as ‘our enemy’. rougeron’s ‘closest thing to pure patriotism’ seems more applicable to the majority of ‘insurgents’ in iraq.
we need to be as willing to apply the term to ourselves if it applies.
thanks for the hypocrisy/propaganda text b real
Posted by: annie | Jul 3 2006 18:05 utc | 15
We have two incidents: a rape/murder on 4 Iraqis followed a few weeks later by a kidnap/torture/murder of two American soldiers.
The 4 or 5 under investigation for the rape/merder were from the same platoon as the two soldiers who were abducted, tortured and killed.
Question, how times have American soldiers been abducted, tortured and killed? Like none that I recall.
A platoon is the smallest military unit commanded by a commisioned officer — 30, 40, max fifty troops. With 130-140,000 in Iraq, what kind of odds would you give that there is not a connection? THAT is the story here!
Posted by: Chuck Cliff | Jul 3 2006 19:46 utc | 16
annie
thanx. you’re right, I meant the post to address the billmon entry on hamdan.
Posted by: slothrop | Jul 3 2006 20:58 utc | 17