Economics and similar, for the sleep-deprived
A subtle change has been made to the comments links, so they no longer pop up. Does this in any way help with the problem about comments not appearing on permalinked posts, readers?
Update: seemingly not
Update: Oh yeah!
Monday, February 09, 2009
I still think that this could be the defining case of Alan Dershowitz's career
... an Islamist rebel group that has fired rockets into the capital city. No country on earth could tolerate this. They hide in an urban area, shielding themselves behind civilians. This is a war crime, and the consequences of attack are wholly the responsibility of the terrorists! Attack!
Should the man responsible be charged with war crimes?
I've noted this in the past; Dershowitz is a leading light of the USA Darfur campaign, but many of the legal concepts he's invented over the last few years (particularly that of the "continuum of civilianity") would be very useful to the other side if they could be made to stand up in court. The cases of Claus von Bulow and OJ Simpson both reveal that Dershowitz isn't scared of helping an unpopular defendant, so shouldn't Omar al-Bashir (whose indictment at the ICC is about to be filed unless there is some last-minute political compromise) be at least having his people talk to Alan's people?
I jest, of course I jest. But there's a serious point here. First, that it's a lot easier to maintain the good old moral clarity if you're not tempted to make apologetics for particular states that you like (at one point on Normblog, there were quite literally consecutive posts condemning the SA's attack on Muhajiriya as an atrocity, and taking a very different line on Gaza). Or to put it another way, the view that it's wrong to hold one country to a different standard than another ought to be honoured in the observance, not the breach. People like Bashir do certainly pay attention to all the fiddles and compromises made with international law in order to fold it round the contours of what we want to happen in the Middle East.
this item posted by the management 2/09/2009 08:09:00 AM
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