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.
I jest, of course I jest.
ReplyDeleteThis attack on Prof. Dershowitz's character anticipates the evidence; I've spoken to him only briefly, but my strong impression is that he would consistently embrace this argument, stipulating facts in evidence (of which I am not aware) linking the JEM attack on Omdurman to the rebels in Muhajiriya.
Of course inferred hypocrisy, even without grounds, is much funnier than policy debate, so it's all good.
I was actually talking about the JEM attack on Khartoum itself; can you imagine what the hell would happen if a couple of trucks full of Palestinian terrorists suddenly showed up launching mortar attacks on Tel Aviv?
ReplyDeleteIf Dershowitz does embrace this argument, it is pretty hard to understand why he keeps on saying that people writing about Gaza ought to talk about "real genocides - such as Darfur", in his most recent Guardian article.
can you imagine what the hell would happen...?
ReplyDeleteSome very long prison terms, I suppose.
Do I correctly understand you to assert that Musa Hilal's janjaweed have not been committing a "real genocide" since 2004? Because this is very different from the argument I was speculating Dershowitz might consistently embrace, namely that armed rebels linked to the May 2008 assault on Omdurman (a Khartoum suburb) are legitimate military targets not entitled to huddle behind UNAMID protection, any more than Hizb'allah kidnappers were entitled to have Terje Roed-Larsen lie for them.
Not sure what Mr Roed-Larsen has to do with the question of human shields, but perhaps we will learn more as the discussion proceeds...
ReplyDeleteHe conspicuously shielded the kidnappers under false UN colors of (civilian) Yohanan Tannenbaum at Har Dov in October 2000, by a shameful prevarication at which he was eventually caught.
ReplyDeleteThe point is that the presence of UN peacekeepers, (as in this hypothetical example in Muhajiriya -- remember, no facts are yet in evidence about whether these particular rebels are fair game), neither blesses those shielding behind them nor invalidates the usual battlefield calculation of proportionality, required whenever unintended harm to noncombatants must be weighed against a legitimate military objective. Sometimes it's OK to shoot at blue helmets, even while they are protecting civilians; it all hangs on proportionality and intent.
Sorry, Tenenbaum was released with the Har Dov three (all abducted in uniform by the fake UN squad), but has nothing to do with the Larsen tape. My blunder.
ReplyDeleteI was speculating Dershowitz might consistently embrace, namely that armed rebels linked to the May 2008 assault on Omdurman (a Khartoum suburb) are legitimate military targets not entitled to huddle behind UNAMID protection
ReplyDeleteThe "continuum of civilianity" is not a doctrine about UN peacekeepers; as the name suggests, it's a disingenuous, disgusting attempt by Dershowitz to try and rob civilians of their noncombatant status.
Sometimes it's OK to shoot at blue helmets, even while they are protecting civilians
ReplyDeleteJoshua W. Burton. I'll remember the name.
disingenuous, disgusting attempt
ReplyDeleteJust so. The point is that Dershowitz doesn't need it to defend al-Bashir against the charge of shooting through UNAMID at armed JEM rebels; he can instead argue the case in your para 1 by the usual Geneva rules.
On all evidence I've seen, the rebels in Muhajiriya are behind the blue helmets but properly in front of their own civilians where they are able. The Sudanese army undoubtedly intends further atrocities, but they will have to commit them the usual way (over the rebels' dead bodies), so where does "civilianity" come in?
On all evidence I've seen, the rebels in Muhajiriya are behind the blue helmets but properly in front of their own civilians where they are able.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't true. The JEM were hiding in the town and using it as a base, same as they and other rebel groups do in the IDP camps.
but properly in front of their own civilians
ReplyDeleteWhat does properly mean here? That when you're liable to be atacked, say by aircraft you come out in front of the town where they can see you?
You really ought to check out Joshua's blog. Especially the post from September 2005 where he accused Jim "Making Light" MacDonald of being a communist for describing the standard command and control procedure used by people like the NYFD, the Marines, and the US Coast Guard (then busy plucking people off rooftops in New Orleans) etc.
ReplyDeleteInstead he favoured "Insty and Volokh coordinating dollar aid". I mean, it's a whole fucking Rosetta stone of imbecility, smugbertarian law-school arrogance, ignorance, linkwhoring and redbaiting right there. Future historians struggling to comprehend the Troll Era will study that post.
I've never had a blog, but whatever.
ReplyDeleteWhat does properly mean here? That when you're liable to be atacked, say by aircraft you come out in front of the town where they can see you?
ReplyDeleteThat you don't keep your own civilians on the rooftops at gunpoint, for a start.
Un huh. And is that documented as a common practice?
ReplyDeleteNot in Darfur, to the best of my knowledge.
ReplyDeleteJoshua's blog
ReplyDeleteIs it possible that "Alex" is thinking of , or this or perhaps this? Intemperate words, I admit, and they'll haunt me for as long as Google lasts.
Sorry, lost the first link. "...of this, ....
ReplyDeleteThe top result for you on Google is something called tjic.com
ReplyDeleteI'm going out on a limb here, but maybe that's TJIC's blog, not mine. (And maybe you're a recently deceased talking parrot. Pleased to meet you, and if you peck on the little blue links in Google after they come up, you can sometimes learn even more.)
ReplyDeleteI may be a dead parrot, but you're *still* a glib apologist for war criminals!
ReplyDelete"Basem Maswadeh knew he was in trouble when an Israeli soldier pushed him into the barber's chair and reached for the clippers.
ReplyDeleteThe humiliation of a shaved head - or, more accurately, having chunks of hair ripped out by the brutal wielding of the shears - was the start of an ordeal that culminated with Mr Maswadeh and two friends standing in a Hebron street as Israeli troops shot over their shoulders at stone-throwing Palestinians."
Hamas calling people to come to a rooftop is not putting a gun to someone's head. Israel has a long history of that."
"It's standard practice for Israeli soldiers to go into a house, lock up the family in a room on the ground floor and use the rest of the house as a military base, as a sniper's position. That is the absolute textbook case of human shields."
The only thing unambiguous in your hasbara videos is the voiceover.
Article 51, paragraph 7: Hamas calling people to come to a rooftop is itself a war crime, even supposing arguendo that all reports of coercion are false. Paragraph 8: let us fervently hope that this crime always works, for all sides in all conflicts.
ReplyDeleteThe BBC appear to have put the wrong date on that rooftop story. They're out by two years and more.
ReplyDeleteJoshua, good point.
ReplyDeleteThen that includes the settlers. All of them. Though asking 50 people to come down a busy street and climb some stairs is not the same as constructing a walled camp on someone else's grazing land.
And again your link said nothing about forcing people to act as human shields, it talked about collaborators. common criminals and
and Dahlan's thugs.
"The BBC appear to have put the wrong date"
There are plenty of other stories if you want to look for them.
Good reading for Dershowitz, Joshua Burton and all concerned, Chris Bertram and Henry Farrell not excepted:
The Magnes Zionist
Then that includes the settlers. All of them.
ReplyDeleteIn Gaza? The null set satisfies all predicates, I guess, so I agree.
Gaza is a prison in lockdown, justification of which is the maintenance of a demographic imbalance favoring the Jewish population beyond the gates.
ReplyDeleteThe prisoners throwing rocks over the wall and hitting a couple of cows and an occasional neighbor is not a response I find particularly egregious.
The major crime is the blockade itself.
Accusing a rape victim of assault, for biting her attacker, is not a strategy that will get you very far in an unbiased court.
Just to note that under Joshua's interpretation of Article 51, Mahatma Gandhi would have to be considered a war criminal, and that some people might consider this to be a reductio ad absurdum.
ReplyDeleteOn behalf of what "Party to [a] conflict" was Gandhi rallying after 1977?
ReplyDeleteBonus quote: "What is a war criminal? Was not war itself a crime against God and humanity, and, therefore, were not all those who sanctioned, engineered, and conducted wars, war criminals? War criminals are not confined to the Axis Powers alone. Roosevelt and Churchill are no less war criminals than Hitler and Mussolini."
By the way, I've repeatedly served as a (voluntary, neutral, civilian) human shield myself, against both SCUDs and explosive underwear -- audible near misses, nothing heroic -- and I've found, contra Gandhi, that the redemptive aspects are wildly overrated. I haven't chosen well in the parties I've attempted to deter, so no joy on the pragmatic angle either, more's the pity.
ReplyDeleteI simply do not believe that the 1977 Geneva Protocols were even in part agreed in order to rid the world of the scourge of satyagraha
ReplyDeleteHad they been to a live performance of Act 3 of Philip Glass' epynonymous opera[1], they might have adjusted the protocols to fit.[2]
ReplyDelete[1] And indeed, had it actually been written by then.
[2] I actually really enjoyed the first two acts, but dear God, the third is an endurance test.
"Satyagraha is a weapon of the strong; it admits of no violence under any circumstance whatsoever; and it ever insists upon truth."
ReplyDelete