"If there is no public support for a military operation is becomes difficult and in some cases impossible to carry on."

[...]

"Each of us can get a copy of the Geneva Conventions off the Red Cross website. The language is clear. You can be the judge of whether you think violations have been committed, and your opinion can help make or reinforce international law."

[...]

"The Hague Conventions back in the turn of the century, and the Geneva Conventions, have a prinicple of law that is binding on the international community. This legal rule says 'at all times combatants and civilians are protected by principles of law of civilized countries, principles of humanity, and the dictates of the public conscience.' This can be legally relevant in an actual tribunal. Listeners to this broadcast become part of the public conscience as well, and how they may react: letters to the editor or calling in the station or saying 'we think that there are violations,' all of this becomes the backdrop for potential lawsuits."

Sally, this is like emailing me crack cocaine.

Back in April, I read an essay by Phil Carter (blogger of Intel Dump), published
here discusses the American fear international law and the fear of the enemy combatants 'abusing' the American courts.

"[Lawfare] represents one of the most interesting recent developments in military theory. More than 100 years ago, Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz wrote that war was a continuation of politics by other means; a way to impose a nation's political will by force of arms. Lawfare is best understood by turning Clausewitz on his head (sorry Carl)—it is a continuation of warfare by political or legal means. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, lawfare is the "strategy of using or misusing law as a substitute for traditional military means to achieve military objectives." Partisans fire motions and discovery requests instead of artillery rounds."

[...]

"Truth be told, we have every reason to embrace lawfare, for it is vastly preferable to the bloody, expensive, and destructive forms of warfare that ravaged the world in the 20th century. First, lawfare has the obvious advantage of being safer than conventional warfare: I would far prefer to have motions and discovery requests fired at me than incoming mortar or rocket-propelled grenade fire."

I bet he's really feeling that last paragraph, as he is now being deployed to Iraq.
- L.M. 8-16-2005 8:33 am

L.M. you're getting me hooked this stuff now! I wondered how the US government was currently characterizing their disregard for international law. Apparently by lumping together the use of "international fora, judicial processes, and terrorism" as "strategies of the weak." eugh. As far as I understand it from reading Carter's essay, the Pentagon invokes this term "lawfare," as a bugaboo, characterizing the establishment of kangaroo courts at Guantanamo as a legitimate defensive measure, while at the same time skirting obligations to address their own breaches of international law, such as torture in Iraq. Anyone calling USA into a international forum (ie; holding them to the Geneva Convention) is just employing a "strategy of the weak." It's almost funny the way Carter adopts the term lawfare, but turns it around and embraces it. Unfortunately, though, human causualites, civilian or military, don't actually mean much to the administration. Far better to lose a bunch of guys to some incoming mortar than to actually own up to war crimes in a viable tribunal!!

I like Carter's last paragraph:

James Madison wrote once that "war is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement." Historically, our presidents have wielded great powers during wartime, only to see the pendulum swing back at the conflict's end, as in 1866 when the Supreme Court posthumously rebuked Abraham Lincoln for his Civil War suspension of habeas corpus and use of military commissions. Nearly 43 months have passed since 9/11, longer than between Pearl Harbor and the German surrender in World War II. The time has come for normal judicial and political institutions to reassert themselves.

Actually, his last paragraph brought to mind our case in regards to the October Crisis. (I will drop everything I am doing to watch any footage from those days) When the War Measures Act was being debated in parliament, the only politician who voted against it was Tommy Douglas, who argued that the FLQ kidnappings could be solved and prosecuted by the police using their normal investigative means. (the real reason Douglas was fucking great)

And he was right, normal police procedure broke the case, the extra powers of search & seizure just led to the arrest of a few dope heads in small town Ontario. I knew someone who's parents were surgeons and had set up a paediatric hospital ward in Cuba at the invitation of Castro, back in the 60's. In 1970, the RCMP showed up at her door, questioned her about her parents and asked how it was that she was born in Cuba. She was around 9 years old at the time.
- L.M. 8-16-2005 8:55 pm

ow!
- sally mckay 8-16-2005 9:30 pm

Von Bark sent me to a couple of links about Les Ordres, a film about the incarceration of Quebec citizens under the War Measures act during the FLQ crisis. It screened here at Cinemateque in June, and the author and filmmaker were there to talk about it. This review at Blog.To says:

The film obviously still has resonance today, as people are tortured and abused in Guantanamo and Iraq (among, I'm sure, many other places) without knowing why, without legal recourse, without any basic human rights. The lesson to be learned from a work like Les Ordres, and from the events it depicts, is that if that can happen here, in Canada, it can happen anywhere. We still need, incredible as it seems, to remain vigilant and vocal in our disapproval of such miscarriage of justice. As Brault said "It's important to know your past if you want to face the future."

Thanks for that link, now I have to find that movie on DVD, RIGHT NOW!!! (this is the reason I get so little done in a day, everything else on earth is always more interesting than what I'm doing at any given moment)

A recommendation right back to you is: The Revolution Script by Brian Moore (published in 1971). It's available at the TPL.
- L.M. 8-17-2005 11:43 pm