This is cute. And incredibly stupid. Leaving aside the issue of what constitutes a war crime that should be prosecuted in international courts--you heartless fiend! my liberal readers cry, we knew all along that you loved torture!
No, really, leave it aside, because the moral question is irrelevant to the practical one. What will be the effect of this? Will it build the credibility of international justice institutions by proving that even the powerful US can be brought to heel?
Ummm . . . no. Can a Barack Obama administration sit by while this happens? The liberals who think it can have spent far too much time in the Bat Cave telling each other that justice will soon be restored to the universe. Seizing US officials and trying them for war crimes will be perceived by most of the American public as an act of war. An Obama administration that became complicit in this would find itself wistfully hoping that they could, perhaps someday, get their approval ratings up to those enjoyed in the later Dubya years. There would be not inconsiderable pressure to invade Spain to get them back.
That we would do so seems farfetched. What does not seem so unlikely is that the US would almost have to pull out of any organization that supported this action, up to and including the UN. We are still the country of Monroe and Roosevelt.
I know that at this point you are itching to argue that in the long run we'd all be better off if we submitted to international justice. Well, first of all, this won't be international justice, in that sense; it will be the justice of whatever court system seizes our officials. And second of all, it doesn't really matter if we should; we won't. American politics is not behind that kind of internationalism.
The result, therefore, seems almost certain to be some sort of horrific blow to the power of all these international institutions, which become fundamentally irrelevant if the United States does not participate. America provides most of the military force that supports those institutions; even when they are not our troops, it is our air support, our logistical support, our sea power that stands behind the boots on the ground. The public political pressure in Europe will undoubtedly be just as strong for these actions as the pressure here will be against them. It will only be after the damage is done that Americans will realize it is sometimes convenient to have allies, while Europeans belatedly discover that internationalism doesn't just run on solemn conferences and soft power. Not to mention how cute they'll all look trying to hem in Russian expansionism without the implicit threat of the American troops now stationed in their countries.
It might be nice if international justice were like a real national legal system, where everyone, rich and poor, submits themselves to the impartial will of the courts. But it is not. This is not fair--life isn't, you may have noticed. When the gap between the real and nominal power is as wide as it is in institutions like the UN, the institutions survive by not testing the boundaries--by defining deviance down rather than reveal that the institution does not have the actual ability to rein in its most powerful members.
I know that I have a lot of seething war opponents reading this, their souls screaming that the practical considerations are secondary to the moral ones. But the US flatly cannot be brought to heel in this manner, while other nations can. Shall we enjoy the righteous satisfaction of expressing our moral outrage, at the cost of severely eroding the international community's ability to encourage peace in the rest of the world? Only if you think that American politics is so overwhelmingly important that it overrides trivial considerations like dead Bosnians.
Pretty sickening. I honestly don't even think such an event if it occured would be about the torture. I mean look at the TNR comment thread, for most folks the trials would just be about Iraq. If the war was popular there would be no support for this whatsoever, despite the fact that underlying grounds for an accusation due to torture might have some validity.
That is precisely what makes an international system a joke. There would be no actual rule of law, just the appearance of such. It's just a way for impotent governments and the people who have to live under them to be able to put some small amount of policy pressure on the US.
Also, the American people are smart enough to know that this is pure left-wing politics. I mean, no Soviet official ever feared to travel in Europe. When Pinochet was being arrested, Castro was eating dinner with King Juan Carlos. I know that the kind of people who write for the New Republic (and many who write for The Atlantic) think tht the average American isn't smart enough to notice this sort of thing, but we are.
Well Megan,
Do you have any suggestion for how those responsible for torture should be brought to justice? Any suggestions for how the practical considerations can be taken into account in order to address the moral ones?
Just tossing this out there. Why would anyone casually assume that an administration would not hang someone out to dry? Obama or McCain would benefit internationally by demonstrating that nobody is "above the law" (at least when it is convenient). Do I think it will happen? No. If I were giving odds I could certainly see the seizure of a man (lets say Addington) and then some serious political trolling to see where the American public was on the issue. That I would certainly put some money on.
I think the value of building cases against the Bush administration officials who authorized torture isn't in their actual, eventual prosecution, for the reasons Megan notes. Rather, it's more the value of marking them with a scarlet letter to the world - the knowledge that the rest of the world considers them war criminals. I have no illusions that they would be prosecuted, but symbolically it has value.
It's hard not to think of Henry Kissinger as the obvious precedent for this kind of thing. Obviously, he has not been detained for any war crimes, so it seems the odds of any Bush officials being detained are equally small. On the other hand, Kissinger seems to be quite cautious about the countries he chooses to visit now. I don't know if he has ever returned to France after the court summoning there. Not exactly a ignorable risk, I think, for them.
Why not start by trying the temperature of the water? Have someone arrest Tony Blair and let events unfold.
Ben—
Because any President who did hang the guy out to dry would be impeached and removed from office, if only by the Congress elected in 2010. International credit is worthless when you're an ex-president.
No, the interesting betting-pool question is, how many nationals of the arresting country would wind up murdered in American streets, and how many of the murderers would get acquitted in blatant acts of jury nullification? And how many of the killed would be actual diplomats?
No, nor do I have any suggestion for how to deal with the perennial problem of unrequited love, the dissatisfactions of aging, or parents who say horrible things to their children. Sometimes life's a bugger.
When the US opted not to join the International Court of Justice, our reasoning, our explicit justification, was: "America can prosecute its own war criminals under its own criminal justice system. So it does not need to join an international organization to do so." There would appear to be an opportunity here to test that thesis.
Suppose, just as a thought experiment, the next administration applied exactly the criteria from the trials of Nazi and Japanese war criminals after WW II. And brought charges against, for example, the General in charge of Guantanamo while torture was being done there. "I was only following orders" having already been ruled an invalid defense in such cases, a court might very well get a conviction. And it would certainly have ripple effects up and down the chain of command.
Here is one life-long conservative who thinks that this may be the best approach Senator McCain has for winning this election: A McCain administration which did this would have far, far fewer political problems than an Obama administration which did the same thing. And so, might be far more likely to actually start the process.
Is it a sure thing, even then? No. Even though the prisoners were subjected to some of the same treatments that John McCain personally experienced -- which had him blinking out "torture" in Morse code while on video. But his personal experience would also mean that the American public would cut him a lot more slack on the subject.
"Sometimes life's a bugger."
you do realize that this could also be read as a favorable comparison of life and a stereotypical pederast. Mumsy used this word often when I was a child and I never appreciated the distinction between 'tough time' and 'child molester.'
Steven-
Do you really think that the pictures of Douglas Feith being taken in by Carabineri or Polizei would inspire nationalist response? As that article points out 26 individuals are on trial (in absentia) for the abduction of a suspected (likely) terrorist in Milan Italy. How many people in the US even know about this? How many people can name the Italian agent shot by US soldiers in Iraq after freeing a reporter from her captors (the two are related as Il giornale op-ed's make very clear)? The point isn't that the American people are stupid or apathetic. Only that if anything flies low on the radar on CNN, MSNBC, CBS, or FOX (since nothing ever gets by that quintet). It can sail through.
The probable immediate reaction in my mind at first would seem quiet. Only if this were pushed on a major level by the state department and the White House would it reach a real crescendo. But this is Gambling.
Couple of years ago there was a buzz on the conservative side of things regarding 'shame' as a negative motivator. Most conservatives at the time professed a belief in strong moral codes and claimed that one reason for rampaging social dysfunction was that ethical relativity had ruined the power of shame (and the fear of being shamed in public).
The value of the international prosecutions is not that Addington would be locked up. The significance is that he would be publicly exposed as a morally bankrupt person serving a morally bankrupt administration.
Shame, another good conservative idea completely destroyed by our morally corrupt administration.
You are trying to justify your actions and mind-set. If you stop, you will be able to have peace of mind in time. Trying to justify something that is wrong takes an enormous amount of mental and emotional effort.
You don't address the obvious question: Did they break the law? They did. "Tuesday's Senate Armed Services Committee hearing provided the latest evidence that top Bush administration officials directed the use of torture techniques on detained suspected terrorists." But to you the only important thing is that the US is not required to follow laws. Why? Because we must be the police of the world, or Russis/China/Iran/Iraq will take over the world if we don't. American exceptionalism is more important than the law, and must not be curtailed.
As always, though, politics are personal. It's not the image and ego of the country that matters to individuals, it's one's own ego and image. You supported this war, in the public media. If they are guilty, you are guilty. And the big guys don't go down, as you say. It's the little helpers, plugging away at their magazines and on-line columns, that see their careers end when a new master comes in and needs his own enablers. When all you have to sell is obescience and even that's not wanted, there's nothing left.
It is curious that so many are eager to make such a big deal about the so-called war crimes. Undoubtedly there were fewer and milder war crimes committed in this conflict than in any other conflict of similar size in all of human history.
See e.g. the Haditha claims where - whoops - the evidence shows no actual war crimes.
How about this? Rather than some showy, public arrest and trial (due process of law is an antiquated notion, anyway, isn't it?), some foreign intelligence service drags David Addington out of his London hotel room in the middle of the night and whisks him off to a secret detention facility in Turkey or Croatia, where he is subsequently tortured until he confesses to his war crimes, but none of it is made public, he just rots in prison for the rest of his life.
Seriously, would anyone (either in the general public or in an Obama/McCain administration) waste 15 seconds caring what happened to that douche bag if he went missing?
Right, because there were huge anti-british riots in Peru.
You guys vastly overestimate the anger this would cause. Keep in mind, the news media are owned by international corporations with a huge incentive to avoid great power conflict. They will put pictures of Abu-Gharib on loop and talk about the historic opertunities. Both parties probaly see the risk in exploiting the issue and stay away from it(much like European parties tend to collude to push EU agreements over the public will)
The whole "this is a violation of our sovreignty..." is very high level, and appeals to only alimited set of intellectuals. The
argument "Bad people did bad things and are being punished"
seems fairly universal, while the caveot "oh, and the trial is
being held in Belgium" seems like mere trivia.
As long as its framed in the right way, not may people will care.
Susan, it must be very nice to live in a world where everyone who disagrees with you is a raging egoist with deep seated and unresolved Freudian issues, and politics exists only to express your moral intuitions no matter the real-world effects. Unfortunately, the rest of us live in a place where politics has to resolve multiple, often incommensurable moral intuitions, actions have consequences no matter how admirable the motives, and Freud has been pretty much completely discredited these last thirty years.
Frued's theory theory of the destructive impulse is the opposite of what I'm talking about. If you knew more about Freud you will already know this, and not make such an obvious mistake.
Your happily inaccurate analysis of my childhood was pretty much straight Freud. My parents are about the least authoritarian people in the world. My will to power is nonexistant, and my defense of authority isn't, very, except insofar as I recognize that authority is right about most things: stoves burn, you shouldn't drive like a maniac, politeness pays off, etc. The areas on which there is disagreement between people are much smaller than the areas of agreement, only we don't notice them, and our lives are made possible by received wisdom.
The belief that everyone who disagrees with you is suffering from some dire moral failing and/or psychological disease is . . . well, one could speculate on the kind of upbringing that produces that kind of overweening self-love, or perhaps the need to shore up one's uncertain beliefs by refusing to examine areas of disagreement for fear that you might find out you have been mistaken. But that sort of thing is deeply, deeply silly. And also 100% ineffective at producing rapprochement.
Jeff-
Ankara for all its faults would never, ever perform such a thing. For all the talk of Turkish human rights violations they have come very far in two decades. This is no longer the orient express. Nor would they do this to the strongest NATO ally.
Hezbollah, to my knowledge, is the only group to actively track, capture, and move transnationally high us government employees. Even the Soviet Union would never perform rendition in such a manner. To do so would bring about a very serious backlash if not an outright war.
Some people choose authoritarianism, a very sad state of affairs. Fear and pain are not moral failings (to a point) or a psychological disease. When one's country is attacked, fear can take over. When one's opinion of one's self is attacked, the same thing happens. You say authority is right about most things, yet claim to not be authoritarian. You called yourself Jane Gault yet claim to not be authoritarian. You said war protesters should be hit in the head with a 2x4 yet claim to not be authoritarian. You are not fooling anyone except those who want to be fooled.
I wish you well Megan but there's a lot of heartache coming in this country, and it is human nature to look for scapegoats. You have put yourself very far out supporting this administration, and the administration is almost gone.
Do you have any suggestion for how those responsible for torture should be brought to justice?
Well, torture is illegal under both the US Code and the UCMJ. If you have enough real evidence to bring an actual court case (as opposed to a show trial or a Senate hearing) I have friends in both US Attorney's offices and the JAG corps I'd be happy to forward it to.
Winning a conviction is of course somewhat more difficult than posting blog comments.
Point one: which hypothetical individuals are detained and tried is not insignificant. Bush himself, sadly, is probably untouchable by the fact that he would be a former president, and hence a symbol of America. He's also a symbol to some pretty powerful people in other ways too, but let's not go there. Dick Cheney? Not so much.
Point two: contrary to her usual confidant pronouncements in the complete absence of supporting data, the idea of the rule of law is _not_ a liberal thing, it's a moderate thing, supported by the vast majority of the American people. To suggest that it's only a few 'liberals' - and those on the fringe at that - who would support an extra-national tribunal is to be either waaaaay out of touch with the mainstream, or to be deliberately trying to peddle the meme of this as an issue that only moves the DFH as a way to discredit it. Does anyone _really_ think that if Kissinger, for example, was detained abroad, tried, and found guilty of war crimes, that the Man on the Street would really care? No, the man on the street would only care to the point that he could be made to accept it as a rallying point for the idea that "You Can't Push America Around", ie, if it could serve to whip up some Nationalist sentiment.
I would also point out that it is a sad fact that, powerful as they are, politicians also, infrequently, are made to serve as sin-eaters. We condemn them for certain actions in righteous tones, in a high-stomached dudgeon . . . and then, conscience satisfied, go on to richly enjoy the benefits of those ugly actions with no further moral twinges. It would totally be in the national character to turn on those who implemented these policies, and say they lied to us, deceived us, that we would never have condoned those policies Had We But Known, when the operation goes sour. We thus absolve ourselves from any blame, any complicity, and can continue to hold the notion that we are a Good People(and let's face it, yes, Bush wanted his war. But you know what, a large segment of America was itching for war too. Bush could have invaded on his say-so alone, with no confirming intelligence, and no support from any other country, and it would have been fine with these nobs.) Why not blame them for our collective failings? After all, they were more than prepared to take the credit for any success, and were prepared to use any advantages they accrued in as ruthless a manner as possible. As the record shows. No, the average American is more than willing to let someone else take the rap, to say it is _their_ fault, rather than share in any collective guilt.
Point three: The American Century is _over_. Get used to it. The Big Story of the 21st century is not going to be one of vast and uninterrupted progress, as was the 20th. No, it's going to be about playing catch-up. It's going to be about countries like China, Brazil, Iran, India becoming as powerful as the U.S., with citizens that enjoy a comparable standard of living (and who are just as demanding that this standard be maintained at all costs. While being virtuous about it.) It's going to be about competing and shifting coalitions and alliances, not Hegemonies ruled over by one or two superpowers. The projection of force as a tool to advance national interests will become less and less effective, quaint even, amongst the bigger players.
Iow, no the U.S. is _not_ too big to push around, or soon will be reduced to that status(baring some sort of technological miracles, the only way to avoid this would be aggressive, continual war-making, starting ASAP. This might actually sell.) And when that happens, repugnant as it may be, we'll be reduced to diplomacy(the real kind, not the gunboat variety), to negotiating, to making concessions rather than simply making demands that everyone else must respect - and not only respect, but must publicly concede are only being made for the best and noblest non-selfish reasons (I think this is what really galls other countries; not the selfish and obvious scrabbling for advantage, which we all do, and which is an old game, but the insistence that others say that what is quite apparent to all is really something that's being done for everyone else's own good.)
Might as well get used to it now, what with this sorry bunch of rapacious and dim-witted criminals being what they are. It's not as if they are asking for the head of Carter, for chrissakes.
Point four: Sorry Megan, but tough, these people are law-breakers; just shrugging and saying "well, what can you do?" just doesn't cut it. Not punishing these people the first time around with Watergate, or the second time with Iran-Contra is what got us into this mess in the first place. What's it going to be the next time if these people are allowed to slip away from any legal penalties for a third, a fourth, a fifth time? Nuclear warheads detonated over Iran? On the flimsiest of pretexts which later examination shows to be nothing but deliberate lies, and all for personal gain or to cow political opponents? I know you don't like this. I know that it galls you that your side was caught red-handed committing crimes against humanity. But I also know that if it had been the other side doing this, if it had been, say, a Gore administration that had done all of these things, you would have been the among the first baying about 'standards' and 'accountability' and 'the rule of law'. The difference between us is, I would be too.
No, I most definitely _don't_ feel your pain.
Not a lot of realism on display here. Obama won't put anyone on trial for "war crimes" because he'd like the same latitude Bush had to do things his way, whatever the hell that is.
Sorry lefties, there will be no Bush officials tried in your euroweenie kangaroo courts.
Susan, I think the only person being fooled is you - and the person doing the fooling is yourself.
If you honestly think there will be a backlash against anyone that supported the war you are more than a little self-delusional.
As for the rest, Megan has spoken so often about giving individuals the freedom to choose on almost everything that accusing her of being authoritarian is ludicrous.
You completely missed her point on authority being mostly correct. Americans agree on 99% of everything, most of those things were taught to us by our parents. Based on your criteria for authoritarians you are just as authoritarian as she is.
Megan, in regard to holding people accountable for their actions, you went from this:
Tho this:
So in a mere 71 minutes, you went from saying these people will not suffer the consequences of their actions, to saying that actions have consequences. This seems to be rather a rapid turnaround, even for you. Care to explain?
And while we're on the subject, do you think that Nixon should have been pardoned? Do you think Poppy did the right thing in pardoning so many people involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, many of whom are involved in the current contretemps? Do you think that if these people had _not_ been pardoned, that, just maybe, they wouldn't have been around to wreck the current mischief they have so ably shown themselves capable of?
So what recourse do you suggest? At this point it is incontrovertible that these people have committed monstrous war crimes, less in scope than, say, Somalia and the Nazis, but certainly more than those two women in L.A. who tortured the little boy. By what mechanism can justice be brought, if America forever remains in denial about this, as you suggest it will?
BTW, Susan's comment had nothing to do with Freud. And as far as Freud being "completely discredited" goes... well, Freud was a monumental thinker who pretty much invented the 20th century along with such individuals as Darwin and Marx. Yes, most of the details of his "theories" (in quotes because they are not theories in the scientific sense) are wrong, but psychology as such would not exist without him. How about a little humility and respect for our betters?
Jeff-
Ankara for all its faults would never, ever perform such a thing. For all the talk of Turkish human rights violations they have come very far in two decades. This is no longer the orient express.
Those damn Turks. They've been a complete disappointment since the Battle of Gallipoli.
"The American century is over?"Zakaria made many good points in that article. I would like to ask one question though. Skip ahead and assume that China, India, Brazil, and probably one surprise we can't even guess. Suppose these countries all overcome their own daunting challenges and rise to be massive powers in a multi-polar world. Incidentally I think we'd all agree the world has gotten much smaller thanks to technology, population size requiring resources en masse, etc. Alright now a question about a historical tendency: what happens in areas where large powers compete for resources, power, and pride?
Your thought on war mongering may prove prescient.
Insisting that there is no controversy over the guilt of the Bush administration does not make it so.
I can add some new facts to the debate. I heard Philippe Sands, the English lawyer who wrote the article which set-off this whole controversy, speak when he was rising to prominence. Two points:
1) He laid out clearly that there would be a case for trying the officials for war crimes.
2) He said that such prosecution is not likely to happen, that it is not advisable, and that he does not personally support it.
There is a difference between recognizing that someone has committed a crime and could be tried to something and believing that such a prosecution is in the best interest of justice.
Interestingly, the whole thing begins because the Bush administration DOJ officials had their allies in Congress grant them immunity from prosecution. This is important because one of the tests for "is universal jurisdiction appropriate" is "is there a domestic remedy".
So, we do not prosecute Bill Clinton or Tony Blair for Kosovo because they come from countries with a functioning justice system where their alleged victims can get their day in court.
By granting themselves immunity, the Bush administration officials erased the possibility of a domestic remedy and so left themselves open to a "tap on the shoulder" should they ever travel abroad, much like Pinochet (who also was granted immunity by the Chilean government).
Megan I would like to make the point that Russia no longer really represents a military threat to European security. Yes Putin's brought out the bombers, the rattling sabres and increased the miltary budget, but the fudamentals are clear, Russia is not in the same miltary position as it was in the Cold War. Most Russian equipment is out of date and its soldiers are not of the highest calibre. While European defense budgets are small by American standards they are still substantial by world ones and militaries are well trained and well motivated, they could take Russia on toe to toe. That's forgetting Britain and France have nukes (admittedly dependant on US support). The fact is Europe doesn't need America to protect itself from Russian military threat (not saying the diplomatic side should not have US involvement). Its Russia turning off the gas taps which is worrying not the tanks. US forces in Germany and Western Europe are a historical leftover.
Americans forget that Europe and citzens are no longer afraid of foriegn attack.
Megan, I largely agree with you on the practicality of international prosecutions, but your tone is more than a touch condescending given the gravity of the issues involved. If it's something reasonable people can disagree on, and it's about a very serious issue, the other side deserves some respect. I think the Megan of one post ago would agree.
Yet another pathetic far-right fringie who tries to peddle the stale notion that the majority of American citizens are 'lefties'. You're in the minority - for good reason. Get used to it. Liberals to the left of you, liberals to the right, and at your back as well. Look! There's a nine-year-old liberal kid running across your front lawn! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Also for Susan V. Megan, 70% of this country was for the war at outset. That hardly means that 30% was right and that the other 70%, recognizing so, would bow their heads in subjugation. Even better has been the "did he brake the law question?" Iran routinely breaks international law. Matter of fact find me a country that doesn't break international law when it can.
"At this point it is incontrovertible that these people have committed monstrous war crimes"
Verdict first; trial afterwards. Thank you, White Queen.
Inside every liberal loon is a fascist struggling to get out.
Given that Europe celebrates Castro, Mugabe, and Che Guevarra, they've got no moral credibility to me. It would simply be an act of war on their part.
In that case? I say we dust off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Is this some sort of a self-referential paradox, like "who shaves the barber?"
Count put his finger on it. It's the condescension that's so startling here: Horton is "incredibly stupid," Freud is "completely discredited," and war crimes are dismissed with a "oh-well, what can you do" shrug.
ISTM that the practical result of indictments or trials in abstentia for war crimes would be to restrict the countries to which the accused/convicted people were willing to travel without some kind of diplomatic credentials. If it is made clear to John Yoo that, upon landing in Spain or Belgium or Germany, he'll be arrested and delivered for trial, he will almost certainly not go to those countries anymore. Presumably, US courts will refuse extradition, and presumably, he'll figure out where he can and can't go safely.
While arresting W at the Frankfurt airport in 2010 would probably be politically impossible, arresting Rumsfeld or Feith or Yoo would not be. A government that didn't want the hassle of arresting one of those guys, despite an outstanding warrant or whatever, could simply refuse them entry and send them back to the US. I don't see how that could require any meaningful response from the Obama administration--surely, who the French or Swiss admit into their country is their own affair, not ours.
Either way, a pretty powerful message gets sent.
Let me turn the question around, then. Go back and look at the American reaction to the UN controversy in 2003. Then tell me what your plan is for trying US officials for war crimes in a foreign country without wrecking several major international institutions.
Tail end Charlie: yes, that's so. With American troops there. The Russian military has many, many problems. But most of the European militaries are 90% national service, and commit to theater only on the condition that their troops won't get shot at. My money's on the Russians.
I'm not suggesting they're going to invade France; but I wouldn't buy a country house in Riga, either.
Wait, I thought we weren't going to have a trial?
Just to preempt the tiresome rollout of scary liberal straw-boogie men: I did not presume to render a verdict. I was simply expressing my personal opinion on the matter, based on the evidence I have seen.
albatross-
Aren't you aware what dangers await men that speak sense?
I think no Americans will be detained and prosecuted overseas by European countries- or elsewhere. And Megan is correct- if it does happen, no US president will be able to sit idly by letting it occur. Like it or not, war crimes trials are always carried out by victors over the defeated. Such a situation does not exist in this case. George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld will die having never spent a single day in prison or on trial- here or elsewhere.
Ben,
Iran does not "routinely break international law". The main violations I can imagine are their seizure of British sailors last year(Debatable, since the sailors were returned fairly quickly, and they were pretty close to Iranian waters), and their 1980 shenanigans with the US embassy(Clear violation of the Vienna Conventions, but I'm not sure if Iran is party to those).
Iran funds Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as numerous groups in Iraq. These groups often commit war crimes (Filling rockets with ball bearings in order to maximize casualties). But I'm pretty sure that doesn't implicate Iran under current law.
Perhaps you could go into more detail? Because I would love to have the "did he brake the law" argument.
I didnt' say try, I said bring them in. Even in Europe arrests don't always lead to trial. I said the immediate reaction would be quiet, and that there is a possibility of it flying right by with everyone unaware. There is also the possibility of seeing Old Glory on the Eifel tower. But I'm not betting on it. Most likely US protests and everyone backs down before it can't be undone.
"Given that Europe celebrates Castro, Mugabe, and Che Guevarra, they've got no moral credibility to me. It would simply be an act of war on their part.
In that case? I say we dust off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
Given that the EU has constantly condemned Mugabe and Castro, while Che Guevarra was killed 3 decades ago, how can you make that statement?
Europe has consistently(for the last decade) arrested officials, no longer in power, who are suspected of war crimes. This is true of African leaders, Latin American dictators, and Asian countries.
Get your head out of your ass.
The only person being prosecuted for war crimes that might cause a stir is Bush, being in his position. Do you really think people will give a shit whether Cheney, Rumsfeld, Feith, Addington or any of the others will be brought before the Hague? No!!! Hell, I bet people will cheer because even the war supporters will think it will cleanse them of the stench.
Nobody:
You are wrong. Just look at O.J. Simpson. A crime was committed. Just because a crime was committed and the culprit is surely known doesn't mean a guilty verdict is assured.
It's reasonable to have a strong opinion about the guilt of someone, before the trial takes place, or even after an apparently bogus trial. For example, I'd bet a fair bit of money that OJ really did murder his ex-wife and her boyfriend, though the criminal trial didn't go that way. Similarly, I'd bet a fair bit of money, based on what I have seen, that a neutral judge would find many US officials guilty of war crimes, if there were no political issues to get in the way.
Maybe the quality of OJ's lawyers and the realities of US race relations let him get away with it. Maybe the power of the US government and realities of international diplomatic relations let Yoo and Feith and Rumsfeld and Cheney and Bush get away with it. As Megan says, much injustice happens despite anyone's attempts to cure it. But we can at least acknowledge that it's injustice.
We probably can't stop all the genocide, torture, or slavery in the world, either, political and economic and military realities being what they are. But we don't have to pretend that those things aren't going on, or aren't evil. We don't have to pretend that the Russians' behavior in Chechnya is anything but brutal, that the Iranians are really striving for "peaceful nuclear energy" rather than nukes with which to threaten us and Israel, or that that facility of ours in Cuba is not a torture camp.
Even if we can't fix all the world's evils, we should at least have the balls to call them what they are.
David-
Did Bush and his cronies break the law? My own views as to what is a war crime have little bearing. According to any international standard he broke the law. So does Iran routinely because International law does not recognize proxy reltionships in the law of armed conflict. If you fund or pay for part of it responsibility is yours. Of course there are mechanisms to establish degrees of blame. Like the Italian arms manufacturer who sells mines to Sudan, and one ends up in Afghanistan. The Italian may face a civil suit, but he ought not to be tried criminally unless you can establish he knew the final destination of his product.
You make it sound like International laws are applied impartially, fairly, and by an impartial body? My own experience leads me to conclude that they are anything but. Quite frankly I don't see them as adequate in lieu of the current style of fighting. They fail in far too many. For all the talk about torture I would prefer a proper name for an opponent. Person under control, enemy combatant, belligerent.
Do I think Bush should be tried for war crimes? No, I am more likely to be in favor of firing him for ineptitude.
A modest proposal: we agree to the International Court of Justice, and simultaneously revive the House Un-American Activities Committee.
We probably can't stop all the genocide, torture, or slavery in the world, either, political and economic and military realities being what they are. But we don't have to pretend that those things aren't going on, or aren't evil. We don't have to pretend that the Russians' behavior in Chechnya is anything but brutal, that the Iranians are really striving for "peaceful nuclear energy" rather than nukes with which to threaten us and Israel, or that that facility of ours in Cuba is not a torture camp.
So the U.S. doesn't have a higher standard to uphold? Aren't we supposed to be the shining beacon on the hill? Most people with a clue know war crimes have been committed. And were are supposed to let them go because we are no better than Sudan? Is that what the US is about? It would make George Washington or Thomas Jefferson sick.
Hey, don't tell them. Just let them continue in their delusion, the happy dream in which they represent the "real America."
I wonder how the real real America would react if, say, Germany, actually indicted Bush. According to the polls, most Americans who voted for Bush now disapprove of him. Not to get all pseudo-Freud on your ass, but I could see the whole thing turning into an opportunity for an outsourced psychic redemption...
Dead Iraqis here, dead Bosnians there. And to care about the one trivializes the other?
Best if we enjoy the smug satisfaction of boasting about our so-called realism.
Ben,
My understanding is that there is no idea of tort enshrined in any international treaty.
Even if the Italian company did directly sell weapons to Afghans, and were well aware that they would be used for ill, I'm pretty sure that would not be a violation of international law(I've quickly skimmed the Geneva conventions, can't find a thing). It would likely violate laws in the respective nations, and extradition agreements might handle it, but no international law would be involved.
And Bush, along with his officials, are murderers. It is now not in serious dispute that at least 25 detainees were murdered during interrogation. Several hundred people were illegally abducted from countries around the world. These are clear violations of international law.
You do not punish Murderers by firing them 6 months before their term ends.
posted here: http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2008/06/are-we-too-gloo.html#comments
"
It's not enough to understand that the common person is being lied to (or spun) by The Powers That Be. We need to understand why the story being advanced does not resemble the reality we see.
The answer, as I see it, is that TPTB need to instill confidence in the public, because confidence is the essential element of of a continuing con game. (The Iraq war was the test-case for determining the willingness of the mark to participate in their own fleecing).
As soon as the mark understands what is truly happening (the they are being robbed), the jig is up, and things become very dicey and unsafe for the perpetrators of the con. The minute the mark realizes they are being or have been ripped-off, the pitchforks, shovels, torches, tar, and feathers come out. (Their reaction will be all the worse, being compounded by the embarrassment and subsequent rage of having been made fools of).
It is slowly dawning on the middle class that they are the subjects of a coordinated effort to disenfranchise them from the system they rely on for their relatively comfortable lifestyles. When the full scope of the scam is realized, the big trouble will begin.
Of course, there are willing participants in the scam (the press being the most obvious) who, for one reason or another, continue and will continue to believe that if they play along, they will get part of the booty. These are the biggest fools of all. These are the folks who will never admit to having been been raped, robbed, and left by the side of the road (despite their empty pockets, skinned knees and elbows, and all of the used condoms and KY jelly left behind as evidence).
As conditions continue to deteriorate for the common person, they'd be doing well to keep in mind that the victim of a crime is never made whole after the fact. What was stolen is gone forever. The time to protect ourselves has long since passed.
Suckers."
Posted by: Marcus Aurelius | Jun 19, 2008 8:40:19 AM
Susan,
to your point: Posted by Susan of Texas | June 21, 2008 10:52 AM
when I read the above post, our dear Hostess came to mind..maybe one day she'll realize...
Yet another pathetic far-right fringie who tries to peddle the stale notion that the majority of American citizens are 'lefties'.
All I said is that Obama won't try or extradite US officials for war crimes for very practical reasons. You disagree?
Did you know that your messiah is voting for the FISA bill that gives telephone companies immunity from their participation in Bush's ILLEGAL AND UNCONTITUTIONAL WIRETAPPING.
How ya like them apples?
According to any international standard he broke the law.
No, not really. You keep acting as if there's not even a debate at this point. Sorry to interrupt your internationalist wet dream.
Absent a formal extradition subject to US review, I simply recognize no sovereignty or jurisdiction over Iraq from any court other than Iraqi or American.
Personally, I would regard the kidnapping of a former American Secretary of Defense, for example, for actions resultant from the reasonable exercise of his duties for purely political reasons in Europe as an act of war, akin to the Iranian hostage crisis.
The same is true for an elected leader.
To paraphrase Chomsky of all people, if we really were into prosecuting war crimes, every American President since WWII would be hanged.
Which is the basic problem with 'international law'. We can pretend we would be prosecuting Addington, Cheney, Bush et al because of what they did, but the real truth is that we simply don't like them very much, so they are the ones who will pay. Never mind what Task Force Ranger did in Somalia under Clinton or what the CIA did in Afghanistan under Carter.
And now it isn't "law" at all anymore. It is retribution - we dislike what they did, so we're gonna get 'em. And that's why the American people won't like it, and why they shouldn't. Show trials are no fun for anyone, which those of us who loathe President Bush ought to be very disappointed about.
Jason Van Steenwyk:
Yet you don't care about private citizens? Is that correct?
BTW, the notion that the "majority of American citizens" would like to see Bush, Rumsfeld etc. tried in some international court for war crimes is absurd. If you can show some polling data to support this, let's see it.
By the way, won't Bush and Cheney have a Secret Service detail for the rest of their lives? Do we suppose those agents will simply let foreign police officers arrest either of them?
The American people, I suspect, will react differently to a warrant which had to be served over the corpses of a dozen federal agents.
Jason Van Steenwyk,
The UN charter and Geneva Conventions were ratified by the US congress as treaties. According to the constitution, they constitute the supreme law of the land.
Your refusal to recognize their jurisdiction constitutes a refusal to uphold the constitution.
Megan,
My median expectation of life is about 12 years (glass part full thinking should be applied). If proceedings are started against US officials in either Belgium or Spain (and it is legally hard for either of thsoe governments to stop proceedings being started if there is a real case to answer) I am very unlikely to live long enough to see the conclusion of the case where it started.
In fact, in either of those jurisdictions, the courts would be happy to give precedence to US proceedings. The most likely outcome of a case where the evidence was strong enough to convict would be a US plea bargain accepting guilt on a minor charge, with correspondingly minor penalties. And that is also what is likely to happen if it is left to future US administrations.
So one way or another, it is all likely to end in a chorus of whimpers - to which some of our friends above will no doubt contribute. Not a Hollywood ending, but none the worse for that.
Absolutely.
Anyone who thinks that should travel 50 miles in any direction from his present location (e.g., NY, SF, Boston, West LA) and ask around to find out differently.
Occam's Beard,
Have you considered that 80% of the population live in cities and surrounding suburbs? If I have to drive 50 miles away from a major city to find any opposition to my idea, I'm in good shape.
And rural areas are not universally red. I'd imagine that the predominantly black Mississippi valley would be pretty open to imprisoning Bush, as would the Montana Indian reservations, or a good chunk of the West...
The old "Democrats are coffee sipping elitist sodomites, while Republicans are wholesome hard working Americans" meme is not only incorrect, but tiring as hell.
David Shor,
I think you need to brush up on your constitutional law. Treaties are not the supreme law of the land. When federal statutes and treaties are in conflict, the most recently adopted controls.
James-
I said international correct? Yes I'm giving into the idea that Bush would be found guilty before ever having a trial. Kind of like what people did with OJ Simpson.
As to your point of an Afghan/Iraqi having a mine proven to be sold to him directly fully aware of it intentions as an anti-ISAF explosive. Italy the country would deliver them head on a platter or face serious reprecussions in Europe, in NATO, and with the US. It doesn't just violate alliance treaties, wikipedia has a decent entry on what defines a beligerent state. If your telling me you can cursory read Article 2 of the UN Charter in an hour, I have to call you on that. By that definition if you are actively arming a 3rd party proxy you are engaging in war. Albeit a murky one.
Mugaro,
There was plenty of polling last year about impeachment. Feel free to look it up.
The finding was that the public was generally against impeachment of Bush by a 45-55 vote. On the other hand, a 55-40 vote supported the impeachment of Dick Cheney.
I'd imagine that once you add in the foreign extradition component to it, that will shift the numbers a bit.
But not by much, I'd estimate that if you polled it, around 45% of the population would support the European's effort to prosecute Bush Administration officials for war crimes. (As long as it's not the president himself)
That's not a majority, but it's nothing special.
60% of the population supports gasoline price controls, but politicians don't rush to implement the public desire.
So Megan's fear of the destruction of the UN seems a bit insane.
I'd love it if you'd get past your petty put-downs of liberals and your constant invocation of lazy stereotypes. Talking about naive liberals and acting as if you're making an argument doesn't do anything for your politics. But I suppose that's a bridge too far.
I spent the better part of an hour looking through my trash can for the UN Charter, but no luck.
ben -
I believe you are responding to David and not to me.
David Shor,
You are deeply, deeply deluded if you seriously believe that the American people would not react with great anger and outrage to the seizing and imprisonment of high-ranking American officials, most especially current or former Presidents or Vice Presidents, by European governments for alleged crimes of war or torture. Liberals often seem disconnected from reality, but they rarely go quite as far off the deep-end as to believe the nonsense you're promoting.
By the way, do you also think Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright should be seized by foreign powers and put on trial for their "war crimes" against the people of Yugoslavia?
My fault, chapter 7 of the UN charter. No excuse though. I hate having to look up stuff I should know.
Act of war?
Since we have no hesitation about arresting, for example, ENGLISH executives (because they were running an internet gambling company) when they happened to land in the USA, I don't think we really would have much cause for complaint.
David Schor,
The UN charter and Geneva Conventions were ratified by the US congress as treaties.
What provision of the UN Charter authorized Bill Clinton to bomb Yugoslavia in 1999?
Once again my fault although it isn't as ridiculous as James to David. I meant to reply to Jason. I'm using this to cure insomnia because I have no AC, 86 degrees fahrenheit is a cool no sweating temperature now. And my bed is probably at 103 degrees right now. So yeah I'm really loving the fact that its what 2:30 pm on the east coast. And my 15 months is almost over.
Mixner,
I provided a fairly reasoned argument that the American people would likely not react with anger, and then supported it with polling. If you would like to argue against it, then please present your case.
If a European country seizes Clinton or Albright and proceeds to try them for war crimes, I wouldn't have a problem with it.
SOV,
Point three: The American Century is _over_.
It is? Let's see: America is by far the most powerful nation in the world economically, militarily, culturally and technologically. No other country even comes close. The only serious rival the United States has had in any of these categories in the past half century--the Soviet Union--disintegrated almost twenty years ago.
OK 3:30 pm
You guys are aiming far too high on the totem pole. Bush, Clinton, Albright, Cheney, Rumsfeld. C'mon nobody in any administration would even be slow over them. Feith may be untouchable only because Tommy Franks called him the dumbest SOB he ever met. Your aiming at all-stars, you ought to be looking for the 3rd guy on the depth chart. He is the one who may be arrested.
I provided a fairly reasoned argument that the American people would likely not react with anger, and then supported it with polling.
Er, your "reasoned argument" consists of mere assertions, unsupported by even a shred of evidence, and you haven't produced any polling data whatsoever, let alone polling on the question of how Americans would react to the seizure and imprisonment of high-ranking U.S. government officials by foreign governments on charges of war crimes or torture.
If a European country seizes Clinton or Albright and proceeds to try them for war crimes, I wouldn't have a problem with it.
Hoo boy. And you think your fellow Democrats would also go along with this, do you?
Mixner,
Economically, the EU has a larger GDP then the US.
It's fairly uncontroversial that China's GDP will catch up to ours in the next 20 years.
At that point, China can afford to spend more on their military then the we can.
Faced with the reality that our hegemony is coming to an end, wouldn't it be best if we imposed a fair system of international law and accountability before we left?
Mixner,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movement_to_impeach_George_W._Bush#2007_polls
gives a nice sample of several polls on impeachment. If 54% of the population supports the impeachment of Dick Cheney, I don't imagine that the imprisonment of Donald Rumsfeld or John Yoo would cause too much popular anger.
As Ben points out, I doubt anyone cares too either way about people lower in the totem poll.
David Shor,
Economically, the EU has a larger GDP then the US.
The EU is not a nation, it is a confederation of sovereign states with vastly different cultures, economies and political traditions. America's per capita GDP is significantly larger than the EU's, and the gap will only increase if the EU continues to grow by adding poorer eastern nations to its membership. Repeated efforts to forge a closer political alliance between EU member nations have been rejected by popular vote. Just a few days ago, Ireland, which has benefitted enormously from EU membership, rejected the Lisbon Treaty, following earlier rejections by France and the Netherlands. The EU isn't remotely competitive with the U.S. militarily, culturally or technologically, either. And the population size in all the major EU nations is expected to remain constant or decline in coming decades due to low fertility rates. The population of the U.S., in contrast, is expected to grow significantly.
It's fairly uncontroversial that China's GDP will catch up to ours in the next 20 years. At that point, China can afford to spend more on their military then the we can.
Whether or not China's economy becomes as large as America's in the foreseeable future, its population is so much larger than ours that most of that wealth will be consumed simply by trying to provide a minimally-decent standard of living to its people, most of whom currently live in conditions that would be considered abject poverty in the United States. There is no indication that China will become remotely competitive with the United States militarily, culturally or technologically any time in the foreseeable future.
David Shor keeps making stuff up.
It is not "fairly uncontroversial that China's GDP will catch up to ours in the next 20 years", it is completely unknown and unknowable. To catch up, they need to achieve consistently faster growth, and whether they will do so depends on little things like who gets elected here and how stupid their economic policies are, whether the corrupt Chinese oligarchy reforms itself, is overthrown, relapses into Maoist brutality, or even collapses in out-and-out civil war, whether the leaders do something really stupid like invade Taiwan, and much more. Even if they have been growing faster over the last n years, there is no guarantee that they will continue to do so.
As for the the idea that if and when the GDP of China exceeds that of the US, they will be able to "afford to spend more on their military then the we can", that is again obvious nonsense. When two countries have equal GDPs but one has roughly five times as many people, it will not have anywhere near the monetary surplus available for spending on the military (though it will have no shortage of potential recruits).
Mixner,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movement_to_impeach_George_W._Bush#2007_polls gives a nice sample of several polls on impeachment. If 54% of the population supports the impeachment of Dick Cheney, I don't imagine that the imprisonment of Donald Rumsfeld or John Yoo would cause too much popular anger.
Er, according to the poll numbers mentioned in that source, public support for the impeachment of Bush and Cheney has declined. But of course we're not talking about impeachment here, anyway. We're talking about the seizing of Bush and Cheney by foreign governments and the prosecution of them on war crimes or torture charges in foreign courts, without any involvement by the U.S. congress, U.S. courts, or the American people. Again, if you seriously believe that the American people would put up with that, you are just seriously deluded.
Being the typical fringe rightie blowhard with absolutely no regard for history or facts, let's juxtapose above with, you know, what was actually said:
Gee, can you say 'backtracking'? 'Moving the Goalposts'? What a weenie.
Oh, and for the record, I don't much care for Obama, and didn't vote for him in the primaries, and don't have a lot of expectations for him should he be elected . . . though I would be happen to be proven wrong on that last.
What's really funny about these presumptions is that I have relatives living in Limbaugh country near the Bootheel of Missouri. In a town where the Shriners parade is a high point in the cultural life, and the V.F.W. is a big deal (and every year does the grilling and chicken frying for the Seminary picnic.) People who think - I've mentioned this before - that I'm a liberal on the strength that I don't think there's anything unnatural about a mixed marriage. And _these_ guys, despise Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al, and would not mind in the slightest if they were strung up by their thumbs and hung out to dry. Bush is a different matter, of course (the Republicans builded better than they knew when they picked that one.) They think that he's a great guy, and that if anything has gone wrong, it's because of his evil counselors - Rumsfeld in particular. Well, there's something to that, I'll concede.
And yes, David, I am worried about how fondly the rest of the world will regard America in it's relative decline in importance. I am reminded again by the comments of some wingnuts here that they really believe that if some furriner doesn't care for the current administration and it's doings, it's only because of 'politics'.
They don't seem capable of internalizing the fact that great swaths of the world likes us a lot less than they did eight years ago, and for what they think are excellent, legitimate reasons. And that it's anything but 'politics'.
Mixner:
There might be a problem if Bush were arrested(but then why did he buy property in Paraguay(Or was it Uruguay)? As far as Cheney, the only people who'd care about him getting arrested are the dead-enders. And no, Cheney doesn't get Secret Service protection after he leaves office. He'll get 6 months of protection after he leaves office because of a bill introduced by John Conyers, of all people. I'll repeat it again, no one will give a shit whether Cheney, John Yoo, Douglas Feith and David Addington are arrested.
SOV,
What's really funny about these presumptions is that I have relatives living in Limbaugh country near the Bootheel of Missouri. In a town where the Shriners parade is a high point in the cultural life, and the V.F.W. is a big deal (and every year does the grilling and chicken frying for the Seminary picnic.) People who think - I've mentioned this before - that I'm a liberal on the strength that I don't think there's anything unnatural about a mixed marriage. And _these_ guys, despise Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al, and would not mind in the slightest if they were strung up by their thumbs and hung out to dry.
Wow, an uncorroborated anecdote about the feelings of a few relatives of someone commenting here anonymously. Now that's what I call evidence.
klein,
I'll repeat it again, no one will give a shit whether Cheney, John Yoo, Douglas Feith and David Addington are arrested.
You can repeat it as many times as you like. But unless you can produce evidence that the American people would "not give a shit" if their Vice President were arrested by a foreign power and put on trial in a foreign court for war crimes--a claim so utterly implausible as to reveal a deep state of denial on the part of its proponents--you need not be taken seriously. But that's why it's called blind hatred. You are so completely consumed by your limitless hatred of Bush and Cheney that you cannot prevent yourself from believing your most ridiculous wish-fulfillment fantasies.
Dr. Weevil,
If China continued it's current rate of growth, it would catch up in 10 years(Given the generous assumption that the US grows by 4.5% a year). But nobody believes that 11% rates of growth are sustainable.
In actuality, they do not need "faster and faster" growth. If they can keep their growth above 6% on average, they will overtake us pretty quickly.
This is why every economic projection I've seen, ( http://www.economist.com/theworldin/international/displayStory.cfm?story_id=5134720&d=2006, http://sun-bin.blogspot.com/2005/12/when-will-chinas-gdp-overtake-us.html) has predicted China matching the US within the next 20 years.
As for your other point:
If China's GDP is equal to the US's in twenty years, then their GDP per capita will be roughly the same as Saudi Arabia's.
Saudi Arabia spends 10% of their GDP on the military without any huge social problems. We spend 4%. Clearly the surplus perspective isn't particularly relevant.
By the way, klein's conscience, do you also share David Shor's hope that former president Bill Clinton, and former Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, will be seized by a foreign government while travelling abroad and put on trial for war crimes for their roles in the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia?
After all, they've already been found guilty of war crimes by the Independent Commission of Inquiry to Investigate U.S./NATO War Crimes Against the People of Yugoslavia, under the prosecution of former Attorney General Ramsey Clark.
David,
China is done. Finished. They're going to flame out just the way Japan did, and for the same reason: lousy demographics. In 20 years, roughly half of all Chinese will be over 65. And with a male/female birth ratio of 1.11, there's not much chance of rectifying the demographic problem.
SoV, how's that dissertation coming?
Mixner:
Thank you, Freud. It's not blind hatred. Do you believe in the Constitution? Do you not care what politicians do in your name? How is that claim implausible? Just because you watch O'Reilly and listen to Limbaugh? What polls would you even believe if they were presented to you? I ask that because you obviously don't want to, or care to, believe any of the polls that another poster has provided links to. What are Cheney's favorability ratings right now? High single digits? Low teens? Why would most Americans(except for dead-enders like you) care what happens to Cheney? If 55% are for impeachment(of Cheney) right now, would you expect that to decrease anytime soon? I don't and it has nothing to do with hate. It has to do with people coming to the conclusion that Cheney is a bad person. Hell, you even refused to see SOV's point about Cheney, Yoo and the rest. Speaking of blind hate, it is obvious you have that problem re: Democrats.
David Shor:
I did not write that China will need "faster and faster" growth to catch up with the U.S. Do not ever put words in quotation marks if they weren't actually written by the person you are pretending to quote. I wrote that China would need "consistently faster growth", meaning they would have to grow much faster than the U.S. for all or most of the next 20 years, and that seems unlikely. (If I'd meant 'acceleratingly' or 'exponentially' faster growth, I would have written that.) Given the strains on its political, economic, and social systems, it's not clear that China will even be one country in 20 years. Of course, they may catch up. All I said was that whether they will do so is "unknown and unknowable" and that your claim that it is "fairly uncontroversial" that they will is therefore utter hogwash.
hey, whoa there, JKC, it's not like Cheney lied about a blowjob or anything.
Ed:
Thanks. ;-)
Here, in a nutshell is the liberals' problem(s).
First is the obsession with popularity. Popularity couldn't matter less. The only polls that matter take place in November. By the same reasoning, Cheney's popularity is above that of Congress. But who cares about popularity contests, besides high school girls and liberals?
Second is the lack of civic-mindedness. Cheney gave up a lucrative career in the private sector, taking a 99% pay cut, to serve his country honorably and well. Whether you agree with his policies or not, one has to respect his service. I would be as incensed by the arrest of Cheney as I would be of Clinton, Reid, or Pelosi, or God help me, even Carter. It's not the man, it's the office, and symbolic affront.
Well, if all Democrats were as stupid and obtuse as the ones in evidence in this thread, I could hardly blame him.
Fortunately, that's not the case.
But feel free to argue that the mainstream Democrat is every bit as stupid as you guys are. I enjoy the spectacle. :-)
Occam,
If China "flames out" like Japan did, at Japan's GDP per capita, they will be substantially richer than the United States.
David Schor:
It's fairly uncontroversial that China's GDP will catch up to ours in the next 20 years
Wow. You guys sure rely a lot on the assertion that your questionable and unsubstantiated assumptions are "uncontroversial." That's only one of a number of such statements in this thread.
You guys really need to get out more.
It's going well, occam. I'd explain to you the nature of my research, but, to be blunt, you simply don't have the capacity to understand it. Not your fault. Have you realized your ambition of emulating a burrowing parasite yet? What did you say about it? That it would be - oh, yes - that it would be a 'transcendent joy.' Best of luck.
On a more serious note, David, I don't think the future of conflict resolution will lie on the battlefield. That's soooo 20th century. And reserved for either the small fry squabbling amongst themselves, say, bordering countries in Africa, or through proxies for the Big Boys. As it is now, the amount of money we spend on our military - and what we get for it - is something of a joke. No, competition in the future will be much more economic in nature, and will be as much the result of clever alliances and opportune betrayals as ever it was through the law of the gun. Expect to see a return to out-&-out classic mercantilism, justified in 21st century econospeak scientifications and marketed to the masses as straight-forward political commentary while actually being the craftwork of some extremely technically minded propagandists with a serious budget to blow through.
David: It's not that uncontroversial; there's a fairly substantial school of thought that says that China's financial and legal systems will cause the growth to come to a shrieking halt. More to the point, as others have noted, the correct metric is not sheer size; it's disposable income. China is a long way away from us there, and no telling when they'll catch up. The rest of the world has a much higher GDP than ours, but their combined military force is less than or equal to the military force we can project. We're a very lucky combination of populous, rich, and well integrated.
This post seems entirely off point. There is no issue of "international justice" here. Some legal systems allow the prosecution of foreign war crimes, particularly against the citizens of the country trying the war crime. If certain US officials want to keep taking their holidays in Tuscany, this is the risk they run.
It's their own fault, the US can't withdraw from the EU, and it's unlikely to attack any NATO or EU country. What was the point of this post?
klein,
What are Cheney's favorability ratings right now? High single digits? Low teens?
There you again with your irrelevant polls. The issue is the seizure and prosecution of high-ranking U.S. government officials, including the Vice President, by foreign powers on charges of war crimes and other violations of international law, remember? Here's a recent poll on favorability for Congressional Democrats:
May we assume that you conclude from this that the American people would support the arrest and prosecution by foreign governments of Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic congressional leaders on charges of war crimes and other violations of international law?
You didn't answer my question about Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright. Are you also hoping they will be seized in Italy or Spain or France or whereever and put on trial for war crimes?
This post seems entirely off point. There is no issue of "international justice" here. Some legal systems allow the prosecution of foreign war crimes, particularly against the citizens of the country trying the war crime. If certain US officials want to keep taking their holidays in Tuscany, this is the risk they run.
It's their own fault, the US can't withdraw from the EU, and it's unlikely to attack any NATO or EU country. What was the point of this post?
Megan, once again, you make a slew of unsubstantiated assertions; why is the correct measure a per capita one, and not a national one in this instance, for example? And what makes you think that median per capita income in America won't decrease?
For that matter, what has the size of a countries military have to do with anything these days? Not much, beyond anything having to do with defense, I would wager. And the military apparatus of the world is only going to become less relevant, not more (crosses fingers against apocolyptic scenarios.)
No serious defense analyst believes that China's military capabilities could or will remotely rival those of the United States within the foreseeable future. It's not just a matter of China not being able to match our level of spending, but of our vastly superior scientific and technological capabilities.
Here's the summary of a 2005 RAND study on the prospects for China's future military capabilities. Money quote:
Megan, you've picked quite the topic. If comment threads are an indicator of success or failure.
As I've said before this turned into a question on the future of the Chinese Economy. People who speak of arresting an ex President at De Gaulle or Frankfurt are not thinking rationally. And the idea of arresting a man whose only official power is to brake a tie in the Senate is as ludicrous. Yes, Cheney said "so?" when told that 70+% of the people in the US disapprove of the war in Iraq. However, that doesn't change the fact a VP has little real power and a lot of prestige. Don't confuse emotional repulsion with a reasoned argument. In anything resembling a trial, all the defense would have to do would pull a copy of the constitution out and say "this is all the real power he had." Bush gave him undue influence yes, but influence is not power, the rheins of power determine responsibility.
For a foreign government to arrest an ex-cabinet member or above would result in immediate diplomatic problems. You can bet that everybody from the basements of the Monroe building to the Oval office will scream bloody murder. Arresting a stooge while not very satisfying would be less of a problem. However, I doubt any US seated government would allow an American citizen to be tried in a foreign or international court without compelling reasons to do so. As I suggested before it would be a show from start to finish. Megan is right in that Ultimately it would probably not be allowed to occurr. I think that if it were the right guy, that there is a chance he'd be on the line clothespins and all.
On a side note. China has an array of problems, not the least of which is unfavorable demographics. Me being the closet optimist that I am, I think they could overcome them and attain a serious position as a competitor with the US. As to the future defense posture of the US... thats a little more than a note.
Our Hostess Megan types:
Ms. McArdle, please stop this. Life is not "unfair," it is arbitrary. It is people, & the systems & structures they establish, that are often touted as "fair," but seldom are.
Equating mass murder w/ "unrequited love" & so on is shameful. The dissatisfactions of aging are being dealt w/, by various entities trying to reduce or lessen at least the physical dissatisfactions. There are laws about child abuse, although they may not reach into the psychological realm. (Not that I'm really sure what you mean by "say horrible things.")
But to say that there are problems not easily solvable, & to note some of the statements in your "politics" item below, you seem to think that doing anything will usually have a bad end, that nothing will ever really change, & certainly not for the good, at least implying we just shouldn't bother. Why aren't you then an anarchist or the like? After all, no amount of laws will ever completely stop murder & the like, so why not just ignore the whole thing & let people be free to do whatever they want, to whomever they want?
Bush, Cheney, and probably Rumsfeld are off limits, but I think some people are making a mistake in thinking that the American people will care if some ex-Bush lackey gets arrested in Europe. I'd wager that 90% of Americans have no idea who David Addington or John Yoo are, and if they had occasion to wonder during some publicized trial, someone who'd read a newspaper in the past week would tell them softly "oh, they worked for George Bush, and they beat up some innocent German citizens, so now they're being put on trial."
Seriously, if Yoo or Addington or Feith got Nuremberged, I could see the Wall Street Journal throwing a fit, I could see the Weekly Standard agitating for a ground invasion, and I could see the National Review organizing a covert rescue operation that fails when Jonah Goldberg's ample backside lodges in a window frame he's trying to crawl through.
And that's about the only reaction you'll get. Seriously, do not underestimate the ignorance or apathy of the American public.
Pretty much spot on, Jeff. Though as I said, there are more than a few ex-military who are a might ticked off at Rumsfeld and who are in no way, shape or form 'liberals'. No camelbacks? No humvee armor? Treating war-wounded vets with about as much respect as you would treat a broken pair of pliers? These old soldiers may be died-in-the-the-wool, rock-ribbed racist Republicans, Southern style, but they know when the troops are being supported and when they're not, and no amount of gassing from senior-level officials is going to change that fact. Not when they have members in the family currently serving, and they can see what's going on with their own two eyes.
What a 'rational' argument, Ben! If anyone ever tells me that Spiro Agnew was arrested, tried, and convicted of crimes (well, actually nolo contendre, I believe. A bit before my time.) I'll explain that his only 'official' power is to break a possible tie in the Senate. That'll show 'em whose boss.
Jeff-
Now is hardly an apathetic time. It will be interesting to see voter turnouts this year. I agree with you though, it is certainly a possibility.
I'd wager that 90% of Americans have no idea who David Addington or John Yoo are
But they'd certainly know shortly after Addington or Yoo were seized by Spanish or Italian police and imprisoned in a foreign jail on charges of war crimes for performing their functions as U.S. government officials.
I think we should just leave you to your insane fantasies. No European nation is going to be foolish enough to start kidnapping high-ranking U.S. government officials for politically-motivated show trials on foreign soil.
Why is the correct measure a per capita one, and not a national one in this instance, for example?
Because, grasshopper...as anyone with any passing experience in logistics will tell you, out of that aggregated Chinese GDP, you have to feed, house, and support more than 1 billion people. We need only support a fraction of that.
The problem China has is all the more apparent when one stops to consider that 30 minutes after their meal, they become hungry all over again.
And what makes you think that median per capita income in America won't decrease?
Christ on a crotchrocket, dude... earlier today you were projecting current Chinese growth indefinitely into the future, based solely on current figures. So you tacitly acknowledged, that such reasoning was valid in this context. But all of a sudden, now you're attempting to discredit your own methodology!
Jeez. By that token, what makes you think that the median per capita income (actually, we're really talking about productivity not income) in China won't decrease, as a result of their aging population and low birth rate?
Critical reasoning skills. Catch the feveh.
I think you missed the point. Japan hasn’t finished flaming out yet; they’re still in the power dive phase heading for the ground.
Ultimately Japan and China both will have a huge cadre of retirees, and a lot fewer people to support them. Granted, they won’t have a lot of superannuated grad students who purport to be doing hopelessly esoteric research at Moo U., but they’ll have more than their share of non-productive people nonetheless.
Me being the closet optimist that I am, I don’t they have a dog’s chance of becoming a serious competitor of the US in the long run. Their only way out is to figure out how to give birth to 15 year olds.
Childish musing about arresing American officials overseas for war crimes is of a piece with the various dens of lunacy (e.g., Berkeley) that declare their cities to be "nuclear-free zones" and attempt to conduct their own foreign policy. Strictly symbolic posturing, not to be taken seriously by grownups.
Mixner:
Kidnapping? No one is talking about secret rendition(Though Bush thinks that is okay). We are talking about Yoo or Addington being arrested if they were to step foot in that particular country(Like say, on vacation). Get your head out of your ass. By the way, were you in favor of Clinton's impeachment?
Neither did Clinton, who started the policy (with which I have no problem, for either President).
Does that help you overcome your reservations?
I think we should just leave you to your insane fantasies. No European nation is going to be foolish enough to start kidnapping high-ranking U.S. government officials for politically-motivated show trials on foreign soil.
While I think I'd challenge your characterization of a war crimes prosecution carried out by some EU members as a "poliically-motivated show trial," (I guess it could turn out that way; there's no reason why it has to) I agree it's a long shot. There really just isn't anything to be gained by it, and a fair amount to be lost. I just think the idea that there will be some sort of massive public outrage that forces the next Administration into action to protect somebody like John Yoo is ludicrous. Nobody on either side of the Atlantic much likes George W. Bush anymore; you really think anyone's going to cry themselves to sleep at night over the prospect that one of his ex-minions (whom they've never heard of) is going to wind up in prison? Not bloody likely.
This morning an attempted post of mine here was greeted with a notice that it would be sent for review by the editor/administrator/boss/whomever. Was it reviewed and rejected? Was some spam filter triggered by the name "George Monbiot" or "John Bolton"?
klein,
Kidnapping? No one is talking about secret rendition
I didn't say they were. Kidnapping is not secret rendition.
Any answer yet on those notorious war criminals, Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright? Do you share David Shor's hope that they will be arrested by police in Spain or Italy, imprisoned, and put on trial for war crimes in a foreign court?
The only solution is to try them ourselves, here in this country. Then the nationalist angle doesn't come into play.
Jeff,
You seem determined to keep missing the point. If a credible case against him could be made, which I doubt, there would probably be little American public outrage if John Yoo were arrested in the United States and tried under United States law in a United States court. There would almost certainly be massive public outrage if the same thing were done to him by a foreign government on foreign soil in a foreign court. The fundamental issue is not Yoo or any other particular individual, it's the idea that foreign governments could go around seizing high-ranking United States government officials, locking them up on foreign soil, and subjecting them to "prosecutions" in foreign courts for alleged violations of international law. Again, if you seriously believe the American people would stand for that you are just deluded. It is especially deluded to think that the American people would stand to have their Presidents or Vice Presidents subjected to that kind of treatment by foreign governments.
As if the Europeans have any standing to criticize anyone's human rights record.
Any of them. The whole continent is chock a block with monstrous societies that have perpetrated moral obscenities for millennia.
Spain and Portugal virtually invented African slavery, at least in respect of the New World, not to mention the Inquisition. Furthermore, their colonial record is, shall we say, mixed? The Spanish Civil War was legendary for its gratuitous brutality.
Britain and France were involved in the slave trade up to their eyeballs, and their colonial record is also, shall we say, mixed? Who fought a war to force dope on a country (Opium War), imprisoned civilians in concentration camps more deadly than battlefields (Boer War), and tied mutineers across the muzzles of cannon and then fired them (Sepoy Mutiny)?
The French astonished even the Germans in the alacrity with which they pursued French Jews for the death camps. And which country was notorious for the brutality with which it fought Algerian separatists?
Sweden and Switzerland profited mightily by trading with the Nazis, the latter allowing troops trains free transit and pocketing money from exterminated Jews.
And as for the Germans themselves, well, they would do well to keep their mouths shut until 2933, when the Thousand Year Reich would have expired.
Europe's victims would have been thrilled to end up in Gitmo.
Europe is old, enfeebled, and a historical backwater now, better suited to the status of a theme park than a world force. But when the Europeans could still get it up, they were brutal in ways no American has ever thought of.
I think some people are making a mistake in thinking that the American people will care
I think that almost everyone here is making a mistake to think that what the American people care about means squat. The American people don't get to make the decision. Politicians and officials with their own power and post-government life to consider make the decision.
Whether or not you like Feith or Yoo, if you're an official with a similar position, you'll scream bloody murder, and the President will have to listen to that chorus.
If we're talking about war crimes, we must remember that large parts of the United States are in violation of Article 26 of the Geneva convention which says: "The use of tobacco shall be permitted."
No-smoking areas are a war crime!
Occam:
Really? By that logic, if my grandfather was a murderer, I mustn't vote to convict when I'm on a jury trying a guy for murder.
Every country with a history at all has some bloody stuff in that history--go ask the survivors of the trail of tears (US ethnic cleansing of American Indians). Every government, every people, every religion. If nobody with blood in their history is allowed to say anything about evil stuff happening today, then nobody is allowed to say anything about evil stuff happening today. That serves nobody but the people doing evil stuff.
We have every right to complain about genocide in the Sudan, even though we did some very nasty stuff to American Indians that got in the way, even though we had slavery, even though we have done all kinds of nasty stuff.
rather than reveal that the institution does not have the actual ability to rein in its most powerful member
The UN can't reign in ANY of its members. That's part of the problem, really.
What all this talk of "International Law" and world government disguises is that relations between countries do not operate by the same rules as relations between individuals.
For all the posturing, speechifying and rule making that goes on, the real secret of international relation is that it operates exactly like the relations between the Crips and the Bloods.
"Soft power" is meaningless without Orwell's "Rough Men."
ScentOfViolets: I don't think the future of conflict resolution will lie on the battlefield. That's soooo 20th century.
Tell me, how many highschool girls actually fell for your post-historic insights?
Or, if you prefer not to, please explain what is it about the 21st century that will make humans abandon their ways of the last 50,000 years and turn peacable? It is the innate goodness of Chinese, Indians, Iranians and Brazilians? Or what?
Megan,
Seizing US officials and trying them for war crimes will be perceived by most of the American public as an act of war.
You dramatically overestimate the percentage of the American public that knows who David Addington is, or cares. This is who Horton thinks needs to worry about their travel plans: "Haynes, Feith, Yoo, Bybee, Gonzales and--at the apex--Addington." There is no great reservoir of outrage in the American public waiting to well up at any country that charges Stephen Haynes or John Yoo with war crimes. No one ever voted for them, and few people know who these people were who were writing up the US's plans for torturing detainees.
As with Kissinger, the anxiety over the political consequences of possible arrest has nothing to do with the feelings of American voters. It has to do with the political weight that would be exerted by the US government to preserve impunity for its current officials. The main people who would be enraged by prosecution of Doug Feith aren't American voters. They're civil servants in the Pentagon. And those people, obviously, have power.
Joe-
I wager he's speaking about the modern insurgency movement. Which ultimately is not defeated on a linear battlefield by tanks and planes. The future of warfare aside. The ultimate goal of an insurgency eventually is to transition and gain enough conventional properties to drive the enemy out of the disputed territory.
"Point two: contrary to her usual confidant pronouncements in the complete absence of supporting data, the idea of the rule of law is _not_ a liberal thing, it's a moderate thing, supported by the vast majority of the American people."
True in the domestic arena, but the vast majority of the American people know that there's no such thing as the rule of law in the international arena as long as former Soviet officials and current officials of murderous nations such as North Korea, Cuba, and Uganda travel freely around Europe. Have the nations that are supposed to do this even arrested their own businessmen and politicians who profited from misusing the "Oil for Food" program to sell Saddam limousines and weapons components? Have they protested the UN making a mockery of human rights by allowing countries such as Syria to sit on the Human Rights Commission? Who did they put on trial when their troops on loan to the UN were found extorting sex in return for food at refugee camps?
As long as leftists get a pass for crimes hundreds of times as great as anything the USA has done lately, Americans will see an "international" court putting Americans on trial as a kangaroo court.
Scentofviolets, as a side note, Spiro Agnew was not tried for anything he did as Vice President, but for corruption in state offices before he became VP. I don't recall Agnew being involved in Watergate - and if Nixon had kept some reins on his "dirty tricks" crew, his administration would have been the perfect illustration of how to be morally monstrous while staying within the law.
I get your point Megan, but I don't like how at the end you say that the unilateral removal of the constitution by the president, and subsequent torture, sometimes of verifiably innocent people, is "American politics."
Rob Lyman raises a very good point. Few American voters care what happens to John Yoo, but many powerful people in government care.
However, once there's an outstanding warrant for his arrest somewhere, he may not want to run the risk of getting arrested by going there. That's true whether the final result is an arrest and trial (maybe provoking a response by the US), or simply holding him in a jail cell until the next flight back to the US. Either one will at least spoil your vacation in Italy. And if he's arrested, he will have to worry about whether current US officials are going to decide to throw
him to the wolves for their own reasons, which could definitely happen. (It's not like anyone's going to go to war with Spain or break up NATO over arresting Yoo on an outstanding warrant. The most likely outcome of that seems to my uninformed mind to be a negotiation that sends him back to the US, but I'd hate to bet my freedom on that guess. (OTOH, John Yoo's guess would be much better informed than mine.)
Yes, I am aware of the history. The original assertion was that the vice president could not be found guilty of any crimes committed as vice president, since the office has little actual power. My point is that this was not so. In fact, this is ludicrous when you think about it: suppose a vp is found to have passed state secrets to a foreign power. Can the defense argue that this is not an act of treason by virtue of how little constitutional power the office of vp has? Of course not.
Violet-
Well what if he shot someone in the head on camera? If he personally breaks the law one on one then you're correct. But he is not being accused of that (Valerie Plame's incident could have been an example, but ultimately it seems to have been Armitage). Dick Cheney did not put a bag on someones head and poor water on it, nor does he constitutionally have the power to order someone else to perform such an act. He is not part of the military chain of command. He has little real power. Any little part he does play is through the discretion of the President.
Sigh. We don't know what would come out in discovery. You're speculating, and speculating in such a way as to automatically clear him. One easy scenario with perhaps two seconds of thought: the president specifically delegates authority to the vp, just as various presidents have appointed 'drug czars' and granted them special authority. Given that the president is also the CIC, I would imagine that this ability would only be enhanced.
These scenarios are not at all difficult to concoct, so I'm guessing you're very much anything but nonpartisan.
Also, the American people are smart enough to know that this is pure left-wing politics. I mean, no Soviet official ever feared to travel in Europe. When Pinochet was being arrested, Castro was eating dinner with King Juan Carlos. I know that the kind of people who write for the New Republic (and many who write for The Atlantic) think tht the average American isn't smart enough to notice this sort of thing, but we are.
Posted by y81
Good comment, add in besides the Soviets and Cubans being feted in Europe, not a peep comes out of them on arresting any member of visiting Chinese delegations they know had a hand in Tibetan cleansings or the persecution of internal dissidents. Not to mention how the Euros fall over themselves to out-whore the others in their grovelling welcomes to high-spending mass-murdering Muslim despots out to recyle a few hundred million in Petrodollars on Spain holiday, Swiss Alps getaways, Parisian shopping sprees, or hitting the old country manor in England now fit for a Saudi Prince with separate quarters and hallways built to isolate the women and the unclean UK infidel servant staff.
Given all the "passes" the Euros have given to human rights violators on the Left and in the Muslim world, any arrest of Americans would justly be seen as singling us out for hostility.
And it would be just as intolerable to arrest mid-level people as it would the prestige names, in American eyes. If you think Americans will not care about an arrest of a Bolton or Yoo, you are crazy.
And add into that any arrest of military, CIA officers that go in harm's way to do duty and defend America would put Americans in a killing rage against not just the arresting country, but any people in America that support such selective attacks by Leftist Europeans against Americans and no other people.
And despite Lefty claims that Americans are just aching to drag Dubya, the neocons, and several heroes of the Army and Marines off to "international law" war crimes trials - we all saw how that weird little idiot Dennis Kucinich's quest to impeach Dubya for War Crimes turned out. Not even Pelosi wanted to deal with something that radioactive.
If you think Americans will not care about an arrest of a Bolton or Yoo, you are crazy. - chris ford
I don't believe John Bolton has ever been implicated before in the crafting of the US's torture policies, so you may want to watch out for slander there. I hope you have evidence to back up your claim that he might be liable to indictment on these grounds.
You dramatically overestimate the percentage of the American public that knows who David Addington is, or cares. This is who Horton thinks needs to worry about their travel plans: "Haynes, Feith, Yoo, Bybee, Gonzales and--at the apex--Addington." There is no great reservoir of outrage in the American public waiting to well up at any country that charges Stephen Haynes or John Yoo with war crimes.
There doesn't need to be a response by the public, one will be manufactured on a bipartisan basis (and it won't be difficult).
You'll remember that both parties of Congress rushed to change the law to prevent Bill Jefferson from facing justice for accepting bribes.
If Cheney can be held accountable by another country for "harmful" political activity, that means Pelosi could as well (how much damage to foreign economies is done by our "harmful" farm subsidy regime?). If there's one thing Democrat and Republican politicians/civil servants agree on, it's that there shall be no meaningful accountability to speak of (not to suggest that European countries arresting American citizens for political "crimes" that happened outside of Europe constitutes "meaningful accountability").
albatross,
You're absolutely right. I was turning the traditional leftist "sins of the father" argument around on its purveyors.
So you then agree that Americans bear no responsibility whatsoever for, e.g., slavery? Not just modern Americans, but indeed any Americans, since slavery predated the founding of the country, and no one blames an infant for being born with a venereal disease, does he?
"But most of the European militaries are 90% national service,"
Except for the french, and the UK and the germans
and the italians and the dutch and the belgians and spain and portugal and etc etc .
The largest conscript force on the continent is of course the russians.
Do you ever actually check these 'facts' or do you just pull them out of the sack of your apparently boundless ignorance?
" and commit to theater only on the condition that their troops won't get shot at. My money's on the Russians."
Yes that's right, europeans would treat russian expansionism into an eu country exactly the same as afghanistan....
So we have a situation where we have the EU v the Russians. The EU has a much larger population,a larger and better trained/equipped military, a larger industrial base, in fact all the advantages required to win a war.
But you think the russians would win, simply because most europeans decided to give the moronic idiocy of iraq a pass and they must therefore be effete and helpless so unlike your manly heroic US.
Of course you apparently beleived the iraqis would be glad to be bombed & tortured by the US so you'll understand if i regard your views with some scepticism.
Shinyk: I think we are making the same argument.
On another aspect of the debate here, "Not to mention how cute they'll all look trying to hem in Russian expansionism without the implicit threat of the American troops now stationed in their countries." -- is really odd. "Russian expansionism" means the takeover of Russian assets of multinational oil companies by well-connected Russian oil companies, and the use of profits from same to purchase English football clubs. Russia has no territorial designs on any EU countries. Think for a second. What would they invade Poland for? The oil? The diamonds? The timber? The plumbers? (They've all left for the UK by now anyway.) Russian territorial expansionism made sense in feudal and Communist political and economic environments. Today, it is gibberish, except in areas of former Soviet republics with large ethnic Russian populations.
Okay, okay, I know: Estonia. Okay, David Addington should feel free to vacation in Estonia I guess.
Shinyk: I think we are making the same argument.
Yes and no. Yes, we agree that the political class will drive any concern about US officials being arrested by foreign governments for policy-related "crimes," if only because of self-preservation.
However, I also believe that the cacaphony from every corner of the political class will make the average American care as well, which isn't, itself, a bad thing.
Though I presonally hope that Hell has a special place set aside for John "Constitution says the President is a dictator" Yoo and Doug "I'm having lunch with suspected foreign agents" Feith, allowing foreign governments to prosecute US diplomats/politicians/civil servants for political "crimes" ("crimes" that did not occur on the soil of those nations) sets a terrible precedent: that European courts have primacy over the goings on in all foreign lands, including the US.
Not to mention, I suspect allowing Europe to arrest people like Feith could give legal cover to something that will smell an awful lot like extortion.
Megan says "No, nor do I have any suggestion for how to deal with the perennial problem of unrequited love, the dissatisfactions of aging..." Ooh, ooh, I have an idea!
It's still a long way of (if even possible) but take a look at _Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime_, by Aubrey de Grey and Michael Rae. (Click my name for the Amazon URL.)
Except one: the will to sustain casualties, and to win.
Rather like Democrats, actually.
This statement defines "sophomoric," for several reasons.
First, you have no effing idea what Russia does or does not have designs on. Probably the Russians don't have a great grasp on this, either. So to pontificate on the matter is risible.
Second, why would Russian expansionism make sense in the "feudal and Communist ...environments" but not now?
Third, anyone would a nodding familiarity with history knows that a recurring theme driving Russian expansionism is the desire for a warm water port. Where exactly is Russia's warm water port today?
Fourth is the imputation of your psychology onto that of the Russian leadership. You might reason such (as would I), but some people are driven by their own inner demons to want more and more, even when they already have plenty (see, e.g., Microsoft trying to acquire Yahoo). On the merits, few world conquerors actually needed conquest, they just ... felt like it. To impute rationality to major players virtually defines a sophomoric perspective.
You are Harold Brashears AICMFP.
First, you have no effing idea what Russia does or does not have designs on.
By the same token and to the same degree I have no idea what Brazil does or does not want, but US defense policy is not predicated on the likelihood of a Brazilian invasion of Argentina. Megan chose the Russian threat to W Europe precisely because of speculations about Russian desires. Misplaced ones.
Second, why would Russian expansionism make sense in the "feudal and Communist ...environments" but not now?
Russian expansionism to the East in the imperial period made sense because at the time land was the chief source of wealth and power, and obviously Siberia continues to have immense resources today. Russian expansion to the West made sense under Communism because installing socialist client states enhanced the wealth, security and power of the Soviet bloc, of which the Russian Politburo sat at the apex. In today's world, in an era of nation-states, it's impossible to conquer and rule ethnolinguistically alien territory, and the wealth and power of Russia's ruling class are tied to corporate interests that cannot conceivably profit from a war to conquer Poland.
Third, anyone would a nodding familiarity with history knows that a recurring theme driving Russian expansionism is the desire for a warm water port. Where exactly is Russia's warm water port today?
Naschet istorii, kazhetsya, vy ne znaete s kem vy govorite.
Russsia's warm water ports today are St. Petersburg, Rostov-na-Don, Vladivostok and Archangelsk. Thanks, global warming!
Fourth is the imputation of your psychology onto that of the Russian leadership. You might reason such (as would I), but some people are driven by their own inner demons
So it's ludicrous to speculate about Russian motives based on historical evidence, contemporary evidence, or the assumption that they are rational human beings, but it makes perfect sense to hypothesize they're about to invade Poland.
For a country with no designs on westward expansion , the Russians sure raise holy hell when the countries they have no designs on express an interest in developing purely defensive technologies such as anti-ballistic missile defenses and becoming members of NATO.
Jeez... How many times do the Russians have to expand westward does it take before a libtard gets it through his head that Russians like to expand westward?
Jason of Stone Neighborhood,
Mexico had better start developing a nuclear deterrent. How many times does the US have to expand southwestward before its neighbors get it through their heads that the US likes to expand southwestward?
Or perhaps the incentives regarding territorial expansion have shifted somewhat in the past hundred years?
Misplaced according to whom? You? You've already admitted you have no idea what you're talking about. Under such conditions, grownups would make the calculation in view of the worst case scenario. Brazil has no history of threatening Argentina, and even if it did, would have no effect on us. Russia has a long history of threatening its neighbors - indeed, most of its modern history consists of such threats - and success on their part would have a large effect on us. Therefore we have to consider the possibility seriously.
I just finished re-reading Barbara Tuchman's Guns of August, in which she describes how Europe's elites thought war was obsolete, because no state could afford to wage war given their interlocking economies. How did that work out?
Your argument rests on an assumption of rationality in Russia's "ruling classes" (whatever those are). Read history - remove miscalculations from history books and they'd be history pamphlets.
Nothing today is any different than any day in the past. Effectively, in this regard, nothing has changed since Themosticles.
First, global warming is horseshit. No one of normal intelligence takes it seriously. It's already past its sell-by date. In a few years it'll be the punchline of a joke, joining Y2K, killer bees, bell bottoms, eight track tapes, and shark summer.
Second, those four ports were always available to Russia, and yet were not considered adequate. St. Petersburg, like all Baltic ports, is easily blockaded. Rostov is even easier to blockade; a couple of Turks with BB guns in the
Dardenelles will suffice. Vladisvostok is a bit ...inconvenient...shall we say, for European Russia. But Archangel will be pleased to learn that it is a warm water port now.
No, it's not ludicrous, you've just ignored the historical and contemporary evidence, that's all. The frightening part is your assumption that they're rational human beings. Let's face it, you're not, not even close. Most people aren't. (Look at sales of lottery tickets.) The question is not whether the Russians are about to invade Poland (like they've never done that, right?), but what happens if they do? They have the capability, they have the motivation, they have the history, so considering the possibility is not silly, but simply prudent.
Here's a poser for you: can you think of any world leaders in history who were not entirely rational? So you agree that George Bush has made a completely rational and sensible (albeit sometimes tactically erroneous) calculation of the interests of the U.S.? (I believe he has, but I bet the words would stick in your throat.) How about the Argentinian junta that invaded the Falklands? Rational? Saddam - rational? Dinnerjacket - rational? Stalin - rational? The Kaiser - rational? French international policy from 1870 to 1940 - rational? (France started the Franco-Prussian War, and viewed WWI as a great chance for revanche.) Rational? Hitler attacking Russia - rational?
Don't intellectualize your way out of the obvious truth standing in front of you. If a gang of Hell's Angels moved in next door to you, would you just say they're a bunch of high-spirited fun-loving boys who like motorcycles but mean no one any harm, or would you consider some other not so saccharine scenarios?
Occam,
Ne znaesh o chem ty govorish. Ty nichevo ne znaesh o russkoi istorri, nichevo ne znaesh o struckturi russkoi gosudarstvii, nichevo ne znaesh ob interesakh rossii s tochki zreniya ekonomii, bezopasnostii, ili politicheskikh interes russkoi pravitelstva. V obshchem to, tvoi mnenii nikomu ne interesuyut. Idi igrat s tvoimi tankochkami.
Tvoi
Matt
Cute, but I don't speak Hebrew.
You know, there's nothing more boorish than someone showing off his irrelevant knowledge of a foreign language in front of a bunch of people he doesn't know in order to look superior to someone else.
Tovarich Steinglass,
Mojet bit ya toje govaryu i ponimayu Russki yazik. Mojet buit ya toje znayu ob russkom istori, ekonomii, etc.
Y ya tebya skazhite, Ya znayu russki, po ya toje znayu shto ya ne znayu. Po ya toje znayu, ti ne znaesh o chem ti govarish.
(Comrade Steinglass,
Maybe I also speak and understand the Russian langage, and maybe I also know about Russian history, economics, literature, etc.
And I'm telling you, I know Russian, but I also know what I don't know. But I also know that you don't know what you're talking about either.)
Now can we keep it in English, and try to address the substance of Occam's argument?
Geez.
By the way...I'm sure the inhabitants of Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, the Ukraine, and the Baltic States will be very interested to hear your conclusion that the Russians have abandoned their historic brutality and territorialism and have no desire to occupy lands where they aren't wanted.
They always did enjoy a good laugh.
It's getting a bit long in the thread to expect a reasonable answer but in case anyone is still paying attention, how do the Americans so annoyed over the possibility of other countries' law being appled to them feel about the situationw where the US aserts jurisdiction over the murder of an American anywhere in the world? Is this something you are comfortable with the Italian, British or Australian Governments doing, including over Americans and if not, why not?
I've answered this nonsense of Megan's in a post on dailykos:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/6/23/43312/9899/512/540526
Clinton bombed Iraq in 1998 based on the same intel as Bush used. He's been traveling since then all over the world and has not been arrested yet.
Tony Blair even is considered for a EU head job.
Methinks people who want Bush or Cheney (!) arrested might not like the logical extension of their ideas.
Russia is not going to invade Poland because it has no reason to. It's not that it has some reasons to and some reasons not to, like the German invasion of France in 1914, or the US's invasion of Iraq in 2003; Russia simply has no reason to invade Poland. It is not in its interests to do so, there is no one in Russia interested in doing so, there is nothing to be gained, there is no point to it. Russia is not going to invade Poland for the same reasons the US is not going to invade Mexico and Britain is not going to invade Normandy: it makes no fricking sense. Occam's argument that people in the past have often done things that make no sense is an argument devoid of value, because it is an argument for the equal likelihood of all actions by all humans, which means we need to spend equal resources preparing for the risk that 298 million Americans will tomorrow commit suicide by frankfurter-eating contest. (And then who will run the power plants? Hm?)
As I already said, Russia does pose a threat of intervention on behalf of separatist ethnolinguistically Russian areas in former Soviet republics. But those countries are not members of the EU, except for the Baltics, and they are not about to issue arrest warrants for US officials, so they have nothing to do with the argument Megan presented, which is that those silly Europeans will regret prosecuting US officials when they find themselves without American troops to defend them against the Russkies. Germany, Spain, Czech Republic, Austria, Italy, Belgium, Finland, Sweden -- these countries do not stay awake at night worrying about Russian attack; they would have to be stupid to do so. And as I said above, I would bet that David Addington can probably count on continuing to travel to Estonia. The question is whether he can count on continuing to travel to Spain, France and Germany, and whether those countries would be making a stupid move by declaring him persona non grata. Megan's argument that this would be unwise because they would be at the mercy of Russian tanks seems to me to be plucked out of a Jeane Kirkpatrick speech from 1983 -- one which wasn't even true then.
The Ukraine is ethnolinguistically Russian? Armenia is ethnolinguistically Russian? Azerbaijan?
Did you have a big, heaping bowl of dumb flakes for breakfast? Now I REALLY know you don't know what you're talking about.
Russia is not going to invade Poland because Poland is a member of NATO. Which they were falling all over themselves to join.
Apparently for no particular reason.
Must have been those cool T-shirts.
Uh, Jason, didn't you write this:
Given your unutterable stupidity here - and the lack of reading skills, go back and see who made the claim you're attributing to me - I don't see you as anyone who needs to be answered.
1) Technically, I think the analysis is right. There is probably at least enough evidence to hold senior Bush officials for war crimes. Whether they would be convicted in a fair trial is a harder question to ask.
2) People are right that the system of international justice is widely seen as biased. The system would break if they applied it impartially and tried the government of Daniel Ortega, the government of Iran, the former Soviets, Vladamir Putin, Robert Mugabe, etc. etc. etc.
(Of course, I don't know much about international law. For all I know, Hugo Chavez has stopped traveling after evidence of his involvement in international terror surfaced, for fear of a European summons and trial. But I doubt it.)
They don't now, but that's because of us. If, in a few years, the U.S. indulges its traditional streak of isolationism, and a Russian demogogue arises, the demand for Depends in Europe will skyrocket.
And since when do countries eschew invading "ethnolinguistically distinct" neighbors? ("We were going to invade them, but then we realized that they are ethnolinguistically different, so we jacked in that plan.") Maybe that was the American Indians defensive strategy. ("Ug, white man no invade-um us. We ethnolinguistically distinct.")
And Jason is right re Ukrainian/Russian. My Ukrainian grandfather had to have letters from home (written in Russian, as the Soviets required) translated for him into Ukrainian, because he couldn't understand Russian. Guess the Russians didn't get the memo that Ukraine is ethnolinguistically distinct from Russia. Boy, I bet they'll be embarrassed when they find out they inadvertently invaded an ethnolinguistically distinct country.
I did not write that China will need "faster and faster" growth to catch up with the U.S. Do not ever put words in quotation marks if they weren't actually written by the person you are pretending to quote.
Clearly you are not aware of all Internet traditions.
[/meme]
iolanthe asks "how do the Americans ... feel about the situationw where the US aserts jurisdiction over the murder of an American anywhere in the world?"
I'm not sure I'm aware of the situation you are referring to, so my answers are somewhat contingent and hypothetical. If you have URL I could look into it.
I am unhappy with some of the extra-territoriality claims of the US Government I am aware of. For example there was an arrest of foreign citizens (British, I believe) charged with running an off-shore gambling operation that was accessible to US citizens over the internet. That reach seemed wrong.
If, hypothetically, some US tourist in France gets killed by a criminal in France, I'm more than happy, and indeed expect, that the French Government would investigate and prosecute under French law, rather than the US trying to assert juristiction. I suppose in some weird situation (e.g., the murder escapes France, and is caught on the run years later by US officials, while French Law is [hypothetically] such that this person can no longer be convicted or reasonably punished in France) I could be ok with the US prosecuting the murder, rather than extraditing the fugitive to France.
On the other hand, you could be referring to something like the US attack on Libya in response to Libyan government terrorists killing Americans on European territory in their terrorist plots. The bombing of Libya was not a judicial action, but I thought that was legitimate.
Certainly the entire invasion of Afghanistan was an extra-territorial action outside of the US in part to enforce US demands on actors who engaged in actions outside the US (viz. plotting the 9-11 attack). I fully approved of invading Afghanistan for this.
I'm sorry. I suspect you mean something specific by your question that I haven't really answered.
iolanthe, I think it's an overreach too. I suspect the logic was to provide a legal basis for going after criminals that attacked Americans where the chance of judicial redress was nil.
Scent of Violets,
You are correct. It was not you who postulated that Chinese growth would remain relatively constant in the future, relative to the US. That was David Shor's reasoning.
I withdraw that portion of the post as it applies to you, with my apologies.
They don't now, but that's because of us. If, in a few years, the U.S. indulges its traditional streak of isolationism, and a Russian demogogue arises, the demand for Depends in Europe will skyrocket.
So the traditional method of putting a bit more of their vastly superior production capabilities, GDP, and numbers towards defense spending will not suffice?
It's funny that Russia is invoked uncritically as a bogeyman all through these comments, because demographically, they're a dying country.