US Commits Murder--So Say The Usual Suspects

Late yesterday afternoon the White House issued a revision of the "Osama Meets The SEALs" narrative.  Almost instantly the usual suspects sprang into action with denunciations of the US as a criminal enterprise.  The High Minded and Lofty Thinking protectors of human rights ranging from the ever present UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, all the way to German ex-chancellor Helmut Schmidt and assorted human rights lawyers and activists have alleged that the US commandos engaged in flat out assassination in violation of international law.

One man, the UN Special Rapporteur for human rights and fundamental freedoms, Martin Scheinin, a Finnish lawyer who has leveled criticisms against the US and its war on terror in the past, swam against the prevailing current.  In Sheinin's view the US did not violate international law but rather strengthened it by having used a means which provided bin Laden with the possibility of surrendering.  Scheinin takes the rational position that had bin Laden "raised the white flag" he would have avoided being killed on the spot.

Scheinin is right and the others, the legions of those High Minded and Lofty Thinking folks whose hearts have been blighted by the idea that Osama bin Laden is dead, are wrong.  The SEALs are tightly disciplined and very highly trained professional warriors who would have accepted any affirmative sign of surrender on the part of bin Laden.  The mere fact that he gave no such signal--which need be no more complex than raising the hands--in the context of armed resistance by others is sufficient.  Absent a clear and unambiguous sign of submission (something at which any Muslim should be well accomplished),  the man or men present were well within the limits of legal requirement and mission briefing alike to push the delete key on the terrorist leader.

In one of the cited articles, the Asia director for Human Rights Watch demanded that "law enforcement" procedures should apply in situations such as that in the bin Laden compound.  It is unclear just what might be meant by the words chosen, but it is doubtful that any law enforcement personnel facing an identical situation with a known criminal gang engaged in armed resistance would have acted other than did the SEALs.  The HRW executive missed the point--in a context of armed resistance, when facing a man with known propensities for resistance, an individual is compelled to use deadly force unless there is a clear, unmistakable sign of surrender.

While it may bother those whose lives are so orderly and well protected that they have never had to make the sort of decisions made by either special forces troops or law enforcement personnel, the reality is as Mr Scheinin inferred in his assessment: The onus is on the person facing arrest to surrender.  In short, Osama bin Laden chose to die rather than submit, a course of action in keeping with his life philosophy and religious ideology.

Helmut Schmidt among others drew a series of incorrect analogies from history.  For example, opponents of the American action have invoked both the Nuremberg trials and that of Slobodan Milosevic as the paradigms for the handling of Osama bin Laden.  Neither is apposite.  The senior Nazi officials as well as the one-time Serbian jefe grande surrendered without a struggle.  There you have it.  Had Osama bin Laden simply held up his hands as the aforementioned war criminals did, he would be alive and well right now in US custody.

Other critics such as Geoffrey Robertson, a well known Australian human rights lawyer, alleged that justice was not done in the case of Osama bin Laden.  Mr Robertson is of the view that justice can only be done by the process of arrest, trial, conviction, and punishment.  He is wrong.  Justice came as a swift and shocking event to Osama in a way quite similar to the manner in which death came for some three thousand people on 9/11.  Actual justice would have required that Osama bin Laden experience the same horrid dread of the inevitable that afflicted the last moments of those on the doomed airliners.

One can only hope that he did.

Human Rights And Propaganda

Tomorrow is a Day of Long Knives for the US at the UN Human Rights Council.  The Obama administration, in an overly deep genuflection before the alter of international institutions, turned in a twenty-nine page document constituting the Universal Periodic Review of human rights in the US.  In turn, a consortium of human rights advocacy groups headed by Human Rights Watch whipped out a four hundred page indictment of the US as a very grave violator of human rights.

On Friday, the speakers list in the Human Rights corral is oversubscribed by countries such as Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and China.  Each is licking its metaphorical lips as it gets ready to get in its licks against Uncle Sam and the legions of human rights abusers currently running the slaughter house of liberty and justice known as the USA.  For its part, the Obama administration has sent a thirty person delegation which it has been said, "will welcome all useful comments" but will actually serve as the designated flak catcher.

We the People are justifiably proud of our record in human rights.  Not only have we been zealous, some would say too zealous, in pursuit of guaranteeing human, civil, and political rights to all resident within our borders, we are quite willing to acknowledge that perfection has not yet been reached.  We should be equally proud of our political traditions--including one honored very much only in the breech by those countries so eager to tear a strip off our collective hind end.  That particular tradition is freedom of expression which leads to white hot debate over contentious issues of rights such as a woman's right to control her own reproductive destiny or of two people of the same sex to enjoy a status equal in all respects to heterosexual marriage or just what constitutes pornography.  Or what our immigration policy should be.  The list goes on and on.

The citizens and residents of very, very few countries have the basic right to live in a social and political environment of free for all expression.  The citizens and residents of very, very few countries understand that the consequences of the almost-anything-goes approach practiced in the US does, must, lead to social and political dynamics which are difficult to understand from the outside.  As the media treatment in so many European media outlets made clear in their coverage of the recently concluded midterm elections, our methods of politics and expression seem not only disordered but dangerously chaotic when viewed from more staid, that is, more repressed venues.

It is the wide chasm separating the American approach to defining and solving collective problems from the methods employed in other states which makes the upcoming slice-and-dice session in Geneva more than a routine exercise in anti-Americanism.  The countries already signed up on the Let's-Bash-The-US list for tomorrow are intent on inflicting a propaganda defeat on the US.  The governments of Cuba, Iran, China, and the others understand that simple, simplistic attacks on the US are easy to understand throughout the world while the realities of American political and social discourse and practice are totally opaque to all but the most sophisticated and widely experienced (and not even all of those).

An example: Iran intends to excoriate the US, or more accurately, some American states, for having executed less than fifty people in the past year.  The Iranians will portray the US not only as barbaric for its judicial killing fields but as a hypocrite for its criticism of other countries.  There is no doubt but the Iranian delegation will not mention that Iran is second only to China in the number of executions or that Iran, unlike China but like other Muslim majority states, allows death by stoning for some crimes, most notably adultery.

Cuba intends to take the US to task for its immigration policies--using the Obama administration's characterization of the current system as "broken" as well as the four hundred page indictment referenced above as proof beyond rebuttal that the US is xenophobic, racist, and given to violating the presumed human rights of illegal immigrants beyond count.  This from a country which has used force to prevent its citizens from leaving the Island Paradise Of Workers And Peasants.

Other states will aver that the pervasive racism of We the People condemns all people of color to perpetual poverty, systemic discrimination, and a fast track passage to prison.  These states will take sections of the human rights consortium's four hundred page diatribe as well as words from the Obama administration review to substantiate the attack.  No one will mention that the US has made massive strides toward eliminating the effects of past prejudice--often to the pronounced disadvantage of white males.  Nor will it be mentioned that these strides were taken by We the People organically without any guidance from the "international community."

It goes almost without mention that none of those casting stones at Uncle Sam live in fragile glass houses.  In the weird world of the UN Human Rights Council, those who sin most get to cast the first stone.

The problem, the danger, comes not from the fact that We the People cannot withstand baseless and evil criticism for nonexistent sins, but rather from the high likelihood that the malicious, malignant charges will be read and believed, heard and heeded in areas of the world where the interests of the US are both in play and at stake.  The charges mouthed in Geneva will be repeated and magnified in most, if not all, the Arab-Muslim world.  The same will happen in the three amigos of the Bolivarian Revolution.  And, no surprise here, in China and Russia.

Whether from simple naivete or over subscription to an ideology celebrating the moral supremacy of international institutions, the Obama administration made a grave mistake by agreeing not only to join the Human Rights Council but to engage in the Universal Periodic Review process.  No rational person well oriented in time and place could assume that any useful outcome would ensue.  This hypothetical rational person could only conclude that the US handed a public diplomacy victory to hostile states.

In a completely unnecessary move, the Obama administration has compromised the status of the US in areas of the world where the key component of the war with advocates of violent political Islam is underway.  The key component is, of course, the conflict of perceptions and images in the minds of the millions who have not yet firmly chosen a side.

In a basic way, the struggle for survival and supremacy between the US and other civilized states and the practitioners of violent political Islam focuses on the minds of the uncommitted majority.  That's right, it is counterinsurgency writ large.  It is in the short and long-term interest of the US to mobilize support from the uncommitted majority of Muslims so as, at the least, to deny their support to the perpetrators of jihad.  It is not that the US wants or should want the majority of the world's Muslims to embrace our set of world views but, it is necessary that the same minds be convinced to add their voices to the struggle against the advocates of violent political Islam.

Consider in this context what a great victory it would be for the civilized states if a crowd of angry Muslims took to the street in one or another Muslim majority state to demand their government suppress quickly and resolutely Muslims who killed or terrorized Christian fellow citizens.  The day that happens somewhere--Egypt, Iraq, Indonesia--the West could begin to breathe easily.  Muslims would be publicly and vocally denouncing Muslims who crossed the line separating acceptable religion from unacceptable political action.

To achieve this end, it is not necessary (nor possible) to convince Muslims that we are the last, best hope of humankind.  It is essential that we do not aid those hostile to us in branding the US as a violator of human rights, as a foul den of abusive inequity.  The Day of Long Knives tomorrow does nothing to aid in achieving this essential.

The president and his "team" deserve a severe down check for having made such a major strategic blunder as the execution of a Universal Periodic Review.  It was not an exercise in transparency or an illustration of our willingness to subject ourselves to the scrutiny of the world.  It was a gesture of self-mutilation.  A giving of an easy win to our mortal enemies.

Learn From The Past--And, Then, Get Over It

Release the "atrocity" pictures! Don't release the "atrocity" pictures! Prosecute the "torturers!" Don't prosecute the "torturers!" Nancy Pelosi is a down-to-the-bone liar! Nancy Pelosi was the innocent victim of CIA misleading obfuscations!

Along with those battling slogans, buried in the midst of the shouts of accusation, is the single most important issue regarding "torture" or "enhanced interrogation techniques" or the commission of "atrocities." Also lost in the fog of accusation, counter-accusation, and tear filled wails over the (mis) conduct of US personnel both military and civilian is a single, unpleasant but very plain truth.

First, the issue which really matters. It is best put as a question: Does the mix of stress filled techniques reportedly used by American interrogators produce better, more accurate, more useful information in a more rapid way than methods which do not rely on physical pressures?

Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent who worked the USS Cole bombing case among others, maintains that the measures used by CIA interrogators were inherently ineffective compared with other, less physically stressful means. Former Vice President Cheney vehemently disagrees with this. In the ex-veep's view the robust methods produced vital, life-saving, actionable information when milder techniques failed.

Unless and until the documents demonstrating the accuracy of Mr Cheney's perspective emerge, the Geek, using his direct and vicarious experiences, will have to lean toward the view expressed by Ali Soufan. There is, however, one very important caveat: The Geek never had to deal hands on with a hard-core leadership cadre from an Islamist jihadist group. Nor, has his years of research dealt in sufficient, verifiable detail with the experience of those who have had to interrogate Islamist jihadists.

The historical record coming from such venues as the Algerian War of Independence and the ongoing Israeli counter-terror and counterinsurgency efforts provide a very fuzzy image of mixed results. Indeed, one can find apparent support for both the Cheney position and that of former Special Agent Soufan.

For example, during the Battle of Algiers the French forces used genuine torture on a wide spread basis. The French methods went far, very far beyond those employed by the Americans. Arguably the extreme methods used by French troops did produce actionable intelligence. It is equally to be argued that the consequences of the use of torture outweighed, both politically and psychologically, what ever positive results may have been achieved.

Perhaps the most important unintended, perhaps even unforeseen consequence of the French use of torture was the erosion of support for continuing the counterinsurgent campaign in Algeria among the members of the French elite, the country's academic, press and political classes. The emergence of knowledge regarding the methods used by the Paras in Algiers ignited a fire of condemnation which in turn caused a further factionalization of public opinion both in France and throughout the West.

Another, almost as important a consequence, again neither intended nor, perhaps foreseen, was the "free pass" given to the Algerian insurgents, the National Liberation Front, for their use of torture, summary executions and indiscriminate lethal violence against civilians. This Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card looped together with the Algerian Arab Muslim population's increased willingness to side with the National Liberation Front's war of independence.

All in all the French military success in the Battle of Algiers, brought about in large measure through the vigorous use of intelligence obtained in part from the use of torture was more than offset by the loss of political will in France and the increase in political will among the native Algerian people. The Law of Unintended Consequences can assure that battles "won" can result in wars which are well and truely lost.

The former Feeb was, perhaps, warning of this possibility.

The possibility, battles "won" so that wars are lost, would be enhanced significantly by the release of the "atrocity" imagery sought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Human Rights Watch (HRW). The release would serve no useful purpose, despite the beliefs of these groups and others of like mind.

The release would, as SecDef Gates warned weeks ago and President Obama asserted yesterday, would cause an upsurge, quite probably of a dramatic sort, in actions against the US and its troops. Certainly, given the history of such triggering acts as the release of the infamous Abu Ghraib prison photos or even the Danish cartoons, the release of the currently contested images would make the tasks of bringing stability to Afghanistan and Pakistan much more difficult.

As was the case with the French in Algeria, these photos would serve to convince many to overlook the far, far worse violations of human dignity and rights committed on a daily basis by Taliban, al-Qaeda and other Islamist jihadist entities. The use of these photos to infuriate the easily infuriated people who have a desire to lash out at the Great Satan through martyrdom operations would be easy.

The net effect of any release would not only be more American deaths. No. The net effect would be the prolongation, perhaps the expansion of Islamist jihadist actions. This means, quite simply, a hell of a lot more death. A hell of a lot more fear. A hell of a lot more human misery. More deaths, more misery, more fear, more pure human suffering without any redeeming result.

The seekers after their version of Truth should consider these implications. This is particularly the case for outfits such as HRW which proclaim their concern for human rights, since the most basic right of all is the right to be left to live.

While either losing or refraining from exercising the "right" or, better, the desire to embarrass, to humiliate the United States may deny a measure of emotional satisfaction, it would have the benefit of saving lives, lessening fear, reducing misery. And, isn't that a higher goal than getting one's rocks off bashing Uncle Sam?

The sad, underlying reality which rests, unspoken under these photos is that in all wars, at all times, involving the soldiers and para-military forces of all combatants, atrocities have been committed. In all the wars of the Twentieth Century, the memoirs, the combat diaries, the oral histories of those at or near the sharp edge of battle are universally redolent of atrocities. No armed force has been immune to the killing of civilians, the slaughtering of those who have or are trying to surrender. None have failed to mistreat prisoners of war. None have been absolutely scrupulous in their observance of the laws, customs, niceties of war.

US troops have been no different from those of other nations. Yes, times and sensitivities of a culture, a society may change, but the actions of those at war change far less.

During World War II, no one objected to Life magazine having a photo spread which showed among other images, a picture of an attractive young woman writing a letter to her guy over in the Pacific area of operations. On her table was a skull. It was identified as the skull of a Japanese soldier sent to her as a token by the guy "Over There." There were few objections to this clear violation of the American Articles of War (and moral sensitivity.)

During the American effort in Vietnam there were rumors, reports and periodic photos of grunts with trophies. Strings of ears, fingers or other members retrieved from the bodies of dead Viet Cong or North Vietnamese troops were whispered about, talked of and photographed to the revulsion of a few, the anger of some and either indifference or flat out glee to many.

In both of these previous American wars, the atrocities and violations of law were balanced in the public mind by accounts of despicable behaviour by the opposition. It was not so much that two wrongs were seen as making a right so much as that the wrongs committed by Americans were more than overmatched by those committed by the enemy.

From all reports the images in controversy today do not come within long, long cannon range of the photos in Life magazine in WW II. There are none showing grinning grunts with a string of Iraqi body parts held out for the camera like a prize swordfish taken off Florida.

The problem comes in the lack of countervailing imagery. The photos of women disfigured by acid attacks, the mutilated bodies of Americans killed in action--or killed after having been captured by the Islamist jihadists. There are no photos of Iraqi men, now fingerless or (in a couple of cases) lacking lips because they had been caught in the sinful act of smoking.

Again the argument is not that two wrongs make a right. The argument is that war itself is an atrocity rich environment in which American and other Western forces are remarkably restrained even by the (sometimes) absurd standards of today--particularly as held by the Blame America First crowd.

ACLU, HRW and kindred groups want the pictures released to the world not because it will somehow serve truth and justice. It has been acknowledged that Americans who have been proved to have violated the Laws of Land Warfare, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, have been dealt with appropriately. Justice and transparency have been served.

A similar case can be made against the proposal that a "Truth Commission" be established to root through the "torture" allegations and defenses. No truth will nor can emerge from such an exercise. It would inevitably be incomplete since some, (most?) information which might be relevant to an inquiry must of necessity be classified. Without an absolutely, utterly full release of all data and documents, can the conclusions of any "Truth Commission" be evaluated, let alone trusted. (And, who can ever be sure that all relevant documents have been released?)

Any "Truth Commission" no matter how allegedly "non-partisan" would inexorably dissolve into the usual slinging of diatribes between "progressives" and "reactionaries." Only those hostile to the US and the West would benefit from the ensuing search for truth, accountability and transparency (to employ the customary buzz words.)

Embarrassing and humiliating the United States is not a worthy goal. Placing the troops of the US and its allies at greater risk for no reason beyond satisfying emotional needs or political agenda imperatives is not laudable. Provoking more violence, more death, more fear, more misery is not an appropriate activity for groups committed to the protection of human rights.

It is for many (including the Geek) unfortunate to leave the issues of "enhanced interrogation techniques" unaddressed in totality. It may be unpleasant to accept the reality that American troops can, on rare occasions, perpetrate actions which can be seen legitimately as atrocities.

But, it is important, very important, to recognise that US personnel and institutions learn from experience, admit mistakes, try not to repeat them. It is just as important to realise and even celebrate the vast gulf which separates our conduct of and behavior in war from that of the Islamists jihadists we oppose.

Today's Totally Gripless Award Goes To---

Drum roll, please. Suspense as the Geek opens the envelope. The winner for Meritorious idiocy above and beyond the call of sanity is Human Rights Watch. More specifically the gold plated skull symbolising an empty headed understanding of human affairs goes to Rachel Reid. Ms Reid according to the AP dispatch is the group's "Afghanistan researcher."

Ms Reid is evidently researching an Afghanistan which exists in some alternative universe considering her characterisation of the recent skirmish between Afghan national force members and Taliban. You know, the shoot out last Monday in the wake of which US and other NATO aircraft jockeys were accused of killing nearly 150 civilians.

Ms Reid vented vitriol as she characterised the Monday affray as having the probability of being "the largest and most tragic loss of life to U.S. bombs so far in Afghanistan." Blowing aside the conclusions of the joint preliminary investigation conducted by US and Afghan personnel, Ms Reid went on in a fine bit of rhetorical overkill which was as strident as it was disconnected to reality,

Yet another devastating error inevitably calls into question the continued viability of the use of U.S. and NATO airpower in Afghanistan. The procedures for protecting civilians and verifying intelligence before launching attacks are clearly not working and must be thoroughly reviewed again.

This crock of self-evident delusion is redolent of an attitude which emerged within the context of the anti-Vietnam war movement, "If the government says it--it must be a lie."

As a specialist in US national security history, the Geek is well acquainted with the will and ability of the US (and other) governments to lie, to lie early and often. But, this time around the stance of the joint investigative team holding Taliban responsible for the deaths--even those which occurred due to US or NATO delivered ordnance passes the test of Inherent Military Probability.

The Inherent Military Probability notion was developed over a century ago by Hans Delbruck, a German historian of ancient warfare. It is a useful filter for evaluating not only the exaggerations of ancient writers on the wars of their time but also for assessing the degree of truth resident in a government statement regarding the wars of our time.

As the Geek has written in previous posts, the Taliban, like other Islamist jihadist groups violates with intentionality the customary usages of land warfare meant to protect civilians. The jihadists of Taliban use civilians just as did Hamas--as a means of defeating the military superiority of their opponents while assuring that the inevitable civilian deaths can be used in propaganda to undercut support for the status quo government.

Now, listen up and listen tight, Ms Reid. When Taliban takes up positions in civilian residential compounds, it is violating not only the laws and customs of land warfare, it is discarding the basic ethical imperatives which have served over the centuries to separate war as politics from mere bloodlust driven butchery. When Taliban opens fire on US or International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) or Afghan National Forces (ANF) without allowing civilians to leave the area of operations, it is doing the same. Only with more intent, with more evil in mind. When Taliban forces the civilians to stay in harm's way as was the case last Monday, it, Taliban, is responsible ethically for every dead or injured civilian.

Whether you like it or not, Ms Reid, Taliban is the bad guy in this episode as it has been in so many others which you and your kindred spirits have improperly blamed on the US, or the ISAF or, rarely, the ANF. This reality, the culpability of Taliban, is not surprising. Consider, Ms Reid, if you can, that Taliban, again like all Islamist jihadist movements, engages in suicide bombing and the use of improvised explosive devices (IED) against soft, civilian targets rather than take on troops capable of fighting back.

Ms Reid, you are obviously afflicted by a mental disease common to the academic and chattering classes of the US and Western Europe. It is a form of self-loathing. A form of desperately seeking to blame, to devalue, to deprecate your own culture, your own society, your own country. Thus, you rush to blame-America-first regardless of the realities on the ground.

This is injurious not only to the culture and country which gave you birth. It injures as well the civilians of Afghanistan, the people whom you purport to be protecting.

The only real and final protection of civilian life and hope in Afghanistan is an end to the war. That ending can come only when and if Taliban and the other Islamist jihadist groups are militarily destroyed. Until and unless that happens the ideology of Islamist jihadism will assure that more and more civilians are placed in the crosshairs.

Ms Reid, the Geek has no idea how old you are. Are you of sufficient maturity to remember the Sixties? The Seventies? Even the Eighties of the Reagan administration? Do you remember the ban the bomb campaigns of those years?

If not, you might take a quick look at the history. Back during the Cold War, the ban-the-bomb crowd directed their manifestos, their demands, their demonstrations at the US and the various countries of Western Europe. They did so because these countries are democratic. Amenable at least in principle to the pressure of public opinion. The Soviet Union was not. No protests were aimed in its direction. It would have been a waste of time and energy.

Taliban and the other Islamist jihadist groups are even more immune to public opinion than was the autocracy of the Kremlin. Still, if you and your group, Ms Reid, want to have both credibility and ethical integrity, you must condemn Taliban for its unethical actions. You must, if you are real in your interest in the well-being of the civilians of Afghanistan, take Taliban publicly to task for every one of their recurrent violations of basic human rights.

Human rights? Isn't that in the name of the group for which you speak, Ms Reid?