Helena Cobban is shocked:
Since when is it okay for a state (or an individual) to set out to kill a person based solely on accusations against him that have never been publicized and have never been tested against even the most basic norms of criminal procedure?
It is not okay. Extra-judicial killings, also known as assassinations, are always abhorrent. They shock the conscience of anyone who believes in the rule of law. When carried out by states they represent a quite unacceptable excess of state power.
“Extra-judicial killings” is a term pacifists use to define war. It has the convenient side effect of legitimizing terror. Essentially it means that terrorists who operate outside of the norms of international law should be exempt from military actions against them.
Cobban continues:
This week, we have had yet another shocking example of
(a) our government– speaking through still unnamed “administration officials”– trying to “justify” the acts of lethal aggression it committed against Syria on Sunday by saying that they were aiming at (and indeed, also succeeded in) killing an alleged long-time operative of Al-Qaeda in Iraq called Abu Ghadiya; and
(b) this explanation being reported by many branches of the media– e.g. the NYT, “Wired” magazine, and Britain’s ITV– without those reporters also providing the essential background in national or international law, or in common morality, that would indicate that such acts of assassination constitute serious violations of the rule of law. And without seeking out and quoting the opinion of anyone who states anything to that effect… In other words, these acts of extra-judicial killing are treated by these reporters and the editors who stand behind them simply as “business as usual”, the kind of “normal” acts that a government carries out need that not be exposed to any particular questioning or criticism.
So not only is our government illegitimate or at least involved in illegitimate activities, but our media is abetting our criminal government. I’m not going to go into a long discourse about irregular warfare, but it is Cobban who is ignorant of international law (as well as much of the MSM) because she denies countries their legitimate right of self defense. Maybe she should spend some time in the courtroom of Judge George Daniels and learn about the difference between terror and warfare.
So what was the United States doing in Syria this week? Here’s how Michael Yon describes the situation:
It is extremely safe to say that many hundreds, indeed thousands, of Iraqis have been killed by the handiwork of foreign fighters. Untold tons of munitions have flowed across the border over time. Those arms are a lifeline to the remnants of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Anbar has gone mostly quiet and Special Forces and conventional forces have been making progress up there in Nineveh, but Mosul is the last serious redoubt of al-Qaeda in Iraq, as well as other insurgent groups. (Diyala still has some problems.) In 2007 and early 2008 when I was last there, explosives were coming in through Syria. In fact, the last combat mission I did in Iraq this year was with a Special Forces team that specifically was searching for weapons coming in through Syria.
I’ve been right up to that desolate border on a number of occasions. The terrorists just come across that border to murder and otherwise intimidate Iraqi villagers in Nineveh to achieve their nefarious ends. Some of the truck bombs in Nineveh and Mosul proper have been massive, and during one attack that I have previously written about, perhaps four to five hundred Yezidis were murdered within minutes. The Yezidis are very friendly toward Americans and have treated me like an honored guest. When they were attacked, it felt like a punch into my own stomach, and so I wrote “[2] Stake Through Their Hearts” after hundreds were murdered.
The insurgency in Mosul is the last big thorn left in Iraq’s paw. That we struck targets in Syria does not surprise me and I am not appalled. I am appalled that Syria allows these groups to use its territory as a base and conduit to destabilize Iraq. A Syrian government that allows these groups to penetrate Iraq’s borders and murder Iraqis and Americans doesn’t have much moral standing to complain about an incursion into its territory.
Bill Roggio explains how the U.S. learned about the terror network in Syria:
The US military learned a great deal about al Qaeda’s network inside Syria after a key operative was killed in September of 2007. US forces killed Muthanna, the regional commander of al Qaeda’s network in the Sinjar region.
During the operation, US forces found numerous documents and electronic files that detailed “the larger al-Qaeda effort to organize, coordinate, and transport foreign terrorists into Iraq and other places,” Major General Kevin Bergner, the former spokesman for Multinational Forces Iraq, said in October 2007.
Bergner said several of the documents found with Muthanna included a list of 500 al Qaeda fighters from “a range of foreign countries that included Libya, Morocco, Syria, Algeria, Oman, Yemen, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Belgium, France and the United Kingdom.”
Eli Lake (via memeorandum) shows how this represents a legitimate escalation of the war on terror.
We have entered a new phase in the war on terror. In July, according to three administration sources, the Bush administration formally gave the military new power to strike terrorist safe havens outside of Iraq and Afghanistan. Before then, a military strike in a country like Syria or Pakistan would have required President Bush’s personal approval. Now, those kinds of strikes in the region can occur at the discretion of the incoming commander of Central Command (Centcomm), General David Petraeus. One intelligence source described the order as institutionalizing the “Chicago Way,” an allusion to Sean Connery’s famous soliloquy about bringing a gun to a knife fight.
Plus, Lake wonders
On one level, this new policy conflicts with Obama’s stated desire for opening up diplomatic channels to places like Tehran and Damascus. On the other hand, this is precisely the type of policy that he has repeatedly promised at least for Pakistan, whose territory is believed to host Osama bin Laden: If America has actionable intelligence on al Qaeda leaders, and the country housing those terrorist sits on its hands, we will act. His campaign rhetoric has now become the official war policy he will inherit. Is this a development that pleases him?
Similarly, Noah Pollak thinks that the candidates, especially the favorite must address this escalation:
What’s important right now is that both candidates go on record about the raid. Should there be repeat performances — as many as needed to impress Bashar that his days of meddling with impunity are over? Should Iran be targeted for similar strikes? Do you, Mr. Obama, view this news as an unacceptable expansion of the war that will never be countenanced in your administration, or do you believe it a vital component of a winning strategy in Iraq?
I think most people intuitively know how McCain would answer these questions.
The New York Times adds this context to Lake’s report:
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the United States has attacked terrorism suspects in the ungoverned spaces of countries like Yemen and Somalia. But administration officials said Monday that the strikes in Pakistan and Syria were carried out on the basis of a legal argument that has been refined in recent months to justify strikes by troops and by rockets on militants in countries with which the United States is not at war.
The justification is different from the concept of pre-emption the administration articulated immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, and which was used as the rationale for the invasion of Iraq. While pre-emption was used to justify attacks against governments and their armies, the self-defense argument would justify attacks on insurgents operating on foreign soil that threatened the forces, allies or interests of the United States.
Administration officials pointed Monday to a passage in President Bush’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly last month as the clearest articulation of this position to date.
“As sovereign states, we have an obligation to govern responsibly, and solve problems before they spill across borders,” Mr. Bush said. “We have an obligation to prevent our territory from being used as a sanctuary for terrorism and proliferation and human trafficking and organized crime.”
The Hashmonean reports on another recent anti-terror success that seems to bolster Lake’s point.
By the same token, America’s international anti-terrorism efforts scored huge this past week. It is little reported but a massive terror funding ring has been blown wide open in a long, complex US anti-terror and anti drug investigation which has revealed massive ties between Hezbollah & South American and Colombian Narco trafficking. An entire Hezbollah criminal drug funding ring has been busted while at the same time revealing the deep tentacles that organization has to brutal criminal elements and enemies of America. The Terrorists are dealing drugs for profit.
The Washington Post reports on this story from the vantage of Syrian government:
In the same letter, Syria urged Iraq to investigate the U.S. raid and said the attack came as Syria had been increasing efforts to stem the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq.
“In this regard, we refer that this unjustified act of aggression comes at a time when the Iraqi and US sides recognize Syria’s efforts exerted to preserve Iraq security and prevent any illegal infiltrations into its territories,” the letter said. The Syrian news agency did not specify which Syrian officials signed the communication.
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Underscoring the possibility that the raid could hinder U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq, Syria on Tuesday indefinitely postponed Syrian-Iraqi talks on regional cooperation that had been set for Nov. 12 in Baghdad.
Yon and Roggio, though, undermine the Syrian claim to making efforts to stem the deadly tide of smuggling. However the Washington Post’s editorial showed a level of comprehension absent in the news report:
The logic of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad seems to be that his regime can sponsor murders, arms trafficking, infiltrations and suicide bombings in neighboring countries while expecting to be shielded from any retaliation in kind by the diplomatic scruples of democracies. For most of this decade that has been lamentably true: U.S. commanders and Iraqi officials have over and over again pointed to the infiltration of al-Qaeda militants through the Damascus airport and the land border with Iraq, and Syria’s refusal to curtail it, without taking direct action. Yet in the past year Israel has intervened in Syria several times to defend its vital interests, including bombing a secret nuclear reactor. If Sunday’s raid, which targeted a senior al-Qaeda operative, serves only to put Mr. Assad on notice that the United States, too, is no longer prepared to respect the sovereignty of a criminal regime, it will have been worthwhile.
However I’m not so impressed with the closing paragraph:
Mr. Assad’s government has lately taken a few cautious steps toward breaking out of its isolation, participating in indirect peace talks with Israel and granting formal diplomatic recognition to Lebanon for the first time. European governments have been quick with rewards, and the next U.S. president — if it is Barack Obama — may also hasten to upgrade contacts. If the Syrian regime is genuinely interested in making peace with Israel, distancing itself from Iran and the terrorist movements it sponsors, and rebuilding ties with the West, that is to be welcomed. What Damascus should not be allowed to do is reap the diplomatic and economic rewards of a rapprochement while continuing to plant car bombs, transport illegal weapons and harbor terrorists. Israel has let Mr. Assad know that it is prepared to respond to his terrorism with strikes against legitimate military targets. Now that the United States has sent the same message, maybe the dictator at last will rethink his strategy.
That’s a big if. Unless American and Israeli pressure persist, Assad will have no reason to change his behavior. That will only happen when the cost of threatening the United States (and Israel) outweighs the benefits of subscribing to a phony peace.
Overall, this looks like a big win for the United States, but the next administratin needs to keep this policy in place or it will lose contol of Iraq.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.