The Answer to Terrorism is Law. Terrorism is A Crime. War is a Crime
Global Research, November 18, 2015
Witness Iraq 18 November 2015
The Anglo-American legal tradition
is in serious trouble if not a single major U.S. politician is willing
to suggest that the most effective way to combat international terrorism
is through law and the courts.
Terrorism is a crime under the United
States code, defined at 18 U.S.C. §§ 2331 and 2332b . It sits just a few
subchapters away from piracy, another international crime which is also
adjudicated, relatively successfully, by the U.S. legal system. It is
probably tough to remember, but the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade
Center attack, Ramzi Yousef, was tried in a civilian court. He is
currently serving a life sentence in Florence, Colorado, at a federal
Supermax prison.
It would reflect a great deal
of strength for a politician to argue that law will dispose of
terrorism. First, most of us already know that courts can successfully
handle heinous international crimes. At Nuremberg, judges were able to
weigh evidence and convict individuals who committed some of the most
deeply offensive crimes in history. This work continues in the Hague
today with the International Criminal Court. Most international scholars
agree that such efforts are largely positive in helping to close the
chapter on war and to move a society forward in a more positive,
legally-minded direction. If a court was capable of adjudicating the
Holocaust, it is surely capable of dealing with international terrorism.
There is strength in affirming
fundamental values on which a civilized society is based. We cannot have
a world in which some crimes go before a civilian judge, and some
crimes are subject to summary execution by the President through a drone
strike. In all matters of justice, separate-but-equal is a fatally
flawed directive. Historically, the Anglo-American tradition has sought
to limit executive power and preserve the ability of a neutral judge to
adjudicate disputes — values that have been deeply weakened by 15 years
of unending war and which now must be reclaimed or forever lost.
There is strength in admitting that the
military approach to terrorism has not only failed, it has made the
problem significantly worse. Using a bomb to solve terrorism creates a
hydra where chopping off one head only produces three more. Kill
Baghdadi and someone else will take his throne, or perhaps three more.
Is this not what created ISIS? Is it really so difficult to see how the
use of the military in the Middle East has opened the gates of Hell? Is
no one really going to question the insanity of the U.S. simultaneously
bombing ISIS (fighting Assad) and Assad (fighting ISIS)?
There is strength in dealing with the
eventual even-handedness of justice. It is an unfortunate truth that
Western countries have also, too, committed crimes since 9/11. Those
crimes will require an accounting before a judge, at least some day. And
in particular, there will never be peace in the Middle East without an
answer for the Iraq War, which will be recognized one day by all peoples
as one of the gravest international crimes since World War II. This was
a war that was built on lies and sold to a fearful public like the
vilest of snake oils. And its bitterness remains. The Iraq War destroyed
a country, killed millions of innocent parents and their children, and
is the caustic source of the violence that now roils the Middle East and
strikes into Paris. Justice requires an answer for the Iraq War — a
good and healthy thing as such justice will act as a lesson to the
future that the human species will never survive if it relies on war,
particularly at a time when so much destruction can be committed by so
few in number.
Now, the specter of fascism creeps in
this petty pace as politicians in Europe and the U.S. create false
enemies and denounce refugees, threaten more war, and pander to the
ugliest motivations of each of their respective nations. There is
strength in rejecting this fascism.
The world should put together its finest
legal minds from all countries — from the U.S., from Latin America,
from Europe, from Africa, from Asia, and yes, from the Middle East. Let
these minds define the problem, propose a legal solution, and then
either work with the International Criminal Court in the Hague, or set
up a special tribunal to adjudicate the issue of terrorism. Let that
court issue warrants, and make sure that the world will cooperate with
that court to arrest those who are wanted. Give the accused a lawyer,
have a trial, and issue a sentence. Put the guilty in jail. And acquit
those for whom there is not enough evidence, and let them go.
And after the world has set up that
process, the world should do the same thing for those on all sides who
are committing crimes. All people should take a look at the log in each
of their own eyes, particularly after analyzing the speck in that of the
other. The people of every nation must look into their hearts and their
minds to figure out why governments, everywhere, are getting away with
murder. The world needs to put a stop to that, as well.
The original source of this article is Witness Iraq
Copyright © Witness Iraq, Witness Iraq, 2015
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