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Posted on 05/31/2004 3:14:38 PM PDT by Gracey
Rules of War Enable Terror
By Alan M. Dershowitz
May 28, 2004
THE GENEVA Conventions are so outdated and are written so broadly that they have become a sword used by terrorists to kill civilians, rather than a shield to protect civilians from terrorists. These international laws have become part of the problem, rather than part of the solution.
Following World War II, in which millions of civilians were killed by armed forces, the international community strengthened the laws designed to distinguish between legitimate military targets and off-limit noncombatants. The line in those days was clear: The military wore uniforms, were part of a nation's organized armed forces, and generally lived in military bases outside of population centers. Noncombatants, on the other hand, wore civilian clothing and lived mostly in areas distant from the battlefields.
The war by terrorists against democracies has changed all this. Terrorists who do not care about the laws of warfare target innocent noncombatants. Indeed, their goal is to maximize the number of deaths and injuries among the most vulnerable civilians, such as children, women and the elderly. They employ suicide bombers who cannot be deterred by the threat of death or imprisonment because they are brainwashed to believe that their reward awaits them in another world. They have no "return address."
The terrorist leaders - who do not wear military uniforms - deliberately hide among noncombatants. They have also used ambulances, women pretending to be sick or pregnant, and even children as carriers of lethal explosives.
By employing these tactics, terrorists put the democracies to difficult choices: Either allow those who plan and coordinate terrorist attacks to escape justice and continue their victimization of civilians, or attack them in their enclaves, thereby risking death or injury to the civilians they are using as human shields.
Whenever a civilian is accidentally killed or an ambulance is held up at a checkpoint, the terrorist leaders, and those who support them, have exploited the post-World War II laws of warfare to condemn the democracies for violating the letter of the law. Some human rights groups, international organizations and churches have joined this chorus of condemnation, equating the deliberate targeting of innocent civilians by terrorists with the unintended consequences of trying to combat terrorism - unintended by the democracies, but quite specifically intended, indeed provoked by, the terrorists. This only encourages more terrorism, since the terrorists receive a double benefit from their actions. First they benefit from killing "enemy" civilians. Second, they benefit from the condemnation heaped on their enemies. Human rights are thus being used to promote human wrongs.
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
Alan Dershowitz is a good example of what I have started calling a "Righteous Jew". I'm not Jewish, so I hope that doesn't offend any Jewish people, but it seems to me that a lot of Jewish people don't want to admit, or actually do not realize (although that's a little hard to believe) that the Islamfascists actually want to kill them (amoung the rest of us) wherever they are. Some other folks, like Dershowitz, get it. Most are on the right, of course, but as the professor demonstrates, not all.
"He was an enemy to the human name. Those who declare war against the human race may be struck out of existence as soon as they are apprehended. He was not executed according to those beautiful legal ceremonies which are pointed out by the laws in criminal cases. The enormity of his crimes did not entitle him to it. I am truly a friend to legal forms and methods; but, sir, the occasion warranted the measure.
A pirate, an outlaw, or a common enemy to all mankind, may be put to death at any time. It is justified by the laws of nature and nations. "
Hope? First, he needs to study the conventions before he comments on them. The professor makes four points.
"First, democracies must be legally empowered to attack terrorists who hide among civilians, so long as proportional force is employed. ..."
They already are. If for example, a military unit occupies a hospital and fires upon an opposing force from that hospital, then the opposing force may legally fire upon that hospital and any civilian casualties are the fault of the military unit.
"Second, a new category of prisoner should be recognized for captured terrorists and those who support them. They are not "prisoners of war," neither are they "ordinary criminals.""
There is no need for this 'new category'. They are already covered as "illegal combatants" and are wholy outside the protections of the conventions. They can be killed on sight.
"Third, the law must come to realize that the traditional sharp line between combatants and civilians has been replaced by a continuum of civilian-ness. ... The law should recognize this continuum in dealing with those who are complicit, to some degree, in terrorism."
It already does, any one who provides support to an "illegal combatant" is also an "illegal combatant".
"Fourth, the treaties against all forms of torture must begin to recognize differences in degree among varying forms of rough interrogation, ranging from trickery and humiliation, on the one hand, to lethal torture on the other. They must also recognize that any country faced with a ticking-time-bomb terrorist would resort to some forms of interrogation that are today prohibited by the treaty."
Well, the good professor gets one right, one out of four, he's improving.
Second, a new category of prisoner should be recognized...
The category is old. It's the media (and Dershowitz) that need to recognize it. Bush has referred to it off regarding all the illegal combatants we've detained. The Supreme Court so listed the German saboteurs in WWII when it authorized their execution. Popular American culture also knew this category, albeit under a simpler, less precise, name. Think of all those episodes of Hogan's Heroes in which our "heroes" (terrorists by the local standards) were running around in civilian clothing or even in German clothing. If caught they risked what? Being shot as a spy! Any old movie buff should know that being doing military activities out of uniform leaves you no rights and risks that penalty. Civilians knowingly assisting "spies" are guilty of treason and aren't treated much better than the spies themselves. The problem isn't the rules, they've always right on such issues. The problem is that liberals have been applying the old rules to terrorists favoring their own pet liberal causes, for whom the rules were never intended to apply. Now the liberals can't admit they were wrong defending their terrorist, so they must pretend that the rules had covered all terrorists and thus pretend that the rules need fixing. Once again the right has been right all along and the left is twisting words to meet their current purposes.
Thanks for sharing some profound thoughts.
Yeah, I am surprised that Dershowitz gets it, I only hope members of my former temple start to get it too. They are all on the left, but being on the left is not going to help them in this war.
Thanks. Does anyone have a Jewish ping list? I'm sure many of our conservative Jews would be interested in this.
Might try SJackson
Dershowitz gets it.........I heard him say on TV the other night...................."They want to kill our children and grandchildren"
Thanks
And thank you Jackson
Thanks
ping
WARNING: This is a high volume ping list
BUMP
S Jackson has one
Add me to the list please... Thank You... KingNo155
Hmmm, it's just going to kill him when he has to vote for Bush.
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