Armenian Genocide
by neolibertarian
Speaker Pelosi has recently backed off from a bill she sponsored to recognize the Armenian genocide. The likelihood that the bill would further alienate the Turks, who are US allies and hold NATO membership, was enough to get a bunch of co-sponsors to drop off the bill. I have several good reasons why the recognition of Armenian genocide is a good thing.
1) It actually happened. This is the best possible argument. The Ottoman Empire destroyed the lives of roughly a million and a half Armenians. Many countries, including NATO countries and 80% of US states, have already recognized that it happened.
2) Turkey isn't being all that ally-friendly to us right now. We each provide mutual benefits to each other, and yes, Turkey is letting us use their territory for staging related to Iraq. But when the war started up, they withheld their support and assistance. As we speak, Turkey has just authorized another military incursion into northern Iraqi Kurdistan to fight Turkish Kurd rebel groups. That's severely destabilizing to us (though granted, they are having a tough fight and letting the Kurds cross that bordfer unmolested was not sustainable). Turkey has also been abusive to its Kurdish population for quite some time and is a major obstacle to letting the Kurds finally establish an independent state. The US has been nice to Turkey since Ataturk - Kurdistan was at the last minute rejected for statehood under the Fourteen Points in deference to Turkey. We defended Turkey against Soviet aggression at a time when, to be honest, they probably needed us more than we needed them. If all that goodwill still hasn't given us a more loyal ally, why should we continue to overlook crimes committed by their predecessor government?
3) Ignorance is dangerous. Ignorance of genocidal history is lethal. We should continue to acknowledge past crimes and transgressions committed by governments so that everyone can remember that they happen and be more vigilant in the future.
My proposal would be that the Congress, rather than simply passing a resolution, start an investigative commission to look into the matter. Getting historians and the like to compile the evidence, examine the counter-arguments and (where possible) record first- and second-hand witness testimony is FAR more valuable than a simple Sense of the House or Sense of the Senate resolution.
A commission's report would put the actual evidence on the record. It could be published and sold in bookstores. It would provide a basis for further examination and discussion, most especially on the ideological, social and political foreshadowing of the genocide itself.
Additionally, I would provide opportunity for scholars to refute or scale down specific accusations while on the panel. Letting pro-Ottoman perspectives in shows that the commission would not simply be a kangaroo court. Moreover, mis-stated and overstated claims of genocide are harmful to the cause of remembrance; people prone to conspiracy theories often find one or two facts that may have been inflated or added without sufficient evidence, and use them as strawmen to take down the whole affair. So multiple perspectives (even from apologists for the mass murder 1.5 million people) can help form a far stronger report in the end.
California has a large Armenian-American population - the largest of any US State (e.g. the population of Glendale, CA was over 1/4 Armenian-descended in the 2000 Census). I'm sure that Pelosi's move was justifiably started by pressure from that community. I can hardly blame them any more than we would blame Jews for being interested in recognition of the Holocaust. Now she's backing down, which frankly makes her look stupid, weak, foolhardy and a real novie at foreign policy. It would've been extremely easy to just get a little conference with somebody at State (even Condi or Bush) and find out what the official US position is on Armenia. Instead, Pelosi went in obviously without properly preparing for the issue.
This is hardly the first time I've hard of the issue, but I'm very glad it came up in such a public way. I'm convinced that Americans need to recognize the Armenian genocide happened, if not through Congress then at least personally.
If the Turks have a problem with us recognizing a war crime committed by an entirely different government (one that was so ineffective they overthrew it) and by people who are no longer living, we shouldn't apologize to them. It's the victims and their families that should receive our condolences.
Saddam Hussein Trial Blog
by neolibertarian
There's now a blog dedicated to discussing and covering the trial of Saddam Hussein. (tip to VC)
The issues they've raised for debate and discussion are important and intriguing. I'd like to offer my opinions on their 9 issues.Issue #1: Does Saddam Hussein have a right to represent himself before the Iraqi Special Tribunal like Slobodan Milosevic has done at The Hague?
Yes, he does. If he has a right to retain counsel for his defense then he has the right to lead his own defense. It's probably a horrible iudea, but he has that right - a right he denied to countless others.Issue #2: Should the Saddam Hussein trial be televised?
I'm ambivalent on this subject, but it's probably best to leave it at no. It should be recorded for posterity of course, but I'd prefer not to give Saddam one last platform to speak to people. He might even be able to communicate a message to the last of his followers.Issue #3: Is the Iraqi Special Tribunal, which was established on December 10, 2003 by the Occupying Power and the unelected Iraqi Governing Council, a legitimate judicial institution?
Yes, judicial bodies are not supposed to gain legitimacy through elections. They can gain practical legitimacy through public support, but the matter at hand is whether it can deliver a fair trial that respects the rights of the accused while also delivering justice for victims.Issue #4: Should Saddam Hussein Be Exposed to the Death Penalty?
Yes, of course. Aside from exercising it against untold hundreds of thousands with few or no pretenses of trial protections, Saddam Hussein is a disgusting, vile human body. If he doesn't deserve the death penalty then nobody does.Issue #5: Did the Iraqi regime’s actions to dam rivers, leading to the destruction of the habitat of the Marsh Arabs, constitute a form of genocide?
Yes, but only due to the intent and not the action. Because damming the rivers and draining the marshes were intended to punish the largely Shi'a population in the south and were coupled with programs intended to kill or run off the Shi'a, as well the Arabization policy to force them to take more Sunni-Arabic surnames, it could be established (by further evidence of motive and intent) that the draining of the marshes were genocide. Damming the rivers to destroy the marshes and using the hydro power to help Sunni-dominated areas is akin to ripping down Jewish houses and sending the valuables to Aryan homes.
Of course, the act of damming itself isn't genocidal. Simply damming the river could be justified on a number of rationales, including power and technology for the country (hospitals and schools being two major beneficiaries of power, not to mention industry and employment). Given the other policies targeted at ruining, dispersing, killing or converting the Marshland Shi'i Arabs, there's a strong case to be made for it being an act of genocide. I think there'd have to be some evidence establishing intent related to the damming in order to close the circle.
It has to established beyond reasonable doubt that it was genocide, not just disastrously insensitive and dangerous public policy. In my opinion, it's clear that draining the swamps was part of the genocidal policies of the Ba'athist regime.Issue #6: Did the Anfal Operations constitute Genocide?
Yes, over 1,200 villages were destroyed by the Ba'athists during the Anfal campaign, and over 3,800 villages total. Saddam's people destroyed over 1,700 schools, over 2,400 mosques, and several hundred hospitals. Approximately three-quarters of Kurdish rural villageswere destroyed. I'd say that fits the term genocide.
Unfortunately in 1988, after the massacre at Halabja, the US State Department instructed diplomats to give Iran partial blame for the massacre. Along with the potentiality that the US (and France and others) supplied some of Iraq's chemical weapons, Saddam and his defenders might be able to obscure the issue and make it seem like less than genocide. It clearly was an attempt to drive away the Kurds, who represented a threat to the Ba'athist regime, to the borders of Iraq, and to the control of northern oil fields, especially around Kirkuk. As a sidenote, the US stopped sending Iraq chemical weapons and chemical weapons precursors by mid-1984.Issue #7: Does Saddam Hussein have head of state immunity?
No. First, he's no longer head of state of anything. Second, the state he was head of no longer exists, all of its members and employees having been arrested, scattered or killed. Third, head of state immunity should not be a shield from abuses of office or from unrelated crimes committed while in office. If there's any argument to be made on this front, it would be that casualties of Kuwaitis or Iranians killed in those two wars would not be visited upon the head of state; however, considering the aggression of the Ba'athists I don't think even this limited form should be allowed to carry. Certainly the premediateted, planned, and implemented knowing policies of murder, rape and genocide shouldn't be ignored due to head of state immunity.Issue #8: Can Saddam Hussein get a fair trial?
I don't know that I have enough information to answer this question. All I can say with certainty is that he has already experienced far more legal protections than the average person under his regime would have had.Issue #9: Does the IST protect the basic right to the assistance of counsel?
The Iraqi Special Tribunal rules explicitly recognize the right to the assistance of counsel:The right to legal assistance of his own choosing, including the right to have legal assistance provided by the Defense Office if he does not have sufficient means to pay for it
On the whole, good issues, important subject.
Update: Also, I just wanted to point out that Saddam will be tried in front of Iraqi judges. The Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg were tried by the Allies, including the Soviets. I don't think it was wrong to use Allied judges in Nuremberg, but I think it speaks to the level of effort being expended in Iraq to democratize the country and to provide a fair trial for Saddam.
Why Does Darfur Not Lead The News?
by neolibertarian
For the last two years, the death toll from the Janjaweed Arab-Muslim roving murderers is up to around 400,000 people. The Sudanese military is firebombing villages. Janjaweed fighters have raped an unknown number of women across the country in an attempt to force Arab children upon them. Refugee numbers are continuing to climb. Trends look like 3.25 million will need to be fed in a region marred by violence and severe lack of modern transportation.
This is genocide. Everybody knows it; nobody cares.
Why does Darfur not lead the news every night? Is it because they're African? Because they're not white? Are the media scared it might be seen as anti-Muslim? Are the media incapable of understanding a genocide that can't be blamed on Europe or America? Or is "genocide" just not newsworthy anymore?
If I only watched cable networks for my news I might have never heard of Darfur but I could tell you every little thing about Abu Ghraib and I'd have the photos memorized so well I'd feel like I knew all the soldiers in those photos.
How can it be that pictures of Iraqis being humiliated can find its way into the beginning, middle and end of most news programs for months and yet the pictures of Sudanaese beaten, murdered, burned and displaced can only be found from an Internet search?
Maybe we're all just tired of it now. So much foreign news of Islamists and death and terrorists and violence and we just get a little fed up. Well, too fucking bad. Genocide doesn't wait to come on your schedule. In fact, it usually comes when you have the least interest in doing something about it - like right now.
In Rwanda in the summer of 1994, what finally stopped the genocide that claimed 800,000? Was it the armies of the West, with their superior technology? Was it the diplomats of the UN, with their effected concern for humanity? Was it the media, with their self-important rhetoric? Was it the criminals themselves, who had an attack of conscience? No! It was the Rwandan Patriotic Force, the rebel Tutsi force from Ugandan refugee camps that had been kicking the government's ass before the cease-fire and resumed kicking the government's ass after the cease-fire.
There are ultimately two things that historically stop a government from genocide: military defeat and killing enough. Either somebody has to beat that genocidaire or the genocide continues until it kills a whole lot of people and there aren't enough left to justify the same pace. Not a lot of middle ground.
Either stunning defeat or brutal victory. Which will it be for the racist Janjaweed thugs and the Islamist Khartoum government? If you asked the media, both online and MSM, the answer is: "filibuster."
Pat Buchanan: Was WWII worth it?
by neolibertarian
Despite making some good points about the follies of Yalta, FDR and Churchill, Pat Buchanan displays either ignorance or anti-Semitism when he asks this question:If the objective of the West was the destruction of Nazi Germany, it was a "smashing" success. But why destroy Hitler? If to liberate Germans, it was not worth it. After all, the Germans voted Hitler in.
Apparently Buchanan never heard of Auschwitz, Dachau or Treblinka.
I've thought long and probingly about these sorts of larger questions relating to interventionism, and here's what I have oin my website (rather than rehashing it or letting Pat go totally unrebutted).
Never Again
Foreign Policy: Dictators and Genocide
Time To Kick Ass And Take Names
by neolibertarian
Tens and hundreds of thousands lie dead in Darfur, and possibly thousands or tens of thousands of women have been raped, in addition to over a million people driven from their homes and lands. The Arab Muslims in the north are trying to wipe out the Black-African Christians and animists in the south. It's genocide. Genocide by murder, genocide by famine, genocide by rape. They are trying to eliminate the people they don't like, who look different, who have different last names, who have different religions. It's the same story, playing out again.
Unlike previous crimes against humanity where virtually the entire world plays a part closer to 'criminal' than 'humanity,' we have the power to stop it now. We've already lost many lives and families, but there's no need for more to die needlessly.
There's almost no interest in the blogosphere for this action. Why? These people are dying and few countries have the forces and the will to stand up to hateful, murderous, genocidal Islamo-fascist evil. Make no mistake, this is evil. There's nothing more evil than genocide; bigotry, ignorance, rape, murder and theft all rolled together in a mass of death and pain.
Let's also remember that this truly is racism. Islam, a religion that's supposed to be non-racist and provide equal access for all Muslims, has a long and sordid history with black Africans (though certainly not entirely bad). After all, the Arabs were the ones who originally started chattel slavery of Africans and they sold many Africans to southern Europeans. In fact the Arabic word for (black) slave is Abd and the Arabic word for black is Abid. Notice the similarity? The Arab and European slaves held by Muslims were treated substantially better than the black slaves, who were given the hardest manual labor. It's entirely reasonable, then, to point out the history of Arab-Muslim racism that has contributed to the current crimes against black Africans in Darfur. It's documented that many of the janjaweed rapists call their victims dark and say they want to make a light baby. In Arabic lineage, the baby's status is determined by the father, so a mixed-race Arab-black coupling (rape or otherwise) produces an Arab.
Needless to say, this is an example of the misogyny present in violent Islamists. Rape as a tool and tactic to wipe out a people; rape as a weapon alongside military force; rape as an institution and an occupation. If these aren't misogynists, then the term lacks any real meaning.
Sudan is by far the most Islamist-oriented state in the world, especially with the fall of the Taliban. They've gone will beyond the tactic of covertly paying terrorists to go attack elsewhere and beyond sponsoring them proudly; they are supporting and encouraging the rape and murder of people whose only crime is being black non-Muslims.
Sudan is a serious focal point of terrorist action and activity. After all, one of our bombed embassies was in the Sudan. And Osama was hiding in the Sudan for years. We already attacked Afghanistan for sheltering Osama and Al Qaeda; we ought to attack the Sudan for assistance it gives to the janjaweed death-militia and other terrorist organizations.
We ought to intervene to save the lives of the people being exterminated. We cannot condemn the Holocaust in good faith when we refuse to acknowledge and intervene against the genocide currently taking place in Darfur.
The New Libertarian, from QandO
by neolibertarian
QandO has a publication coming out called The New Libertarian. The first issue is free to all and I highly recommend it.
Obviously I guess I fall somewhere in this new group of "neo-libertarians" if only by virtue of this blog's name. Of the 5 determinants of neo-libertarian policy preferences, I agree with four. I have to disagree, or at least qualify, the final one on foreign policy. That one is about using US military force solely at the discretion of the US (something I have no problem with and think is probably mandated by the intent of the Constitution) and only in circumstances where American interests are directly affected.
I must object if this means something close to the Buchananite view. I'm sure the author agrees with the war in Iraq, unlike Buchanan, but it sounds to me like a rejection of the Somalia and Kosovo missions. I do not believe it makes sense to ignore massive crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing simply because the victims don't offer us anything. I also think it horribly undermines our image as saviors and guardians of freedom that we would try to cultivate under the other foriegn policy point (about the pre-eminence of democracy in foreign policy).
I'm not sure exactly what is outside our interests if our interests are expanded to include support for stopping genocide even in oil-free countries like Kosovo or Rwanda, but that's not my direct concern. I do think we ought to leave most of the humanitarian stuff to the charities and churches, except the most pressing instances, and that we don't NEED to intervene militarily to stop genocide unless others refuse to do so.
I think it really lends credibility to us as a guarantor of liberty if we were to step in and stop another Rwanda or another Holocaust before it got into high gear - there are still Europeans grateful to us for saving them in World War II. I also think that, with the changes in technology and economy, it's both affordable and possible for us to learn of genocide and then stop it in a short period of time. I won't make a big tiff about what others think, though. Discussions are good; constant condemnations and vilifications are not.
TNL seems like a very decent publication. It has a very professional appearance and intelligent articles.
Anti-Genocide Coalition Charts
by neolibertarian
To flesh out the idea I laid out in an earlier blog entry (here) I've created some charts.
The first one is large and somewhat confusing. I've tried to simplify it, but it still looks large and confusing. It alctually makes a lot of sense. Reading the chart with the first blog entry handy will greatly improve reading. I don't believe I changed a single thing between the two, except emphasis and specificity.
The second one is simpler, much skinnier, and quite a bit longer. It takes you through the process of an intervention from start to finish (although it doesn't really cover the internal workings of each step; it's mostly just the relations and interactions of the actor-entities.
I'm also doing this just to get the responsibilities and relationships nailed down. Seeing how the groups' arrows and boxes interact gives me a vague idea of how complex or simple the job would be in real life.
In case you haven't put it together, the reason it's divided into three branches is function-derived. In order to intervene, there has to be a governing body with a military - the members Council Branch. In order to determine when intervention is appropriate, there must be a process to discover or respond to genocide in the world - the Liberties Watchdog Branch. In order to clean up a country after removing the murderer-in-chief there, we'd need to address both the immediate human needs and long-term political needs of the populace - the Reconstruction Efforts Branch. I designed this thing from function upwards. I could've arguably given the military its own Branch but I wanted to keep it subverted to the larger goal. I also wanted to keep the bureaucracy of the organization's military in check.
The working title, again, is International Defense Coalition.
original blog entry
process chart
relationship chart
