Senate The Middle East Discussion Thread

They are. Assad released "jihadists" only out of desperation, and his forces have been actively fighting Daesh-- including the recent recapture of Palmyra. This situation is nothing like interwar Eastern Europe and Molotov-Ribbentrop. I know World War II is The War and Hitler and Stalin were teh evulest guyz evar and we MUST demonstrate someone's evil by a direct comparison to those two, but come on.

 

Trump, obviously.

 

Hey, it's me.

 

Would you make the trains run on time?

 

Someone apparently missed the part where it was explained that the refugees are fleeing Assad at least as much if not more than IS. Just a minor point, but hey.

 

What would suck about a Hillary presidency is that prosecution of Cheney would probably be off-limits. If anybody would still be interested in that at all. It would be the just thing to do.

Bush’s Top CIA Briefer: Bush And Cheney Lied To The Public About Iraq War

"Former CIA Directer Mike Morell, who was personally responsible for briefing President George W. Bush, was on Hardball with Chris Matthews and revealed what conspiracy theorists and the American people have been suspecting for a while now: Bush and Cheney did, in fact, lie to the public about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction".

I was looking for an appropriate thread to post this in. I googled, and the first hit was a 2006 thread called "Iraq: Moving forward after the '"Three weeks War'". Interesting to see some perspectives from a decade ago.

 

I don't see how we could take down Bush and Cheney without also bringing Obama to trial. Obama also violated international human rights law or is a war criminal himself re his illegal drone war. Hillary's implicated in all that too, right?

 

Obama didn't intentionally mislead the public in order to get their support for the invasion and long term occupation of a sovereign nation. That's not to say that its not valid to have a discussion about the ethics and the legalities of using drones to target Americans for death without a trial, but there's a big difference between that and willfully lying to the public with the intention of precipitating a major war, especially in a part of the world that already has a highly complex political landscape and when you know that your own father chose not to invade Iraq for that very reason.

 

Insofar as I am aware, there is no international or domestic law forbidding the use of military drones. There are a few UN resolutions that put some conditions on their use. However, where they've been used, it's been in theaters specifically approved by the host country (eg Yemen, Pakistan). If anything, what you would be challenging is the facts of the killings themselves, not the weapon used to do so. As it happens, I don't think there's legal consensus on either point.

It's perfectly alright to point out that one has personal objections to drone warfare, or to raise moral issues with it, without claiming that it is currently illegal.

Superwatto: It won't happen. The CIA tortured people, and even with Eric Holder actively trying to build a case, they weren't able to go ahead with prosecution. They aren't going to do it for higher ranking officials committing offenses that are even more vague.

 

I think there is general legal consensus that the drone strikes violate international human rights laws on the grounds they constitute "extra-judicial assassinations". I don't think it matters how it is being done just that it is being done.

 

It's probably true - as soon as anybody brings up prosecuting Cheney or Bush, the Republican Party will mount an extensive campaign to bring Obama to justice. Even if drone strikes are just their thing.

The ICC could still sue them, but the US has a law that says it may attack The Hague when that happens. Smartly adopted half a year before the invasion. Who said Bush wasn't smart? Maybe just getting reelected was his only goal.

 

Except that consensus doesn't really exist. There is a lot of ambiguity around what constitutes enemy enemy combatants. For the record I agree that it violates human rights in some areas, however it is fairly ambitious when you can legitimately kill when your enemy isn't a sovereign nations army.

It's fairly difficult for any of this to actually hold up against Bush, Cheney or Obama, especially since the have UN resolutions which essentially legalised a lot of their actions.

 

Yes the consensus really, really does exist because of the very well know and well documented incidents of bystanders being killed in targeted drone bombings. Hundreds of children alone have been killed in Pakistan because of the practice of targeting a 'militant' who happens to be located within a building and the building is bombed, which has the effect of killing pretty much everyone in and around the building, regardles of whether they can be considered militants or combatants at all. In fact that is the main legal issue with drones, the complete absence of applying the principle of 'distinction'. Those deaths constitute extra-judicial assassinations which is a violation of international human rights laws.
http://humanrightsclinic.law.stanford.edu/project/living-under-drones/

 

Except that would constitute any act of collateral damage as 'extra-judicial killings'. I can't read the report you liked however I would argue that the problem with the United States drone program being violation of the Geneva conventions - as per Israel's strikes against Gaza - and certain other human rights provisions.

 

Yes, when you drop a bomb on a building then you are deliberately targeting everyone in that building. The same principle applies for murder under the common law doctrine of 'recklessness'. Where 'intent' is a necessary element of an offence, intent may be proved where there is evidence of recklessness such that it was inevitable that the actions would result in people dying. For example, if I drove a bus at full speed through a childcare centre and kids were killed as a result, I would be charged with murder because even though I could argue that there was no 'intent', my actions were reckless such that kids being killed was the inevitable consequence of the action.

 

Except war is governed by separate set of rules, jus in bello, than the civil sphere. If the area where the killings took place can reasonably be considered a war zone (again, another area of contention), they can be justified under human rights law. Where negligence is evidence (like in Gaza, etc), then, yes it is a violation and thus a war crime - and this is where human rights groups have a problem with it. However drone strikes in and of themselves do not constitute a violation of 'extra-judicial' killing.

So,
Drone Strikes = legal
How they are carried out = possibly illegal

 

Oh for ****'s sake . Life is too short.

 

Have you even read any of the recommendations of Human Rights watch and Amnesty International? Drones are perfectly legal to be used against terrorists. They have issue with the implementation.

https://www.hrw.org/topic/terrorism-counterterrorism/targeted-killings-and-drones
http://web.law.columbia.edu/human-r...ccountability-targeted-killings-drone-strikes

You said:

I don't think it matters how it is being done just that it is being done.

Which is just not true.

 

ISIS declares state of emergency in Raqqa.

 

Al Nusra. They're practically irrelevant at this point.

 

36 dead and 147 injured.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/28/europe/turkey-istanbul-airport-attacks/

 

Oh ****. Military coup underway in Turkey!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/15/turkey-low-flying-jets-and-gunfire-heard-in-ankara1/