The Pathetic Hypocricy of Israel and USA on Palestinian ICC Plans to Probe War Crimes in Gaza

I've touched before on the hypocritical attitude of the USA regarding the activities – or lack of activities – of the International Criminal Court, ICC with regard to international conflicts: here and here. In that case, the conflict in question pertained to Syria. Now, a few days ago, there were news of an official visit of the foreign minister of the Palestinian Authority, Riad al-Malki, to the ICC prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, where the former urged the ICC to probe alleged war crimes of Israeli soldiers, IDF high officers, state officials and politicians during the recent and ongoing attacks in Gaza, to date resulting in around 2 000 dead, among which are many civilians and children, many more injured and material destruction of vast proportions (here, here, here). 

Related to past Israeli attacks on Gaza, such petitions have ended in nothing, as the ICC have found the legal status of the Palestinian Authority to be uncertain. It has been commented that, in order for the ICC to move on this issue, the PA needs become a member of the ICC, and only states can be such members (here). However, in 2012, the UN general assembly voted with a large majority to recognise the PA as a de facto state, albeit not a UN member (here, here, here). This is now used as a stepping stone by the PA to move for membership of the ICC (see also here) – to sign the Rome statute – thus recognising the court's authority, becoming party to its actions and be bounded by its decisions. To quote a report from Reuters (linked to above): 

If the Palestinians were to sign the ICC's founding treaty, the Rome Statute, the court would have jurisdiction over crimes committed in the Palestinian territories.
With Palestinian authorization, an ICC investigation could then examine events as far back as July 1, 2002, when the court opened with a mandate to try individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

Of course, what such probes and possible prosecutions against Israelis would lead to is entirely up to the prosecutors and judges of the court. For a number of reasons, one of which is about evidence, it may end up in nothing. However, it must be observed that any such probe might also uncover war crimes committed by the PA or the Hamas-controlled Gaza leadership, their officers, officials, politicians and soldiers. For instance, the rocket-fire of the Hamas military contingent, The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, towards Israeli civilian areas may very well constitute such crimes. Crimes such as genocide are namely not defined by the sheer number of victims, but by the intent behind prosecuted actions (here). In other words, by joining the ICC, the PA opens itself up to allegations and convictions and has bounded itself to comply, including the handing over of any Palestinian wanted for questioning or arrest.

Now, this is certainly not the case regarding Israel or its politicians or personnel and neither is it true of the USA. Both these states stand in the proud company of China, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Qatar not to recognise the ICC and to have refused signing the Rome statute – in fact, USA has even (under G.W Bush) actively withdrawn a previous signature of then US president Bill Clinton (for sources see my former post). Nevertheless, responding to the move of the PA towards ICC, Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, has officially asked the US to help Israel to avoid ICC actions (see also here and here) and a White House representative has responded that the US will support the Israeli case in this respect. These attitudes of both Israel and the USA are not only hypocritical – if they want to have a say over the ICC, they should join it and recognise it – it is pathetically so. Both of them wants to eat the cake and have it, to get the goods without paying the price.

Exactly how pathetic these moves by the Israels state and the US are is revealed by Netanyahu's stated concern of Israel being held to a "double standard" visavis Hamas. As just described, it is in fact Israel's persistent refusal to join and recognise the ICC which creates a double standard – in Israel's favour. For while the PA moves to join, thus empowering ICC to probe and prosecute actions on its territories and charge and arrest its citizens, Israel is not (and neither is the USA). As long as Israel reserves this (doubtful) legal privilege, it is Netanyahu and the state that he is currently running that actively upholds a double standard towards all those states realising the value and import of solid international law instruments pertaining to war crimes and crimes against humanity and recognising the ICC – among them, should they join, the state of Palestine, represented by the PA.

In conclusion, if Israel and the USA really wants to work for an adequately functioning ICC and secure lack of double standard in its actions, they should both immediately sign the Rome statute and recognise the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. Then, there would be some clout behind their present claims.

Further Complications with the US Argument for 'Punishing' Syria for Chemical Attacks: Hypocricy and Lack of Foundation

So, yesterday I had a post pointing to a piece by Udo Schuklenk, rather convincingly picking apart the US case for military attacking Syria as a 'punishment' for the current regime's alleged chemical warfare attacks against civilians. Today, I found two further reasons against any such idea, besides the numerous ones presented by Udo:

1. Articles in The Daily Mail, making public solid evidence to the effect that the UK, whose prime minister David Cameron has apparently swallowed president Obama's argument for an attack whole and unchewed and made motions in parliament to gain support for this line (to no effect, so far), has for many years when Syria was suspected of stockpiling chemical weapons agents, like sarin, exported ingredients for manufacturing exactly such agents to Syria with the government's and relevant agencies' open approval and license. The ingredient in question is one that in other contexts is perfectly innocent or benign, namely sodium fluoride (an ingredient in almost all tooth paste and sometimes added to drinking water to boost population dental health), but as here described, also a necessary bit in the manufacturing of sarin, which is exactly the gas claimed by the US to have been used by the Assad regime (and famous since the terrorist attacks in the Tokyo underground in 1995). It wouldn't surprise me one bit if also other of those countries now contemplating jumping onto the US attack wagon, at least if UN support can be produced, similarly have exported this or some other part of the alleged Syrian chemical weapons arsenal – in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if also the US government can be found to have done the same.

The relevance of this for Obama's argument is the following: If the Syrian regime is to be punished by a military attack (that will most certainly kill lots of people having nothing to do with the matter, besides being unlucky enough to reside inside Syrian territory – nobody believes in the fairy tales about precision warfare anymore), then surely a proportional punishment has to be directed at those that have aided and abetted such a serious act. That is, if the alleged action of the Assad regime is to be seen as a crime worthy of such a degree of punishment (including foreseeable collateral damages of substantial proportion), surely aiding and abetting such a crime must be viewed as deserving a punishment in the same ballpark, although at a more moderate proportion in the same way that assisting a murder deserves less punishment than the murder itself. Note that the argument that the aiding was unwitting does not hold up to scrutiny, since the UK and the rest of the countries here viewed Syria as a danger from the chemical weapons perspective already in those times and were fully well informed about the military application of sodium fluoride.

So, it would seem, that the same legal logic invoked by president Obama to motivate attacking Syria would force him to the conclusion that if, say, Damascus is to be bombed in punishment for the alleged attack, then some more minor part of the UK – say Middlesbrough or Bristol – should be in for a similar treatment.And it doesn't end there, for it would also seem that David Cameron himself, as a matter of legal logic, would have to accept and support such a conclusion. Lovely, isn't it?

2. Now, and this is something that dawned on my today, there's a basic fault of the whole attempt to try to make a legal argument in support of a military attack aimed at punishing a country's leaders or its officer's at lower levels for an alleged crime. This argument requires that due process is applied, and what Obama has suggested is far from that. Due process would seem to require that those that are suspects in the crime are apprehended for subsequent inquiry and investigation by the International Criminal Court – not that Damascus or whatever other place is contemplated by the Washington hawks as a fitting target is reduced to a pile of rubble, possibly killing the Syrian leadership possibly responsible for chemical attacks together with a huge bunch of other people, without anything even resembling trial. There is only one problem: the USA, for entirely selfish reasons, is on record as actively working against the ICC and its underlying idea of installing a legally secure institution for punishing war crimes and crimes against humanity. In conclusion: Obama's argument relies on the idea of applying due legal process and rule of law, while what he suggests is the opposite. Not only that, he represents a country that is an active enemy of the very notion of such rule of law.

So, in the end, it would seem that, even discounting for the blind eye towards those who have made the alleged chemical attack possible and the hypocricy implied by that – the entire attempt of the US regime and president Obama to dress up in legal garment what is, I suppose, in the end the same old 'preventive self-defense' rubbish as usual, fails even more splendidly than argued by Udo yesterday.

Now, should Obama change his mind and accept, as EU leaders now seem keen on, that an ICC-based due process handling of the alleged chemical attack of the Syrian regime is applied, as would seem logical in view of the legal argument made, such a due process would also have to include, of course, the crime of aiding and abetting such alleged criminal behaviour, which in turn would seem to imply that David Cameron and relevant ministers (of security, defense and foreign trade) should, at the very least, be held for questioning and possible a number of other governments should be in for the same treatment. A little something for the EU council of ministers to contemplate in their further musings on this matter.

What to Read to take a Stand on the Syria Military Attack Issue

I'm so happy that my bioethics colleague Udo Schuklenk of Queens University, Canada, and editor in chief of the journal Bioethics got around to writing this post. It's frankly the only thing you need to read to base a decided opinion on the issue of whether or not there should be a military strike against Syria, as has been so eloquently proposed by US president Obama in a recent speech.

Udo hits the head on the nail: if you're all for retribution whatever the consequences on the basis of arbitrary rules, then you should be for an attack - otherwise not. If you're that sort of soft bloke that, together with Udo and myself, actually thinks that what happens to people in Syria and other places should be the main factor to consider when making decisions like these, you might also want to weigh in the factor that Russia today declared that it will use the military capability of its warships , present off the Syrian coast, to rebut any attempt to attack from out side Syria, and muse a bit on the implications of that before picking your side.

Happy thinking!

Are Drones more Advanced than Human Brains?

'What??', you may rightfully ask, has the philosopher joined the club of positive futurists that he word-whipped so badly recently? How could the US distance-controlled search and destroy flying units popularly known as "drones" ever be compared to the complexity of the wiring or functionality of a real brain? Especially so since said drones evidently fail massively (see also here) to do what they are supposed to. Not meaning that I find the activities of humans in military operations much more tasteful, mind you – just so that we can put that little debate to a side for now.

But it's not me, folks! It's no smaller an intellectual giant than the very President of Yemen, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, elected by a massive majority as the sole candidate in 2012, who says so – or seems to be saying so, according to the Washington Post (reported also in my own country here, here) Yes, that's right, the very same Yemen where the activities of drones have recently been heavily criticised for inefficiency, inhumanity and political counterproductivity (see also here). What he says more precisely, in response to the exposure of the increased use of drones in Yemen, is this:

Every operation, before taking place, they take permission from the president /.../ The drone technologically is more advanced than the human brain.

Now, it is not my place here to criticise the decisions of the president as such, I'm sure there are more than one political delicacy for him to consider in these matters. However, since he seems to be basing his decision at least partly on the above assessment of the capacities of drones, there seems to be a tiny bit here for the philosopher to have a word about. Simply put: are there any reasons to hold true what he says about drones and brains?

I'm sure that your initial reaction is the same as mine was: obviously not! The laughingly narrow computational, sensory and behavioral capacity of a drone to be comparable to the immensely complex biological wiring of the human brain and its sensory and nervous system, capable of so much more than merely killing people - come off it! So, why not just say that? you may wonder. Because, on further inspection, I changed my mind, I confess that the just stated is indeed one interpretation of what the president says, but it is far from the only one and even less the most reasonable one.

Consider again the comparison made in  the quote above.

Note, for instance, that it is done between a part of humans (their brain) and the whole of the drone. Human brains are in fact not capable of doing much unless assisted by the rest of the human body. This in contrast to a drone, that includes not only its computer and sensory mechanisms, but a whole lot of mechanics as well. This makes the drone capable of, e.g., flying and bombing, which the human brain as such is clearly not capable of.

You may retort that the brain may feel and think much better about more things than the drone computer (plus sensors), but that's also a simplification. For sure, a drone is probably a much too simple machine to be ascribed anything like beliefs or feelings (or any sort of sentiment or attitude beyond purely behavioral dispositions of the same kind that can be ascribed to any inanimate object). But we also know that a computer has a capacity for computation and quantitative data processing far beyond any human with regard to complexity and speed. So when it comes to getting a well-defined type of task done, the drone computer and sensors may very well do much better than any single or group of human brains.

That something like this is the intended meaning of the statement is actually hinted at by the use of the qualifier "technologically". One interpretation of that could perhaps be the same as synthetic or manufactured, in which case, the statement would become trivially true, but also empty of interesting information: we already knew that brains are not artifacts, didn't we? But the word "technology" may also signify something else than the distinction between natural and artificial, it may rather signify the idea of technology as any type of use of any type of instrument for the realisation of human plans. In effect, the qualitative comparison between drones and human brains has to be done relative to the assumed goals of a specific plan. In this case, I suppose, that of killing certain people while avoiding to kill certain other people. This, of course, opens the issue of whether one should attempt to kill anybody at all, but it is rather obvious that the president does not signal that question to be open for debate in spite of the fact that pondering it would be a task where a human brain would for sure be vastly superior to a drone.

A pretty boring retort at this stage could be to point to the fact that if it hadn't been for human brains, there wouldn't be any drones. One could add, perhaps, that the operation of drones takes place with active guidance and operation of humans (including their brains). But surely, what the president is getting at is how things would have gone had humans tried to carry out whatever orders they are trying to carry out without access to the drones.

And, plausibly, this is what the president means and claims: that humans using drones get more of those people killed that are supposed to be (according to given orders) killed and less of those that are not supposed to be killed compared to if human soldiers or fighter planes had been used.  The statement carries no deeper ramifications for cognitive science or philosophy, except perhaps that our celebration about the capacities of the human mind and brain tend to become less obvious and looking more self-serving when taken down from more general and unspecific levels.

It is, of course, an empirical question whether or not the claim about the greater efficiency (relative to some particular set of orders or goals) is correct or not (as seen there are some doubts expressed in the Washington Post stories), but it is not an a priori obvious falsehood. To assess it would, however, require access not only to body count data and such, but also the precise content of said orders with regard to e.g. accepted degrees of collateral killings, losses to own troups (guaranteed to stay at zero when using drones) and so on. Which, of course, will not be forthcoming. The dear president Hadi can say whatever he wants about the relative capacities of drones and brains and never be faulted.

For my own part, I cannot but remember the rendering (from the book The Man who Knew too Much) of a response by Alan Turing in a radio debate on artificial intelligence in the 1950's to the challenge that no computer could ever compose sonnets (or any other poem, one supposes) of similar quality to those of Shakespeare. Turing said that while it was possibly true that computer poems would not be enjoyable for humans, he rather thought that a computer could be able to compose poems of great enjoyment to other computers. If anyone has a more exact reference of this, I would be happy to receive it.

War - Why Not? That's Why!

The film showing how an US military helicopter without any prior warning guns down a number of journalists, other civilians, eventual rescuers and - perhaps - some armed individuals in Iraq in 2007 has been waltzing around the world's news-desks this day. We can hear the heli-crew's jovial chatting over the radio as they identify the carrying of bags, cameras and phones as the equivalent of being "armed" and jolly reactions to the result of their own response to this observation: "Right through the windshield!" the gunner exclaims happily as he has just massacred some people coming to rescue in a car. Here is the video (from the NBC news website, since the youtube posting has been blocked unless you log in):

 

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The reactions I have seen in commentaries are all about outrage, horror and amazement. I, for my part, is not at all surprised at what the video shows, but actually by this reaction. I've touched on this subject before in relation to the Swedish public reaction to the fact that Swedish soldiers are in fact being killed in Afghanistan. But this time, then, it is about the killing being done by soldiers in a war. Why, I ask, be surprised or amazed?

Not that I believe the US armed forces to be particularly sinister or evil - not at all. The behavior of the crew is what we should expect of any military unit in a similar situation. This is what war is about. This is what soldiers are for. Making war and engaging the military is when we lay to a side all normal hesitations and restrictions in the pursuit of our political goals. In a soldier's logic there is only the objective: balancing benefits and burdens, cost-benefit analyses, weighing of ends and means - all that is for the jujumen higher up to do before they choose to send the soldiers to war. For a soldier, to speak in technical terms, there is no such thing as efficiency, there is only efficacy (although the end pursued may not seem valuable to others when considering the costs). If the objective is to engage and exterminate "enemy combatants", this is what the soldier does, accepting that there will be masses of "collateral damage". This is what we spend all those tax money in the defense budget on: to teach our soldiers that lesson; to make them able to execute its practical implications on the battlefield.


This is also why war so seldom (if anytime) solve any problems, although military objectives may be accomplished. For, as Iraq so saliently illustrates, all that collateral damage inevitably invites new aggression as well as social chaos. Unless, of course, the war ends in the way that colonel Kurtz in Coppola's Apocalypse Now realised that it has to end if there is to be an end: "We have to exterminate them! Village after village, pig after pig, cow after cow" - "Drop the bomb, destroy them all!", as the final scribble in Kurtz's journal reads, echoing his namesake's "Exterminate all the brutes!". Not that this has to mean actual physical slaughter of every single human being, but the people, the nation, the culture, the group - the very institution that is attacked - has to be finally broken into total defeat and to accomplish that (as the WW2 defeat of Germany showed) takes a lot of killing - a lot. Wars with such objectives can indeed be won! But if we want a war with moderation, with human restraint, with moral consideration - forget it! This is why Apocalypse Now is the greatest anti-war movie ever made. This is why the very idea of a just war - while logically conceivable - is a practical misnomer, unless you accept the military logic that achievement of the objective - whatever it is - is worth just about any cost.


Admittedly, in very rare, extreme circumstances, even a winnable war may seem worth it to a decent person. In that case, we may accept that we have to lay off our normal cloak of decency and restraint in order to prevent the worst. This is why politicians keen of attaining a legacy as leaders in times of war and conflict always do their best to create the public image of such circumstances being the actual situation before taking action. Knowing or sensing that people, even under the influence of such manipulation, are normally quite unwilling to have masses of uncontrollable violence and destruction unleashed, our leaders most often also convey messages about the war being undertaken in a controlled, moderated, restrained and considerate manner. Also this is a part of the idea of the just war and when preaching this doctrine they lie. Of course, they lie. This is why the US army tried to cover up the event shown in the 2007 film: it exposes their and their leaders lies.


But back to the Iraq-footage from 2007. My simple point is: you went to war, what the heck did you expect? If you go to war, it is perfectly normal to have people gun each other down for no better reason than that they assemble in a group, wear certain clothes or carry cameras, phones or handbags. For all those things might be what that soldier in the film reports over the radio: firearms, bombs, grenades, scouts, infiltrators, you name it! He did his job, he assumed the worst and acted accordingly. If you still feel that there is some wrong that has been committed here, you need to look further; to the original decision to make war in the first place.

War is hell - even for Swedes

The recent killing of two Swedish soldiers in the Swedish-Finnish contingent of the military international security force in Afghanistan has sent the country known for its almost 200 years of peace into an identity crisis of unprecedented proportions. In a state of baffled shock mixed with an ill-at-ease dabbling with publicly displayed national chauvinistic emotions and expressions usually frowned upon when occurring in other countries (not least our happily nationalistic neighbor, Norway), it is as if my country's collective mentality has suddenly caught up with the fact that we are nowadays actually participating in war for real. People are killed in war - even Swedish soldiers!

Before going on, I need to make the obvious clarification: this is not about ridiculing the near and loved ones of the soldiers killed, or of questioning the obvious fact that their killing is as much a tragedy as any other killing. Rather, what I will say is a confirmation of this: War is hell; hell for everyone - even for Swedes.

What is so strange about the public reaction to the news is the apparent surprise at this elementary fact that it expresses. The responsible military officers that gave the news at a press conference projected one strong feeling: disbelief. "We are the good guys, we take off our helmets in order not to seem threatening to the Afghan civilians", it was as if they were thinking, "this can't happen to us!". But it did, of course, and it was only a matter of time. Everybody knew this deep down, but buried the insight so well, so that now that it actually occurs they stand defenseless.

Interestingly enough, this is far from the first time that Swedish soldiers have been actively involved in military operations abroad, and some Swedish soldiers participating in those ventures have indeed been killed in action - twelve since the 1960's, to be precise. Some of these events have taken place during my adult life, and I remember vividly the sorrow with which the news were relayed, but I can't recall anything like the stunning of an entire people now taking place.

Quite possibly, the reaction can be traced back to a truth so thoroughly denied for some years now: the Afghanistan venture is, unlike the former participation in various peace-keeping operations, about making war for real. What Swedes, Danes, Finns, French, etcetera, soldiers are doing there is no different from what we all have watched as a piece of exotic entertainment in movie after movie about the Vietnam war. For Afghanistan is not a case of a temporary conflict in need of UN buffer to settle down (as Cyprus or Congo). Even less is it a cleaning-up operation to establish a parameter of safety for the victims of devilish bad guys (like Kosovo). The state of Afghanistan is, since several decades back, one of the most primordial types of war - the social chaos where every human being is at the same time the most vulnerable of potential victims and the most vicious of threatening predators. This is hell for anyone, and the attempts to come to grips with the situation so far has only served to sustain the elementary state of things, let alone with some shallow political make up. So Swedish soldiers are making war for real in Afghanistan and indeed it is hell. It always is.