Who’s Afraid of the Tribunal?

[BT]

Who’s Afraid of the Tribunal?

by Michael J. Totten

Hezbollah says the Chapter VII United Nations Security Council’s tribunal to try the assassins of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is illegal and illegitimate: “The resolution is a violation of the sovereignty of Lebanon and an aggressive interference in its internal affairs.”

It’s hardly worth arguing with these people, but I’ll go ahead and do it anyway: Assassinating Lebanon’s elected officials is a violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty and an aggressive interference in its internal affairs.
Those who believe this is all a Zionist-Neocon-Hariri conspiracy might want to note who the United Nations (which is held in low esteem by the Zionists and the Neocons, if not the Hariri family) holds in the dock as chief suspects:

    Nine suspects, including Lebanon's once feared top pro-Syrian security chiefs, have been under arrest for about two years over the murder of former premier Rafiq Hariri.

    […]

    Four of the main suspects were Syria's key security generals in Lebanon until Damascus was widely accused of the Hariri murder and forced to complete a troop pullout after 29 years of military dominance.

    They include presidential guard chief General Mustafa Hamdan, former general security chief General Jamil al-Sayed, ex-internal security head General Ali al-Hage and former army intelligence director General Raymond Azar.

    Since they were arrested in August 2005, the four have been held in a special building at the Roumieh central prison, in a mountainous village northeast of Beirut.

    They are accused of murder with premeditation, attempt to murder with premeditation, terrorist actions, as well as the possession of weapons and explosives, according to judicial sources.
    As the international tribunal due to try the Hariri murder is governed by the Lebanese criminal law, the four may be sentenced to death if found guilty.

UPDATE: Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem told the United Nations Security Council that Syria refuses to cooperate with the tribunal. They won't even pretend to cooperate with the investigation.

http://www.michaeltotten.com/

[Plane]

If a person were in favor of putting President Bush on trial in an international court , would they simularly favor putting Assad in the dock?

Do you have to choose both to avoid hypocracy ,or could one point to diffrences in circumstances ?

[Michael Tee]

<<If a person were in favor of putting President Bush on trial in an international court , would they simularly favor putting Assad in the dock?>>

Apples and oranges, I'm afraid.  Hariri's assassination was a simple case of murder.  Last time I looked, criminal law was exclusively within the sovereign jurisdiction of a sovereign state.

Bush OTOH could (and should) be charged with war crimes, principally the plotting and waging of an unprovoked war of aggression, which was one of the principal capital offences recognized as such at Nuremburg, but also including crimes against humanity based on the use of torture on prisoners and inhuman weapons against civilian populations.  If Bush had limited himself to an individual act of murder or attempted murder (for example, the attempted assassination of Saddam Hussein) then I would not have been in favour of an international court assuming jurisdiction over the case.

[Plane]

<<If a person were in favor of putting President Bush on trial in an international court , would they simularly favor putting Assad in the dock?>>

Apples and oranges, I'm afraid.  Hariri's assassination was a simple case of murder.  Last time I looked, criminal law was exclusively within the sovereign jurisdiction of a sovereign state.

Bush OTOH could (and should) be charged with war crimes, principally the plotting and waging of an unprovoked war of aggression, which was one of the principal capital offences recognized as such at Nuremburg, but also including crimes against humanity based on the use of torture on prisoners and inhuman weapons against civilian populations.  If Bush had limited himself to an individual act of murder or attempted murder (for example, the attempted assassination of Saddam Hussein) then I would not have been in favour of an international court assuming jurisdiction over the case.

Assad is not availble to the courts of Lebanon yet.

An assination is an act of war , so we get back to whether the war was just or not in considering whether the assination amounts to murder or not.

[Michael Tee]

<<An assination is an act of war >>

I'm not at all sure that it is.  At most, I could see it being a legitimate provocation of a war, or a casus belli.  In which case, you'd have to have some evidence that the plotters of the assassination committed the act as part of a wider scheme to start a war, something I would find very hard to believe, since if the plan was to provoke war, more provocations would likely have followed had the first proven inadequate to the job. 

On what authority did you make that statement anyway?

[Plane]

Can we have a consensus that assination of a head of state in another country is an act of war?


If it isn't what would be?

[Michael Tee]

I think we're splitting hairs here.  I say an assassination could be a just cause of war, you say it's an act of war.  Considering that an embargo has been considered (by commentators at least) to be an act of war, I'm going to go along with you on this one.  An assassination is an act of war.

Nevertheless, the Nuremburg criminals were convicted of planning a war of aggression, not of committing a single act of war.  The difference I suppose is that the act of war (the assassination) does not necessarily result in a war.  The plan could have begun and ended with the assassination of Hariri or with other consequences short of war.  In which case, what was intended boiled down to the death of a single individual.  Hardly anything near as heinous as unleashing the dogs of war and the deaths of thousands or millions.

[Plane]

The killing of a single citizen for the purpose of political advantage is an act of war .

Syria is an occupying power in Lebanon , even if there is a large minority who like them being there.

Is the act of war on the chosen leader of Lebanon an act against those who chose him?

This attempt to frustrate the people of Lebanon is an act of war  against the people of Lebanon.

Besides this, there are several other citizens of Lebanon who have died because Syria wants an empire.