RabzonKhan
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Ah- typical neocon (unilateralism) mindset, remember, these are the same people who started Iraq war based on lies. One can only hope the nightmare will end on 4 November. 
INSIGHT: No blank cheque, Mr Chertoff
Ejaz Haider
November 03, 2008
Speaking at the British Parliament, the United States homeland security chief, Michael Chertoff, has sought to push the boundaries of self-defence to a point always considered problematic in international law and diplomacy. Consider.
Chertoff says that international law should accommodate a countrys need to deter a possible threat abroad even if it meant taking pre-emptive action. His argument: If country X, within its borders, is openly tolerating or incapable of managing a location where people are consistently attacking a neighbour, is it sufficient to say, well, its within their sovereign territory, nobody can do anything about it? I think thats not true and I think theres a serious question about whether thats what the law ought to be. The larger question of the responsibility to make sure your own country is not a platform for attacking others is a matter that needs to be seriously considered in terms of what the law should be.
Separately and earlier, speaking at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates said that Washington would hold countries fully accountable for their actions.
Comments by these two senior US officials come at a time when the US has conducted two physical raids, one in Pakistan and another in Syria, and has made several drone strikes to take out targets inside Pakistani territory.
It is now clear that, failing to negotiate the conceptual pitfalls inherent in situations where sovereignty and respect for state practice come into conflict with a perceived security threat, this being so in the case of fighting an elusive adversary, the US government has decided to use force while goading reluctant states to accept a broader definition of self-defence.
Law, it is hoped, will follow force as has been the case historically. But lets first look at the problems here.
One, while Chertoff desires that international law should accommodate state concerns with regard to its security in the scenario that he has painted, it is clear that as the law stands, it does not have much space for the kind of action Chertoff is pushing for. However, as mentioned, since the US has already embarked on what Chertoff is marketing, its actions thus far cannot be considered legal.
Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter forbids states from using force: All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.
The stipulation is meant to secure all from the mischief of one or a few and seeks to end armed conflict. Because it is general in its approach, as all laws are supposed to be, its operation cannot be suspended on the basis of one states security threat. Let us also not forget that the target states may not be more than a few; it may even be just one.
It is precisely for this reason that the UN Security Council has specific provisions for meeting with and countering a particular threat. The UNSC is already seized of the situation in Afghanistan and has erected a comprehensive legal regime to that end.
What Chertoff is asking for is freedom from the constraints of that multilateral regime which seeks to counter the threat collaboratively and multilaterally rather than unilaterally. He must realise that the UNSCs legal regime that has mandated the use of force in Afghanistan works on the basis of (a) Article 2 (4) and (b) Article 51 which deals with self-defence.
Article 51 reads: Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.
The two articles combined create the interactive dynamic between force and law.
Chertoffs anguish over dealing with the current security threat is genuine. But he is short-changing the current legal arrangements by calling them inadequate. They are meant to discourage unilateral action. And unilateral action is what Chertoff is spoiling for. The problem is that he cannot have both the advantage of the current legal cover and the arbitrariness of unilateralism and use of force.
Ditto for preventive action. It was Bernard Brodie who explained the moral hazard that informs the ideas of preventive war and pre-emptive strike (Strategy in the Missile Age; Princeton University Press; 1959). It is a matter of record that the Bush administration deliberately conflated these two categories. Iraq was not about pre-emption; it was a preventive war based on deliberate falsehoods and, not surprisingly, has created the kind of misery Brodie warned against.
Terrorist groups can be taken out as part of a conflict and we may term it pre-emption only to the extent that effective measures can weaken them and pre-empt a strike by them. The police do this to criminal gangs all the time. But just like in police work Interpol is a good example effective pre-emption is mostly a function of collaborative effort rather than unilateral bulling in.
For that, again, the current legal regime is enough.
Lets take a specific example: Pakistans tribal areas.
The Pakistan army is already doing its best to cleanse the area of unwanted elements. That effort is there for all to see and has its legal basis in the very regime Chertoff seems disappointed over. Such being the case, the issue is not about resolve. But if capacity to act effectively is the problem, how do unilateral strikes add any value to the situation? Clearly, it would be a better option for the US to help Pakistan increase its capacity to deal with the threat rather than Chertoff straining at the legal leash to act cowboy-like.
Pakistan at no point has violated the UNSC mandate. It has lost over a thousand soldiers and many thousand of civilians. When a collaborative effort is already on and when there is greater need to improve the procedures and substance of a cooperative mechanism, why would Chertoff want a blank cheque to use force unilaterally?
It is precisely this kind of adventurism that has redounded to everyones disadvantage. If there is anything the world really needs, it is not more unilateralism and use of force but collaborative strategies that are not only effective in fighting terrorism but are also geared towards addressing their causes.
Else, this conflict will be never-ending and keep recrudescing like a bad case of eczema.
INSIGHT: No blank cheque, Mr Chertoff
Ejaz Haider
November 03, 2008
Speaking at the British Parliament, the United States homeland security chief, Michael Chertoff, has sought to push the boundaries of self-defence to a point always considered problematic in international law and diplomacy. Consider.
Chertoff says that international law should accommodate a countrys need to deter a possible threat abroad even if it meant taking pre-emptive action. His argument: If country X, within its borders, is openly tolerating or incapable of managing a location where people are consistently attacking a neighbour, is it sufficient to say, well, its within their sovereign territory, nobody can do anything about it? I think thats not true and I think theres a serious question about whether thats what the law ought to be. The larger question of the responsibility to make sure your own country is not a platform for attacking others is a matter that needs to be seriously considered in terms of what the law should be.
Separately and earlier, speaking at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates said that Washington would hold countries fully accountable for their actions.
Comments by these two senior US officials come at a time when the US has conducted two physical raids, one in Pakistan and another in Syria, and has made several drone strikes to take out targets inside Pakistani territory.
It is now clear that, failing to negotiate the conceptual pitfalls inherent in situations where sovereignty and respect for state practice come into conflict with a perceived security threat, this being so in the case of fighting an elusive adversary, the US government has decided to use force while goading reluctant states to accept a broader definition of self-defence.
Law, it is hoped, will follow force as has been the case historically. But lets first look at the problems here.
One, while Chertoff desires that international law should accommodate state concerns with regard to its security in the scenario that he has painted, it is clear that as the law stands, it does not have much space for the kind of action Chertoff is pushing for. However, as mentioned, since the US has already embarked on what Chertoff is marketing, its actions thus far cannot be considered legal.
Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter forbids states from using force: All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.
The stipulation is meant to secure all from the mischief of one or a few and seeks to end armed conflict. Because it is general in its approach, as all laws are supposed to be, its operation cannot be suspended on the basis of one states security threat. Let us also not forget that the target states may not be more than a few; it may even be just one.
It is precisely for this reason that the UN Security Council has specific provisions for meeting with and countering a particular threat. The UNSC is already seized of the situation in Afghanistan and has erected a comprehensive legal regime to that end.
What Chertoff is asking for is freedom from the constraints of that multilateral regime which seeks to counter the threat collaboratively and multilaterally rather than unilaterally. He must realise that the UNSCs legal regime that has mandated the use of force in Afghanistan works on the basis of (a) Article 2 (4) and (b) Article 51 which deals with self-defence.
Article 51 reads: Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.
The two articles combined create the interactive dynamic between force and law.
Chertoffs anguish over dealing with the current security threat is genuine. But he is short-changing the current legal arrangements by calling them inadequate. They are meant to discourage unilateral action. And unilateral action is what Chertoff is spoiling for. The problem is that he cannot have both the advantage of the current legal cover and the arbitrariness of unilateralism and use of force.
Ditto for preventive action. It was Bernard Brodie who explained the moral hazard that informs the ideas of preventive war and pre-emptive strike (Strategy in the Missile Age; Princeton University Press; 1959). It is a matter of record that the Bush administration deliberately conflated these two categories. Iraq was not about pre-emption; it was a preventive war based on deliberate falsehoods and, not surprisingly, has created the kind of misery Brodie warned against.
Terrorist groups can be taken out as part of a conflict and we may term it pre-emption only to the extent that effective measures can weaken them and pre-empt a strike by them. The police do this to criminal gangs all the time. But just like in police work Interpol is a good example effective pre-emption is mostly a function of collaborative effort rather than unilateral bulling in.
For that, again, the current legal regime is enough.
Lets take a specific example: Pakistans tribal areas.
The Pakistan army is already doing its best to cleanse the area of unwanted elements. That effort is there for all to see and has its legal basis in the very regime Chertoff seems disappointed over. Such being the case, the issue is not about resolve. But if capacity to act effectively is the problem, how do unilateral strikes add any value to the situation? Clearly, it would be a better option for the US to help Pakistan increase its capacity to deal with the threat rather than Chertoff straining at the legal leash to act cowboy-like.
Pakistan at no point has violated the UNSC mandate. It has lost over a thousand soldiers and many thousand of civilians. When a collaborative effort is already on and when there is greater need to improve the procedures and substance of a cooperative mechanism, why would Chertoff want a blank cheque to use force unilaterally?
It is precisely this kind of adventurism that has redounded to everyones disadvantage. If there is anything the world really needs, it is not more unilateralism and use of force but collaborative strategies that are not only effective in fighting terrorism but are also geared towards addressing their causes.
Else, this conflict will be never-ending and keep recrudescing like a bad case of eczema.
