<nettime> [IRAQ Digest] Judgment Day

[Are Flagan <areflagan@artpanorama.com>]

As the announced "day of reckoning" draws closer in Iraq, the debacle of who
is going to preside over whom, and on what legal terms, continues. When
international law has already been rendered defunct, and the anti-war tenet
of the UN charter pushed aide in favor of a vague justification for war in
resolutions 678, 687 and 1441 (which is apparently not entirely without
legal merit), it is hard to see what rulebook may finally apply in the dock.
Double standards for war crimes are profuse; the winning side simply
dismissing and excusing its own growing record -- civilian clothes worn by
special forces in violation of the Geneva Convention, the "chick got in the
way" dismissal of civilian causalities, the indiscriminate use of cluster
bombs and depleted uranium shells (see excellent article in the Egyptian
Al-Ahram Weekly) and so on. If the "throw the first stone" dictum presumably
admired by the born-again commander in chief broadly applies to the
prosecution of "war crimes," everyone presumably either goes to jail or
enjoys the brand of freedom now being exported. What we are likely to get,
however, is a mockery of show trials that most likely will violate some very
basic principles of law and rights. Despite assurances that a recognizable
POW doctrine applies here, the deliberate confusion of the war on terror
with the war in Iraq is constant. A case in precursory point, then, may be
the Military Order signed by President Bush on November 13, 2001 and
currently used to maintain Camp X-Ray, of invisibles, in Cuba. The Military
Order's definition of which non-citizen individuals are subject to the
decree is chilling, just as the defining actions of terrorism are broad
enough to include most posts to nettime (certainly when interpreted from the
patriotic neocon perspective that upholds it). If not, there is always
subsection (2)...

-af

----------------

Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War Against
Terrorism

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011113-27.html

Sec. 2.  Definition and Policy.

(a)  The term "individual subject to this order" shall mean any individual
who is not a United States citizen with respect to whom I determine from
time to time in writing that:

(1)  there is reason to believe that such individual, at the relevant

times,

(i) is or was a member of the organization known as al Qaida;

(ii) has engaged in, aided or abetted, or conspired to commit,

acts of international terrorism, or acts in preparation therefor,

that have caused, threaten to cause, or have as their aim to

cause, injury to or adverse effects on the United States, its

citizens, national security, foreign policy, or economy; or

(iii) has knowingly harbored one or more individuals described in

subparagraphs (i) or (ii) of subsection 2(a)(1) of this order;

and

(2)  it is in the interest of the United States that such individual

be subject to this order. 

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