Questions
1. How does taking a position based on moral clarity disqualify Canada from being an "honest broker" in any future peace negotiations?
2. Have we truly become such a society of instant gratification that people truly believe we can re-locate tens of thousands of Canadians in a region in which we have no military capabilities for that purpose overnight?
3. Why is there an insistence by some quarters on a neutral ground that seeks to draw moral equivalence between a democratic state and a terrorist organization that is exploiting the weakness of the Lebanese state?
4. Why do well-meaning people seek to deny a legitimate state from enforcing its right of self-defence and the principles Security Council Resolutions 1368, 1373, and 1559?
5. If states are not willing to disrupt, dismantle, and disband terrorist organizations, either because they are incapable or unwilling, do not the principles of The Responsibility to Protect, which re-defines sovereignty as conditional based on responsibilities and obligations, apply?
9 comments:
Wow, is this specifically written to Cherniak, or is it just co-incidence?
Could you please, please, please post #1 over at his place? The moral clarity/honest broker bit?
Probably just a coincidence. After going through my blogroll and reading the morning newspaper, these are the top things that were on my mind and causing me a measure of frustration with various Canadian opinion, political, and media outlets.
But yes I'll be happy to pop #1 over there. :)
Good job, chappie!
I'd love your thoughts, Richard, on two articles I put up at http://greensclues.blogspot.com/ tonight; you know I like your knowledge and insights.
RGM:
I'd like to take a shot at question #4.
Because what Israel is doing right now is not, by any definition, self-defence. There are two components to self-defence: necessity and proportinality. If you punch me in the face and I shoot you dead is that self-defence? Okay, okay. I can hear you saying "but Israelis have been killed". If you kill my mother and I kill your entire extended family is that self-defence? The answer to both questions is no.
The accepted international definition of "self-defence" can be traced to the "Caroline Affair" of 1842. US Secretary of State, Daniel Webster wrote to British Privy Council member Lord Ashburton that:
It will be for that Government to show a necessity of self-defence, instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation. It will be for it to show, also, that the local authorities of Canada,- even supposing the necessity of the moment authorized them to enter the territories of the United States at all,-did nothing unreasonable or excessive; since the act justified by the necessity of self-defence, must be limited by that necessity, and kept clearly within it.
Similarly, the Canadian Criminal Code (which is not particularly relevant here, but instructive) defines self-defence as:
Every one who is unlawfully assaulted without having provoked the assault is justified in repelling force by force if the force he uses is not intended to cause death or grievous bodily harm and is no more than is necessary to enable him to defend himself.
That's nice and all, but you're basing Israel's response on a singular action, whereas I, and many others who are defending Israel, are looking at the whole sum of Hezbollah's terrorist actions against the Israeli state. Their response is not, strictly speaking, about compelling Hezbollah to give up the two kidnapped soldiers and lay down arms in this immediate conflict. Rather, it is to prevent any future attacks by Hezbollah against Israelis, which will happen, of that we can be assured.
To take this to the interpersonal level, instead of state-terrorist organization level, assume that there is a person who has continually punched you in the face, killed your relatives, let the air out of your car's tires, and set all your clocks back by three hours. He has continually not faced the full consequences for his actions and, indeed, the law has often stood by idly while this has occurred. At some point that person is going to reach a breaking point and take such action so that he will not be punched in the face anymore, his relatives will no longer be killed, his tires will remain full of air, and his clocks will stay at the proper setting. If the law is unwilling to take action, and you're not going to move, there are few alternatives to using force.
Richard:
Make up your mind, is it self-defence or preventative pre-emptive action. And let's not pretend that Israel has been turning the other cheek for years and years.
To use your example, if some one has done all of those things to me (punched me in the face, killed my relatives, let the air out of my tires and set my clocks back), I still don't have the right to kill hundreds of innocent people to get that person back. In other words, I can't shoot up the entire neighbourhood in hopes that one of the people I kill is my enemy. A measured response would be to find out where that person is and kill him directly.
I hate to be light about the situation, but - "sets my clocks back three hours" was pretty priceless. Oh Richard - perhaps you have a sense of humour underneath your learned exterior. ;)
This is a toughie, and I'm not sure, Devin, which label I'd choose. Is destroying Hezbollah self-defence or preventative-pre-emption, I'm not sure - I do know, though, that destroying it is only a good thing.
I'm concerned, though, that Israel is overdoing it at cost of losing Lebanon as an important ally, I must say.
I think "proportionality" is not relevant, and I don't say that glibly, at all, it's not easy to say. War is about destroying your enemies: Hezbollah are killers, and Israel should go after Hezbollah with all it has. (That's not to say "after Lebanon, too".)
Devin, re: "is it self-defence or preventative pre-emptive action." The two concepts are not mutually exclusive. Also, again I reiterate something I said over at Riley's blog: in order to achieve what you recommend, Israel would have to invade and occupy all of Lebanon. By the looks of things, that's what they're about to do, so you may be getting your wish. Sadly, there will still be innocent civilians getting killed in the process, it is simply an unavoidable consequence of war, which is something that I hate.
Jason, I've got tons of fun little quips like that, I just need to make them available a little more often. It may help undo this perception that I'm paternalistic blah blah blah.
On that note, I need to clean up my apartment, there's books and papers everywhere from the latest round of revisions. And I want to watch some Metallica.
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