Do you remember...?

Do you remember about how the START Treaty was going to make the world a safer and more stable place? I do.

Do you remember a time when Nations would actually declare their intentions and declare war before invading another country so that civilized norms between Nations are affirmed? I do.

Do you remember when the Left wanted the world to hold to standards of International Law? I do.

Do you remember when the Left criticized drawing lines and making threats as a serious destabilizing element of foreign policy? I do.

Do you remember a time when a President of the US would decry an act against International Law and the Laws of War as such? I do.

Do you remember a time when a President would have just said the plain things about International Law, the Laws of War and that the US decries barbaric invasions of an undeclared nature as making a Nation into a rogue as such activities were destabilizing to all Nations? I do.

Do you remember a time when a President, seeing foreign aggression would speak openly about working with our allies so as to formulate a response against rogue regimes? I do.

Do you remember a time when the Left decried activities of the US in the past when each and every particular of International Law was seen as unjust and that made the US a barbaric place? I do.

Do you see the way the Left reacts to this and how it now, when push comes to shove against a barbaric actor who does things against all standards of International Law, are making excuses for him? I do.

Yes I do remember these things and see the response of the oh-so righteous Left when a tyrant decides to just step into a place on his own without declaring war.

I remember that with Austria by reading history.

I remember that with Saddam Hussein and Kuwait by seeing it unfold.

I remember that by seeing Congress draft modern day uses of force, which are declarations of war, and having the Left decry the civilized manner of work between Nations as ‘illegal’ and ‘uncivilized’.

And now I see it again with Putin and Russia.

And I also see the inability to address civilized standards of diplomacy, the normality of relationships between Nations and the laws of war as part of the way civilized Nations act as not being upheld by the Left today.

Yes I see all of that and understand who the enemy is.

They are clear by their actions and inactions, both.

Thin Red Line

This week we have been witness to an alleged Chemical Weapons (CW) attack in Syria, probably the second or third such attack since President Obama put his 'red line' to work during the last election campaign to make himself sound good and strong on National Defense.  This was after Libya, which crossed no lines of using CW, and which the US and Europeans supported with arms and logistical supplies.  Of the things we delivered to Libyan rebels were US made MANPADs that have gone missing and appear to have been transferred to the Syrian 'rebels', mostly al Qaeda organization types either from AQ itself or AQ in the Magreb.  Added on to that is that the Syrian 'rebels' from AQ have also gotten their hands on CW stores of the regime at outlying bases and you now have two sides armed with CW capability.

A final part of this mix is Hezbollah which tested out Surface to Surface Missiles (SSM) and Iranian copies of the anti-ship Silkworm Missile, the latter used against an civilian cargo freighter and an Israeli Destroyer.  Thus there is a whole panoply of weapons available amongst all the parties involved, not to speak of the improved SCUDs that Syria has and the rumored Bio Weapon program that got kicked off when dual-use equipment was delivered to Syria in the '90s to help it make a pharmaceuticals industry which then shut down after the equipment was delivered.  Syria has a long line of backers going back decades which include: USSR/Russia, China, North Korea and its main backer, Iran.

Thus we are left with a specter of both sides having access to CWs and the entire Syrian conflict devolving into an artillery battle (with some SSM components also held by both sides because the regime had such weapons at outlying bases as well), and one in which one side has no air wing and the other side has one but is faced with an array of US and Libyan made MANPADs which threaten to neutralize not just fixed wing assets but rotary wing assets, as well.

Back in 2006 I did a review of the known Syrian weapons sites and what they looked like from Open Source INTEL to get a handle on just what it was that Syria had in-place at the time.  I've since looked at other imagery near al-Baida and seen what looks to be the rumored site of where Saddam's WMD programs ended up in Syria and it is typical of its other sites: some military surface emplacements and then indications of a larger underground structure , in the case of al-Baida, inside a mountain.  This is not only not unusual for Syria, but with its associations with NoKo and its expertise with having one of the most heavily dug in military systems on the planet, Syria most likely has put in defenses to thwart, divert or otherwise try to minimize the threat of 'bunker buster' bombs.  And as they had a good, close look at US capability in Iraq plus some INTEL coming via Iran from Af-Pak, Syria most likely has a good idea of the modern US capacity with such weapons.

Now comes President Obama's 'red line' being crossed and there are some essential questions to be asked, just on the military side of things.

1) Who has been using CWs in Syria?  Whenever you see photos of men with pails of chemicals to pour into an artillery shell, do realize that those are the oldest of the old shells in Syria.  They updated their CW capacity during the '70s by purchasing Spin Mix In Flight shell technology from Egypt which was supplied to them from the USSR.  So anyone using the old 'mix in pail and load' deal are most likely the lowest of the low end troops with old technology that was most likely at outlying bases, since you wouldn't want the modern shells to be used against you in a civil war... which this is, BTW, with outsiders trying take over, as well, in the form of AQ/AQIM.  It is easy enough to fake an artillery CW attack: just wait for an enemy artillery barrage and then mix some pails of chemicals, add some C-4 and blow them up in the craters or nearby.  This is a vital question as intervening against EITHER side means that the US is taking a PARTISAN SIDE in a civil war.  By damaging one side you help the other, which is the logic of old-style warfare like we are being handed in Syria.

2) If the point is to warn against using CW's, then why state just that [or even as what the President suggested in his proposed authorization document, all WMDs – added after initial post] ?  President George W. Bush gave the somewhat broad idea that getting rid of Saddam was to keep the world's worst weapons from the world's worst people.  That project is now a failure in Syria as that is precisely what is going on.  At this point AQ/AQIM must be assumed to have at least CW in its inventory to distribute to agents.  That is backed by the pre-OIF word from the Kurds that Saddam had trained AQ in CWs, and from our own CIA in Afghanistan where they found a site where AQ was using the Iraqi documents to create and test out CWs on animals and living human beings who were not volunteers.  Thus AQ has demonstrated knowledge, background and willingness to dabble in CWs and now have CWs in their inventory of available arms.  If President Obama's goal is to warn any Nation or organization (the much harder of the two to convince) that using CWs is off-limits, then why limit the attack to just CWs [or WMDs]?  Indeed, why use a conventional attack, at all?  The only way to make sure that the CW complexes, chemical facilities and actual source mines of phosphate are interdicted is not through conventional attacks, but with nuclear attacks.  That, of course, would just up the ante in the WMD game, but its still a hard chip to get access to even with nuclear proliferation... as long as Pakistan remains semi-stable, that is.  Or until Iran develops its own nuclear capacity.  Anything that leaves any of that infrastructure in place for the 'winner' means that you will have a CW capable State at the end of the conflict which, one would think, is just the opposite goal of what is being sought.

3) Attacking Syria would be easy if we hadn't PO'd the Israeli's, who have a demonstrated knowledge and capacity to take down Syrian (indeed just about anyone's) air defenses.  That still leaves us with the specter of US manned aircraft getting taken down with US made MANPADs that went to Libya and were transferred to the Syrian 'rebels'.  As I mentioned earlier these are not the only threats to be aware of, and SSM and anti-ship missile threats are also available to the Syrian regime and Hezbollah.  The dug-in nature of the Syrian main military sites, situated in regime strongholds, means that we cannot be assured of effectiveness of 'bunker buster' type bombs due to the passive and active defenses the regime has put in place due to Israeli capacity in that arena. 

Even if some of the weapons arrayed against US air and sea assets aren't the most modern, they do not have to be as a good number of them are man-portable or non-fixed site devices, which means that a feint against a ship would draw an air response that can then be met with a numerically high number of attacks.  Even stealth capacity is no proof against simple man-guided missiles and they won't even give you a lock-on warning, either.  Saddam was caught with his pants down because he expected the US to be thwarted for long months by Turkish duplicity and was lazily re-arranging his military to meet what he expected to be a long-way off US threat.  The Syrian regime is now given warnings of a date for decision and that will most likely be one of date of attack, as well.  Thus the chances of getting to and taking out arms that are the target goes down due to dispersal and defensive capabilities used to keep such arms, while other weapons (like SAM and MANPADS) get deployed to dissuade or take down US attacking aircraft.  While Syria is no virtual fortress like NoKo, it is a State with a major coastal mountain range, and mountain warfare is the 'great equalizer' against even the most sophisticated opponents. I looked at that in 2007 and anyone unfamiliar with what Mountain Warfare is might want to think about the topic.  Even though these are not the high mountains of Af-Pak, even the relatively low range in Syria has the same sorts of elements as are seen elsewhere and in other conflicts, and the US must take that to heart when going after any sort of hardened system set in a mountain range: Syria is not Libya, and the likelihood of getting a cruise missile into a cave opening will be much lower now that Syria knows the US has that capacity and has had decades to analyze it and prepare for such attacks.  If you wanted to take out Syria the time was way back when in Iraq when they were actively aiding and abetting the movement of terrorists into Iraq from Syria.  Too bad this President can't draw on that, huh?

4) Sectarian conflict is already going on in Syria between Shia and Sunni populations and, within the Shia population, between your average run of the mill types and the local Alawite sect which has its own teachings from Mohammed.  Consider them to be the LDS of Islam.  Being a minority of a minority (with Shia Islam around 10% of the population and the Alawite sect just 10% of that or 1% of the local population) and the specter of any US attack being cast as an attack against a religious minority raises its ugly head, as well.  The last thing the US needs on a regional basis is to raise sectarian conflicts to a bitter height by attacking one of them.  If we took the more even-handed approach that our allies took in Libya when all combatants took on the same garb and you couldn't tell regime from rebel from terrorist from civilian, then you might be able to make a case.  I dubbed that the 'Kill Them All' doctrine as it meant killing anyone who was fighting that you could set your sights on.  That, of course, would mean going after rebel caches of CWs as well... something we haven't heard about so far.  It's like the President wants to pick sides, pick winners, and not tell anyone that is what he is doing.  Oh, yes, that is because that IS what he is doing.

5) Finally, and this really should be heard out, if our aim is to help the 'defenseless civilian population' then why, oh why, aren't we planning to do that?  Really, if your goal is to preserve lives in a civil war where two sides (regime and 'rebels') are armed but the majority of the population (known as 'victims') aren't then why bother with either the regime or the 'rebels'?  A simple and much cheaper, plan is to buy up every AK from the global black market and air drop them by the pallet load to the civilian population.  Every town, village, farmhouse, collection of huts, places where people are seen living in caves, nomadic Bedouin, basically anyplace where you can find that isn't in control of the regime or 'rebels', should be well armed so that they aren't 'victims' any more.  If the idea is that the right to keep and bear arms is based on the fundamental positive liberty of warfare (self-defense) and the synthetic right to protect your property (gained by your liberty and thusly representative of your life's work), then this natural right is also a positive civil right and those deprived of arms when a war is ongoing (especially a 'respect no sides' civil war) are being offered up for slaughter.  If a well-armed society is a polite society and one likely to kill off hotheads, then isn't the place for this to be tested?  Syria has been a police State under one family for decades.  Civil rights, human rights and natural rights are abridged and abused there by both 'sides'.  And whoever 'wins' the civilian population loses.  If we really mean that we are about human liberty and freedom, and the right to not be abused by anyone, by no government and by no feral humans, then why not do the obvious and arm the civilian population and let THEM start to figure out what THEY WANT in the way of government?  Yes, that will make the conflict bloodier for a time, but a lot of that blood is going to the Tree of Liberty, not the Weed of Tyranny, and the end result will be something that the locals actually WANT.  Hey, it may be something horrific, right?  Yes.  Of course anyone wanting to do that must NOT PO the local population as it is well armed... and that is a much, much better state of affairs than has existed in Syria.  Ever.

Now for a few additional questions, but these are not about the military side of things.

Remember the 'anti-war coalition'?  You know the Leftist/Socialist/Code Pink/International Answer sewer groups?  Where are they?

I haven't heard from them since Obama has been elected.

They claimed to have such high morals and were against international conflicts because they impoverished people and took away from the goodie takings at home.  So where are these people?

You know the types that said we should have learned ever so much more about Iraq before going in?  Remember those people?  I do.

Where are they?

Why are they not organizing marches starting, well, right after Sec. State Kerrey delivered his asinine pabulum, but where were they yesterday?  OK, there might be a few Harley-Davidsons roaming around DC, but that shouldn't keep the stalwart defenders of their own moral certitude from doing anything.  Can't they get their collective heads out of their collective rectums to realize the smell they are getting is their own?

I don't call them the 'duplicitous Left' for nothing, you know.

And where are all those who tout 'international law' for everything going on as the answer?  They should be crying out for the sanctions provisions of the Chemical Weapons Convention to be put into force!  OK, they may be stuck in Syria not signing on to that... but where is the outrage on THAT?  Shouldn't they be going to every other signatory State and pointing out that it has a MORAL DUTY TO ACT against a rogue regime using such weapons?  Oh, wait, that is silence I'm hearing from the 'international law' crowd.  So sorry, I thought you were serious about it.  'Duplicitous' doesn't even begin to cover them.

So where are all these high minded types of all stripes that came out of the woodwork for years on this topic?

Where are their morals?  Their courage to 'stand up to da Man'? Where is their rage against the system delivering eternal war?  Can't they even just run a pot luck dinner to get a few attendees anywhere?

Their lack of outrage now is their badge of cowardice, duplicity and lack of morals and ethics.  It is bad news for a 'movement' when the most scrupulous member of it is Cindy Sheehan who at least continued to criticize Obama for the same things she criticized Bush for.  She is yet another of the 50 Shades of Maroon, but she is a consistent shade, I'll give her that, but no less maroon for it.  President Obama and his Administration seem to want to get a corner on the Shades of Maroon market, and it appears to be working.  And 50 Shades of Maroon doesn't even begin to cover it.

A final thought.

Notice the political acumen to get this 'crisis' delayed long enough so that it hits the budget 'crisis' and the installment of Obamacare 'crisis', along with a nearing debt ceiling 'crisis'... and probably three or four more that I can't quickly remember... but isn't that such great timing?

Its like there is a plan behind it, or something.

Yet another of the 50 Shades of Maroon.

Nope, 50 is just not enough, methinks.

The return of 1979

In one of my very first posts I wrote was about the concept of Jus ad Bellum or 'Just War', which are the instances laid out in Law of Nations by de Vattel (1758) of when a Nation State may go to war.  This I expanded upon in Where Angels fear to tread, because in our modern age we have glossed over and completely excised the differences between Public and Private war and what responses are appropriate to each.  Law of Nations is descriptive law that attempts to encapsulate unwritten law which was differentiate by Bracton on the Laws and Customs of England (circa 1250) as the law leges, as opposed to the jus scriptum or written law.  In fact Bracton describes Law of Nations as jus gentium:

What the jus gentium is.

[017] 33The jus gentium is the law which men of all nations use, which falls short of
[018] natural law since that is common to all animate things born on the earth in the
[019] sea or in the air. From it comes the union of man and woman, entered into by the
[020] mutual consent of both, which is called marriage. Mere physical union is [in the
[021] realm] of fact and cannot properly be called jus since it is corporeal and may be
[022] seen;34 all jura are incorporeal and cannot be seen. From that same law there
[023] also35 comes the procreation and rearing of children. The jus gentium is common
[024] to men alone, as religion observed toward God, the duty of submission to parents
[025] and country, or the right to repel violence and injuria. For it is by virtue of this
[026] law that whatever a man does in defence of his own person he is held to do lawfully;
[027] since nature makes us all in a sense akin to one another it follows that for one to
[028] attack another is forbidden.36

The Law of Nations, then, is universal to thinking beings  capable of having families and of defense of self and Nation, as Nation arrives from the union of thinking man and woman in families.  As the presence of families seeking to protect themselves and working with other families is universal in mankind, so are Nations, and yet the jus gentium does not come from Natural Law but from the application of reason and self-governance to our natural liberties and rights.  Thus law of nations is usually spoken of in the lower case, encompassing the entire unwritten part of mankind's activities that fall into it, and in the larger case when citing an individual work within it.  As de Vattel had worked with Blackstone prior to the colonies separating from the Great Britain, that work is predominant and guiding not just in the thought of those Founding the Nation and Framing the Constitution, but actually has direct, upper case citation in the latter.

What Law of Nations describes is the outcome of what many civilizations have formed in the way of rules between Nations and while it concentrates on mostly European Nations, the form of interaction described is one that can be seen globally between all Nations and the States running them.  It doesn't matter what period of history you search (ancient to modern) or where you look geographically (from Southern Africa to Northern Siberia to the Great Plains to the high coastal regions of South America, all of mankind works under law of nations.  de Vattel devotes an entire book (Book III) to warfare, which shows itself as a major part of the activities of mankind, but for the actions seen in Tehran in 1979 and today in Cairo and Benghazi, one must look to the norms and standards of diplomacy between Nations which comes in another book (Book IV).  Ideas presented in both books receive references earlier in the work, but their full fleshing out happens in them as these are major components of Nations.  To get an idea of how this works, here is paragraph 1 from Book IV:

§ l. What peace is.

PEACE is the reverse of war: it is that desirable state in which every one quietly enjoys his rights, or, if controverted, amicably discusses them by force of argument. Hobbes has had the boldness to assert, that war is the natural state of man. But if, by "the natural state of man," we understand (as reason requires that we should) that state to which he is destined and called by his nature, peace should rather be termed his natural state. For, it is the part of a rational being to terminate his differences by rational methods; whereas, it is the characteristic of the brute creation to decide theirs by force.1 Man, as we have already observed (Prelim. § 10), alone and destitute of succours, would necessarily be a very wretched creature. He stands in need of the intercourse and assistance of his species, in order to enjoy the sweets of life, to develop his faculties, and live in a manner suitable to his nature. Now, it is in peace alone that all these advantages are to be found: it is in peace that men respect, assist, and love each other: nor would they ever depart from that happy state, if they were not hurried on by the impetuosity of their passions, and blinded by the gross deceptions of self-love. What little we have said of the effects will be sufficient to give some idea of its various calamities; and it is an unfortunate circumstance for the human race, that the injustice of unprincipled men should so often render it inevitable.

Peace, then, is amongst the civilized of the Earth and those Nations that wish to practice peace should have intercourse and discourse between them so as to iron out differences.  The brute man, the savage man, wishes no discourse and only force to be the way to settle things, to impose his will upon others without their consent.

You are, perhaps, seeing where this is going, no?  How discussions really weren't present in1979 or today?  Is what we are seeing and did see the actions of peaceful, rational man in his Nations, or irrational, brutish man that is uncivilized?  If one cannot distinguish between these things, then one cannot properly distinguish between war and peace as peace is not just the absence of war.  It is not with emotional fervor that I call these actions barbarous, brutish, savage and wholly contrary to civilized intercourse amongst Nations for that is exactly what these actions are stripped of all emotional content but with the ability to judge what is civil discourse and what is attack to get one's way and enforce one's will.

Now what is the source of these actions?  Not the immediate 'this anti-Islamic film inflamed individuals' for it is possible to have heated passion without running riot, without damaging property of another Nation and without inflicting physical and lethal harm to others.  Thus comes the second paragraph of Book IV and the object is still Peace:

§ 2. Obligation of cultivating it.

Nations who are really impressed with sentiments of humanity, — who seriously attend to their duty, and are acquainted with their true and substantial interests, — will never seek to promote their own advantage at the expense and detriment of other nations: however intent they may be on their own happiness, they will ever be careful to combine it with that of others, and with justice and equity. Thus disposed, they will necessarily cultivate peace. If they do not live together in peace, how can they perform those mutual and sacred duties which nature enjoins them? And this state is found to be no less necessary to their happiness than to the discharge of their duties. Thus, the law of nature every way obliges them to seek and cultivate peace. That divine law has no other end in view than the welfare of mankind: to that object all its rules and all its precepts lend: they are alt deducible from this principle, that men should seek their own felicity; and morality is no more than the art of acquiring happiness. As this is true of individuals, it is equally so of nations, as must appear evident to any one who will but take the trouble of reflecting on what we have said of their common and reciprocal duties, in the first chapter of the second book.

Note the last part I put in boldface, and that the individual and nation are part of a scale-free phenomena called 'peace'.  A moral people, seeking happiness, would criticize those who detract from their religion, perhaps seek to have some understanding of how such a thing could come to be made with it being so hurtful to them.  That is the realm of discourse, where passion can and must still play a part, but it also recognizes the rights of others to have their say and put such matters publicly for the benefit of all to hear and understand.  For such morality to be present it must, actually, manifest in peaceful activities that respect other individuals and nations.  Thus it can be said the activities taken in Tehran in 1979, Cairo and Benghazi in the last two days were not ones that were moral nor ones that respected the rights of other individuals or nations.

Of course as Nations have States to support them, those States fall under the sovereign power of the Nation.  There are responsibilities for those who are vested with such sovereign power and their activities are the ones in which nations interact with each other.  Responsibilities beget obligations and the sovereign has obligations as a manifestation of the power of the nation:

§ 3. The sovereign's obligation to it.

This obligation of cultivating peace binds the sovereign by a double tie. He owes this attention to his people, on whom war would pour a torrent of evils; and he owes it in the most strict and indispensable manner, since it is solely for the advantage and welfare of the nation that he is intrusted with the government. (Book I. § 39.) He owes the same attention to foreign nations, whose happiness likewise is disturbed by war. The nation's duty in this respect has been shown in the preceding chapter; and the sovereign, being invested with the public authority, is at the same time charged with all the duties of the society, or body of the nation. (Book I. § 41.)

If government is to have peace it must seek it not just for its people but for those nations it interacts with.  The obligation to peace is put in trust to a Nation's government, and it is a grant of responsibility, obligation and power (although that will vary from Nation to Nation, the Nation as a sovereign power is said to have the whole power) by those in the Nation to that government.  It may not be a grant by consent, and thusly any government that takes up the sovereign power without consent is doubly responsible for its activities.

In the case of 1979 that was (and remains) the government of Iran, in Cairo it is the government of Egypt, and for Benghazi it is the government of Libya.  The outcomes of such activities are the responsibilities of the governments of each nation and what happens determines the course of that nation: are they to put forward the rule of law and diplomatic discourse or are they to endorse such activities?  And what are the outcomes of these courses of action?  Depending on which course is taken, the destination is set, and that is not by emotions but by the actions of the sovereigns involved.  In Iran and Egypt the governments did not decry such activities, nor did they offer up to have a rule of law applied to the individuals doing such actions.  In Libya, as far as can be discerned, there is a willingness to seek out the miscreants involved in murder of the US Ambassador and bring the proper laws involved into play (whatever they are).

Taking the last case first, as it is the closest we have come to expect from responsible actors as nations, even though the activities are horrific.  Much later, starting in paragraph 80, are how Ambassadors are to be treated, and this is important in the Libyan case:

§ 82. Particular protection due to them.(197)

This safety is particularly due to the minister, from the sovereign to whom he is sent. To admit a minister, to acknowledge him in such character, is engaging to grant him the most particular protection, and that he shall enjoy all possible safety. It is true, indeed, that the sovereign is bound to protect every person within his dominions, whether native or foreigner, and to shelter him from violence: but this attention is in a higher degree due to a foreign minister. An act of violence done to a private person is an ordinary transgression, which, according to circumstances, the prince may pardon: but if done to a public minister, it is a crime of state, an offence against the law of nations; and the power of pardoning, in such case, does not rest with the prince in whose dominions the crime has been committed, but with him who has been offended in the person of his representative. However, if the minister has been insulted by persons who were ignorant of his character, the offence is wholly unconnected with the law of nations, and falls within the class of ordinary transgressions. A company of young rakes, in a town of Switzerland, having, in the night-time, insulted the British minister's house, without knowing who lived in it, the magistracy sent a message to the minister to know what satisfaction he required. He prudently answered, that it was the magistrates' concern to provide for the public safety by such means as they thought best; but that, as to his own part, he required nothing, not thinking himself affronted by persons who could have had no design against him, as not knowing his house. Another particular circumstance, in the protection due to foreign ministers, is this: — according to the destructive maxims introduced by a false point of honour, a sovereign is under a necessity of showing indulgence to a person wearing a sword, who instantly revenges an affront done to him by a private individual: but violent proceedings against a public minister can never be allowed or excused, unless where the latter has himself been the aggressor, and, by using violence in the first instance, has reduced his opponent to the necessity of self-defence.

Libya can try such people, but the place they can, nay must, reach trial is in the domain of the sovereign offended.  If you kill the US Ambassador clemency, guilt or innocence cannot be determined in Libya but only by the US.  That is the normal, ordinary course of affairs between nations that have regularized diplomatic intercourse via the exchange of diplomats.  If the US recognizes such a government then that government has the obligation to seek out those who do such crimes and hand them over.  There can be initial trial in Libya, yes, but any sentence is held in abeyance until they can be tried in the US.

No matter how piss-poor the current Libyan government is, they at least are acting by civilized norms and must be worked with and supported in their actions to bring those individuals in for trial.  If they act in bad faith, seek to shield such miscreants or otherwise dissemble their intentions by their activities, then there are other means to go through to ensure compliance with the responsibilities and obligations of the sovereign power in Libya.

That now leaves the similar cases of Tehran 1979 and Cairo, in which the US Embassy grounds were invaded (twice in Tehran, once in Cairo to-date).  This requires a look at the Embassy, which are part of where the Ambassador does his work:

§ 110. The ambassador is exempt from the civil jurisdiction of the country where he resides.

SOME authors will have an ambassador to be subject, in civil cases, to the jurisdiction of the country where he resides. — at least in such cases as have arisen during the time of his embassy; and, in support of their opinion, they allege that this subjection is by no means derogatory to the ambassadorial character: "for," say they, "however sacred a person may be, his inviolability is not affected by suing him in a civil action." But it is not on account of the sacredness of their person that ambassadors cannot be sued: it is because they are independent of the jurisdiction of the country to which they are sent; and the substantial reasons on which that independency is grounded may be seen in a preceding part of this work (§ 92). Let us here add, that it is in every respect highly proper, and even necessary, that an ambassador should be exempt from judicial prosecution even in civil causes, in order that he may be free from molestation in the exercise of his functions. For a similar reason, it was not allowed, among the Romans, to summon a priest while he was employed in his sacred offices:1 but at other times he was open to the law. The reason which we have here alleged for the exemption is also assigned in the Roman law: "Ideo enim non datur actio (adversus legatum) ne ab officio suscepto legationis avocetur,2 ne impediatur legatio."3 But there was an exception as to those transactions which had taken place during the embassy. This was reasonable with regard to those legati, or ministers, of whom the Roman law here speaks, who, being sent only by nations subject to the empire, could not lay claim to the independency enjoyed by a foreign minister. As they were subjects of the state, the legislature was at liberty to establish whatever regulations it thought most proper respecting them: but a sovereign has not the like power of obliging the minister of another sovereign to submit to his jurisdiction: and even if such power was vested in him by convention, or otherwise, the exercise of it would be highly improper: because, under that pretext, the ambassador might be often molested in his ministry, and the state involved in very disagreeable quarrels, for the trifling concerns of some private individuals, who might and ought to have taken better precautions for their own security. It is therefore, only in conformity to the mutual duties which states owe to each other, and in accordance with the grand principles of the law of nations, that an ambassador or public minister is at present, by the universal custom and consent of nations, independent of all jurisdiction in the country where he resides, either in civil or criminal cases. I know there have occurred some instances to the contrary: but a few facts do not establish a custom: on the contrary, those to which I allude, only contribute, by the censure passed on them, to prove the custom such as I have asserted it to be. In the year 1668, the Portuguese resident at the Hague was, by an order of the court of justice, arrested and imprisoned for debt. But an illustrious member of the same court4 very justly thinks that the procedure was unjustifiable, and contrary to the law of nations. In the year 1657, a resident of the elector of Brandenburg was also arrested for debt in England. But he was set at liberty, as having been illegally arrested; and even the creditors and officers of justice who had offered him that insult were punished.5

This is later reinforced in paragraph 113 and elsewhere in Law of Nations.  When the Embassy of another nation is broken into, that is not an act of civil invasions but one of law of nations contravention.  When it is private individuals doing such invasion, it is not civil trespass but a violation of the treaties between the nations involved which gives rise to an escalated tensions between the nations involved.  The government of those people doing the invasion is responsible for a response: is it the course of civil process by the course of law, or is it upholding the law breakers?  When it is the latter case it is giving backing to the action that then moves it from the realm of civil dispute to one of dispute between nations.  In other words it transforms from mere civil trespass, to be sorted out by diplomacy and civil proceedings, to one where an actual invasion is given backing which is a casus belli, a cause for war.

When the sacrosanct nature of agreements between Nations, in exchanging ambassadors or other public ministers in search of peace requires this as it is the civil, rational and natural movement of men to seek peace amongst themselves.  When that is transgressed and backed by the sovereign power of a Nation, peace can no longer be said to be the object of its desire.  There is always an opportunity for diplomacy, of course, but that must be taken by that nation backing the transgressors, not by those being invaded.

Those doing the invasion, not being in uniform, not adhering to the standards of law of nations or the rules of war, are now conducting a military operation outside of both.  This moves us back to Book III, the one on warfare and who gets to make it:

§ 4. It belongs only to the sovereign power.(137)

As nature has given men no right to employ force, unless when it becomes necessary for self defence and the preservation of their rights (Book II. § 49, &c.), the inference is manifest, that, since the establishment of political societies, a right, so dangerous in its exercise, no longer remains with private persons except in those encounters where society cannot protect or defend them. In the bosom of society, the public authority decides all the disputes of the citizens, represses violence, and checks every attempt to do ourselves justice with our own hands. If a private person intends to prosecute his right against the subject of a foreign power, he may apply to the sovereign of his adversary, or to the magistrates invested with the public authority: and if he is denied justice by them, he must have recourse to his own sovereign, who is obliged to protect him. It would be too dangerous to allow every citizen the liberty of doing himself justice against foreigners; as, in that case, there would not be a single member of the state who might not involve it in war. And how could peace be preserved between nations, if it were in the power of every private individual to disturb it? A right of so momentous a nature, — the right of judging whether the nation has real grounds of complaint, whether she is authorized to employ force, and justifiable in taking up arms, whether prudence will admit of such a step, and whether the welfare of the state requires it, — that right, I say, can belong only to the body of the nation, or to the sovereign, her representative. It is doubtless one of those rights, without which there can be no salutary government, and which are therefore called rights of majesty (Book I. § 45).

Thus the sovereign power alone is possessed of authority to make war. But, as the different rights which constitute this power, originally resident in the body of the nation, may be separated or limited according to the will of the nation (Book I. § 31 and 45), it is from the particular constitution of each state, that we are to learn where the power resides, that is authorized to make war in the name of the society at large. The kings of England, whose power is in other respects so limited, have the right of making war and peace.1 Those of Sweden have lost it. The brilliant but ruinous exploits of Charles XII. sufficiently warranted the states of that kingdom to reserve to themselves a right of such importance to their safety.

That step of saying that the citizens have acted in accordance with the sovereign power is one that changes the activities of those citizens and gives them military legitimacy.  They are not legitimate military actors, however, by any standard and any future actions by such non-military actors is one that comes under law of nations as well:

§ 34. Na-

Nations that are always ready to take up arms on any prospect of advantage, are lawless robbers: but those who seem to delight in the ravages of war, who spread it on all sides, without reasons or pretexts, and even without any other motive than their own ferocity, are monsters, unworthy the name of men. They should be considered as enemies to the human race, in the same manner as, in civil society, professed assassins and incendiaries are guilty, not only towards the particular victims of their nefarious deeds, but also towards the state, which therefore proclaims them public enemies. All nations have a right to join in a confederacy for the purpose of punishing and even exterminating those savage nations. Such were several German tribes mentioned by Tacitus — such those barbarians who destroyed the Roman empire: nor was it till long after their conversion to Christianity that this ferocity wore off. Such have been the Turks and other Tartars — Genghis Khan, Timur Bec or Tamerlane, who, like Attila, were scourges employed by the wrath of Heaven, and who made war only for the pleasure of making it. Such are, in polished ages and among the most civilized nations, those supposed heroes, whose supreme delight is a battle, and who make war from inclination purely, and not from love to their country.

That is what such nations are, are they not?  The ones that incite their people to kill not to protect society, not to protect territory or property, not to any sane reason and without justification.  These are so-called 'rogue nations', although getting modern man to understand that civilization is at threat from such nations has been difficult, if not impossible to do.  When private individuals take to war with no sovereign grant or oversight, no sovereign accountability, that is unlawful war:

§ 67. It is to be distinguished from informal and unlawful war.

Legitimate and formal warfare must be carefully distinguished from those illegitimate and informal wars, or rather predatory expeditions, undertaken either without lawful authority or without apparent cause, as likewise without the usual formalities, and solely with a view to plunder. Grotius relates several instances of the latter.⁵ Such were the enterprises of the grandes compagnies which had assembled in France during the wars with the English, — armies of banditti, who ranged about Europe, purely for spoil and plunder: such were the cruises of the buccaneers, without commission, and in time of peace; and such in general are the depredations of pirates. To the same class belong almost all the expeditions of the Barbary corsairs: though authorized by a sovereign, they are undertaken without any apparent cause, and from no other motive than the lust of plunder. These two species of war, I say, — the lawful and the illegitimate, — are to be carefully distinguished, as the effects and the rights arising from each are very different.

§ 68. Grounds of this distinction.

In order fully to conceive the grounds of this distinction, it is necessary to recollect the nature and object of lawful war. It is only as the last remedy against obstinate injustice that the law of nature allows of war. Hence arise the rights which it gives, as we shall explain in the sequel: hence, likewise, the rules to be observed in it. Since it is equally possible that either of the parties may have right on his side, — and since, in consequence of the independence of nations, that point is not to be decided by others (§ 40), — the condition of the two enemies is the same, while the war lasts. Thus, when a nation, or a sovereign, has declared war against another sovereign on account of a difference arisen between them, their war is what among nations is called a lawful and formal war; and its effects are, by the voluntary law of nations, the same on both sides, independently of the justice of the cause, as we shall more fully show in the sequel.⁶ Nothing of this kind is the case in an informal and illegitimate war, which is more properly called depredation. Undertaken without any right, without even an apparent cause, it can be productive of no lawful effect, nor give any right to the author of it. A nation attacked by such sort of enemies is not under any obligation to observe towards them the rules prescribed in formal warfare. She may treat them as robbers,^(146a) The inhabitants of Geneva, after defeating the famous attempt to take their city by escalade,⁷ caused all the prisoners whom they took from the Savoyards on that occasion to be hanged up as robbers, who had come to attack them without cause and without a declaration of war. Nor were the Genevese censured for this proceeding, which would have been detested in a formal war.

We call these modern day actors: terrorists.  They are in the same class as pirates as the objective of war when done by private individuals without sovereign grant is not material: power, lust, greed, or just wanting to see the world burn are all one and the same in Private War which is illegitimate in all circumstances.  A Nation condoning and sponsoring such is an enemy of all mankind.

Unfortunately the State of Iran and Egypt are now in that category and are abusing their sovereign power meant to protect their people and using that power to inspire the activity of war to no lawful effect and no good end for mankind.

I have no hatred for the people of Iran or Egypt.

Their governments are monsters as their actions now tell you that.

It is civilized to wish that the people of these Nations had governments worthy of them to seek peace for them amongst their fellow nations of the Earth.  Such is not the case and the remedy has already been stated, if one can but read and reason.

Brought to you by A Citizen of the Republic

Scale free law

From a previous post on The Self-Evident and you, I come up with the following (seen here and here):

Thus we can acknowledge these self-evident truths:

- We are within the bounds of Nature.

- We are imbued with the Laws of Nature.

- All things within Nature are imbued with these Laws.

- Those Laws create Liberty and Rights for all parts of Nature.

- All creatures have access to all Liberty and Rights of Nature, without exception.

- We recognize that we have such Liberty and Rights as Nature provides to us.

- Natural Liberty and Rights can be seen to have Positive and Negative attributes.

- Marriage, that is the joining of one person to another, is the basis of the family.

- By creating family we create the Law of Nations.

- In the creation of the Law of Nations we agree to not individually exercise our Negative Liberty of War.

- By being part of a family under the Law of Nations we agree to exercise our Positive Liberty of War to defend those we love.

Natural Liberty, being that which is gained from Nature, is available to all creatures in Nature, without exception and at all scales of the cosmos from the quantum on upwards. By coming together to form families we create the Law of Nations which serves as the basis for all higher social orders. This, too, is available to all creatures but requires the ability to utilize reason to recognize this state of being within Nature, thus birds can demonstrate a flock mentality while nesting and that is part and parcel of the Law of Nations but applied without reason or order to it, thus is unordered Natural society with no impediments of regularized behavior for all.

This conception of the Law of Nations became part of the English (later British) Common Law as far back as the 13th century (as seen in this post on Tree of Law, Tree of Liberty). England, at that point in time, had very little of the scripted law (jus scriptum) or written law, and much of the unwritten law (leges) which was confusing to outsiders who considered scripted or written law to be a touchstone of the basis for law coming from the remains of the Roman legal system. Yet before scripted law there must have been the unscripted law, the law of localities to govern themselves in accordance with social norms set up amongst families. That unwritten or unscripted social law or civil law is an expression of the Law of Nations but is not the Law of Nations itself: the Law of Nations gives formulation to how civil law is created and maintained by a society but allows for the wide variance of human culture that will then see different expressions of law within the broader framework. Writing and literacy, thusly, are not necessary to create civil order and government, although it is of great help once at the level of Nation to Nation contact.

Written agreements between Nations can be found chiseled into stone in Incan ruins, the sides of Mayan buildings, in Egyptian places set aside for such things, on the walls of caves as at Kadesh, on columns in Babylon and Greece and I would suspect at ruins in Thailand, Malaysia, various parts of Africa, and across India. We can go to the Old Hittite Kingdom diplomatic archives and understand their scope and meaning immediately: it is the duplicate records of the Old Hittite Kingdom and their responses to other Nations around them from Achaean Greeks to Egypt to Babylon and beyond at all compass points even as far north as the Baltic Sea. The discourse between diplomats is governed by the Law of Nations and is universal to mankind no matter the era, culture or setting. If you read about an exchange of diplomats between Nations you immediately understand the framework of it, the exchanging of gifts, courtesy, diplomacy, and how agreements between Nations are formed.

At the other end of the scale and stopping at the local level it is possible to run a society without written law, as seen in England. The English Common Law would descend from three types of law, two of which are akin to each other: 1) Roman law or scripted law, 2) locally cultivated law (amongst English peoples, locally), 3) local law as brought from the outside (by Norse and other Viking peoples). Due to its circumstances England would start off with indigenous law, have Roman law placed over it, then have that washed over by Norse or Viking law. To trace any part of the Common Law requires some understanding of where the particular part of it came from. Thus in a local legal proceeding you would have a legal problem brought before a judge and possible jury of peers to settle local disputes, and over time as England was constructed after the Norman Conquest, you would have judges sent by a larger government authority (county or provincial level, or National level) or from ecclesiastical realms (the Church for church law).

Early on after the Norman Conquest the ability to get a judge at any particular time meant that a set-aside time for judgments was made, usually at spring fairs, and that meant either an outside judge be brought in or a local judge nominated by the gathering social groups. That individual chosen in that way has the term Lawgiver applied to him, and that Lawgiver is a phenomena of local law systems but is very particular to the Viking or Norse systems as it represents more than just the local proceedings. In the terms of the northern people of Europe the gathering for ruling on affairs is the Thing. Lawgivers then travel to the capitol or other seat of power for a Nation to preside over decisions that the ruler wishes to make and to pass judgment upon those decisions. That ruler is then held accountable by this All-Thing as it is a form of representative democracy at work to express the state of the Nation to a ruler and ensure the ruler abides by the laws of the land.

Unlike the Divine Right form of rulership, this form can remove Kings for crimes against the Nation or even just unwise rulership. Kings that wished to get laws set up for the Nations that had this form of system had to get agreement from the meeting of representatives so that the law could be written down so as to preserve its content. When you have diverse societies or factions within societies that don't agree on a number of legal viewpoints, that then makes the presence of scripted National law rare.

At the personal level there is the ability of individuals to make agreements under defined concepts of reciprocity. The exchange of goods for services at a rate that is agreed-upon, as an example, is one form of this. Using the Viking view for economics, we see that lending with interest can be done without written math by having the stack of coins to meet an agreement set in two measuring sticks, held by each side of the agreement. Paying it back requires a small hole to be dug and the stick put at ground level (or other instrument to raise the stick a set amount) and that entire length from bottom of hole to top of stick is the payment with interest over time. This is how one gets 'in the hole' on payments. Similarly we can refer to a boat as a whole in the water you throw money into, as the maintenance upkeep cost of a vessel being exorbitantly high. As Vikings used ships to ply their wares and attack those who didn't want to trade, this concept of being in the hole and throwing money into ships was well understood even before runes became a part of the culture.

The nature of the agreement, no matter what its venue, between individuals for this exchange gains the term of: contract. As Bronze Age Linear-B was deciphered, it became apparent that the overwhelming majority of fired clay fragments were contracts and shopping lists, not high culture stories. And as it is nearly impossible to find a place in the Aegean basin that doesn't have such artifacts, often in giant heaps of fragments, the sheer scale of transactions over time must have been large. Yet the payment for goods and services, either by coin or exchange, still took the form of a contract.

That description of a pre-agreed way to exchange goods and services as a contract with each party agreeing to it has a different name but the exact, same meaning, at the Nation level. We call that a diplomatic agreement or treaty. It is set up between equals, can be witnessed by other equals in society, and the expectation of carrying it out is upheld by all in that society so as to keep the uniformity of social norms upheld. Thus Nations are seen as individuals, and we often hear the familial form of Nations applied to them (brother Nations, a family of Nations, etc.). This means that all treaties are contracts amongst equals. This is seen in a post by Geoff Hill (cited by Steven den Beste) and I will highlight in boldface:

I quote the following from Malcolm N. Shaw in his 'International Law, Fourth Edition' book: "International law is primarily formulated by international agreements" and "states do observe international law and will usually only violate it on an issue regarded as vital to their interests". None of these statements has anything to do with imposition to authority or practice. All international laws are complied with by the signatories -as they see fit-, and can/have been broken if said signatories view the following of the laws as contrary to their vital interests.

Since there is no overriding sovereign authority who can impose any international laws on any signatories [The UN is toothless in this regard], since any signatories can [and have in cases] flouted certain international laws [witness Norway and whaling laws], and since the laws -only- apply to the signatories and not the world in general, they can't very well be considered laws. They would be more properly designated as non-binding contracts upon the parties involved.

Note that 'binding international law' is an oxymoron: there is no sovereign authority that all Nations agree to, thus there is no binding system for international law. That artifact of binding for written contract law inside of Nations is an artifact of the ability to form sovereign governments that then represent a Nation. From that it is seen that governments are a preservation mechanism for different societies to flourish and that mankind, sans such mechanisms, would soon fall into disorder as the lack of agreed-upon sovereignty from the local level would remove the ability of that authority to actually be an authority. That disorder, however, would be transitory as the Law of Nations would be applied at these newer, smaller levels at which there can be some agreed-upon outlooks for what is held in common by those people who then incorporate the larger governmental entity.

Incorporation of a system via an agreed-upon method of accountability happens at all levels of human affairs. These are often cited as 'persons' (ex. a corporate person) so that they can be granted certain ways and means of acting. There are different powers and responsibilities granted by the people of a given society to these non-corporeal entities based upon their function. Thus a National government has different powers and responsibilities and is given a set of rights to utilize to those ends, and a town has a different set, a manufacturing entity a different set from those two, a services business yet a different set, and so on. Societies agree upon what those differences are and how they are to be handled via the law in a sovereign State setting. And as in the pre-literate or near literate societies, laws are more flexible and malleable at the local level and fewer and more brittle at the Nation State level as it cannot get the level of representation that more local forms of governance can do.

Do you see where 'group rights' appear?

That's right, they don't.

There is no level of government that gets one 'new' right more than the individual already has to start with. In point of fact all of these creations are limited expressions of our entire suite of liberties and rights gained from Nature as individuals. Acting together we safeguard various negative liberties (ex. negative liberty of warfare, negative liberty of free movement, negative liberty of ownership) and then place those into other entities that are public in Nature and have agreed-upon reasons to utilize those negative liberties on our behalf and with our oversight. Thus to utilize the negative liberty of war, that is offensive war, we as a Nation must declare war with stated reasons why we do so. To utilize the negative liberty of free movement, that is restraining others from it, we must have a system of laws to describe how and why this is done. To utilize the negative liberty of ownership, that of seizure, we also put in place safeguards for our own goods and ensure that only certain laws can apply to seizure of the fruits of our positive liberty of ownship (that of purchase) and go after those who take without asking (theft).

We each have those negative liberties within us: we can be thieves, we can restrain others, we can fight war on our own. But we do not do so as we recognize that the exercise of those negative liberties are destructive to our family, our society and our Nation and even, in warfare, the very order between Nations. Thus International lawlessness begins at home with you, as I put it in a previous post. Just as Nations can disagree with the internationally agreed-upon system of treaties and reciprocity of same and become Rogue Nations, individuals can do likewise and become Terrorists, Pirates, Thieves and Brigands. The Nordic to Germanic view even has a special penalty to be applied by law and a name that goes with it. The concept is that those individuals who so badly break laws as to be seen as lawless then have the sanctuary of law, safety of law and recourse via law removed from them. They are placed outside the law as savages: Outlaws. At the scale of individuals Outlaws are the exacting equivalent to Rogue Nations and no one trusts either if you wish to remain alive. To win back trust can take a lifetime of penance and atonement for such activities that get you into that position. In fact governments have an easier time of it as a coup can instantly replace a lawless government with a lawful one, while an individual must make proof-positive of their worthiness to return to the bosom of society before they are allowed back to it.

By the time the Common Law had evolved in the late 17th century and early 18th century, this conception could be stated by Blackstone in the following way (source here or here):

LASTLY, the crime of piracy, or robbery and depredation upon the high seas, is an offense against the universal law of society; a pirate being, according to Sir Edward Coke,10 hostis humani generis [enemy to mankind]. As therefore he has renounced all the benefits of society and government, and has reduced himself afresh to the savage state of nature, by declaring war against all mankind, all mankind must declare war against him: so that every community has a right, by the rule of self-defense, to inflict that punishment upon him, which every individual would in a state of nature have been otherwise entitled to do, any invasion of his person or personal property.

BY the ancient common law, piracy, if committed by a subject, was held to be a species of treason, being contrary to his natural allegiance; and by an alien to be felony only: but now, since the statute of treasons, 25 Edw. III. c. 2. it is held to be only felony in a subject.11 Formerly it was only cognizable by the admiralty courts, which proceed by the rule of the civil law.12 But, it being inconsistent with the liberties of the nation, that any man's life should be taken away, unless by the judgment of his peers, or the common law of the land, the statute 28 Hen. VIII. c. 15. established a new jurisdiction for this purpose; which proceeds according to the course of the common law, and of which we shall say more hereafter.

The US Admiralty jurisdiction exists as a sub-set of the larger civil law code, but the activity of Piracy (and other forms of the negative liberty of war, also called Private War) being those of the martial kind can be prosecuted either via warfare executed against them in reaction to them, or via civil prosecution for those that turn themselves in to the civil courts for judgment. Thus jurisdiction depends upon condition of capture and customary law in regards to that, so that if caught by regular or designated private forces, martial law is utilized, and if caught via civil means, then civil law is the venue. If one is caught in the act of waging Private War, you have created your own battlefield by doing so. There is a very fine line between civil lawlessness and crimes of passion, and acts of war, and it is to our discredit that we do not highlight it so as to differentiate the two.

Just as a rogue individual can perform acts of war so, too, can Nations do so by not declaring war or claiming a pre-text of lawlessness in a civil realm by one Nation against another as a basis for warfare. These lines are very difficult to draw in a permanent fashion as societies and the rules within them, and then amongst Nations, shift over time, yet the very basic concept of legitimate warfare and illegitimate warfare are just as distinct as those between Public War and Private War. In fact the latter type is even of greater distinction as it is very easy to see if someone wears a uniform, fights under a flag, is accountable to a command structure and a Nation and follows the laws of war... or doesn't.

I utilize warfare as it is a fundamental liberty with strong positive and negative aspects that most clearly demonstrate how our Natural Liberties work when we apply reason to them. At the Nation level of the Law of Nations, it is also the final recourse when all other forms of reason between Nations fails. Thus a Nation exercising negative liberty of movement or ownership upon the people or goods of another Nation give rise to a casus belli, or cause for war. Yet we also see how getting into fights at a personal level, has exacting similarities and causes, although the offenses can be different. When one takes up to oppose an individual, however, it may be just a violation of civil laws and at one time dueling was a recognized way to have staged warfare in a single act to solve disputes at the lowest level of law. The ability of an individual to undermine not only civil law but international law by taking up arms is a direct expression of our Natural being within ourselves. It is one of the most primal rights we have as living beings in the Natural world and to try and shy away from it, to recoil from it as not existing is attempting to build a fantasy view of the real world that is not in accord with the actual world around you. And as I have described before, there is no good end to that, at all.

Private War the scourge we call terrorism and piracy

The following was originally presented on 27 NOV 2008 at Dumb Looks Still Free.

This is a topic I have written on multiple times, looking at the definition of terrorism being from the same root that piracy comes from:  one seeks pure power via war means the other seeks cash.  Terrorists attack at sea using the means of private war: they have attacked French tankers, Egyptian freighters and warships of the United States and Israel.  The groups doing that go by names like al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas.  The use boats to raid beach resorts, they board ships to take hostages and they see no reason not to use the weapons of war against civilians.  The currency of pirates is money, the currency of terrorists is power to intimidate, to threaten, to destroy that which they don't like... one is paid in gold the other in blood.  If the first is bad the second is horrific and far worse than mere piracy as those doing such actions place themselves against society and Nations to rule as they will outside of any law.  Both are outlaws in the truest sense: placing themselves outside all frameworks of civilized law and reclaiming the negative liberty of warfare to themselves.

When society and civilization starts to crumble, the opportunist predators appear.  If you laugh at them when they do not have the means, you are terrified and bleed when they do.  Yet their credo is ancient, going back to the roots of what it means to be civilized and no matter what their names, nationalities, ethnicity, 'causes', or beliefs, they come down to the same tactics described since the days before there were Nations, and yet there were still States.  We forget that Captain Morgan was viewed as a pirate by Spain even when his most notable attack was on LAND.  He had writ, justification and no knowledge that a peace treaty had been signed, so those at home first viewed him as a pirate for a land based attack on Spanish towns and fortifications.  Yes a person waging private war with his confederates is waging piracy on land, there is no difference between sea and land in the view of Nations, even though we have done much damage to ourselves to tell ourselves that piracy is only by sea.  It was not that way after the Fall of Troy, was not that way up to the early 20th century and is not that way to this very day.  The United States once had a leader who clearly told the troops what to do with those who waged terrorism and why, and he is revered by all parts of the political spectrum and yet we cannot learn the wisdom he signed off on for the troops:

Art. 82.

Men, or squads of men, who commit hostilities, whether by fighting, or inroads for destruction or plunder, or by raids of any kind, without commission, without being part and portion of the organized hostile army, and without sharing continuously in the war, but who do so with intermitting returns to their homes and avocations, or with the occasional assumption of the semblance of peaceful pursuits, divesting themselves of the character or appearance of soldiers - such men, or squads of men, are not public enemies, and, therefore, if captured, are not entitled to the privileges of prisoners of war, but shall be treated summarily as highway robbers or pirates.

That is a rule for the US Army that was kept for 30 years and infringes on no treaty, no convention and no other view of civilization amongst Nations as it *is* the civilized view *of* Nations what these individuals are.  That President in that era committed the US forces to treat these individuals as described with summary treatment from the battlefield without recourse, review or other appeal.  That was not injustice, but battlefield justice and it was in General Order 100:

INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE FIELD

Prepared by Francis Lieber, promulgated as General Orders No. 100 by President Lincoln, 24 April 1863.

The Great Emancipator, the President who Saved the Union, the man who so many point to as wise and honest, forthright in his term and stature was the one who sent the troops with that as a General Order, on land and sea, and it was kept into the 1890's.  Yet it contravenes neither the Hague nor Geneva conventions as those only cover civilians and uniformed military.  It is for Nations and citizens to respect and cross at their peril, and those who are neither, who take up war on their own, have little recourse to civil law in the battlefield or when picked up by those fighting in war.  This was recognized by President Jefferson as a necessary duty and function of the President: to protect the Nation by those who would wage war but be part of no Nation and have no commission or reason to wage war outside of the Nation State framework.  President Jackson sent the first US vessel around the world... it was a warship, the USS Potomac, and it was sent to the Malays to deal with those who were pirates and terrorists.  President Theodore Roosevelt ordered the Moro Insurrection to be put down as they were under no aegis of any Nation to fight as they did.

Each of these Presidents knew what their duty was and knew how to deal with those who had backing of no Nation to seek war on their own against the United States.  These are not wilting flower Presidents:  Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt.  They made no excuses for those that were uncivilized and practiced war to their own ends against not only the US but against all Nations.  That was their duty abroad - to use their Commander in Chief and Head of State powers to confront those who would tear at the fabric of international law and civilized intercourse amongst Nations to their own benefit no matter what their goals were.  While many decry ill-war amongst Nations, they raise no voice of action against those threatening the very international security they espouse.  These people who wish to confront no one, at any time, at any place and seek to excuse any action taken against civilization are seeking to submit themselves and their fellow citizens to rule by terror, rule by force, rule by war.  In decrying war they invite it by showing they have no standards to actually stand for: they seek to lie down with the lion and be the sacrificial lamb that the lion will see as his fair share for the taking.  There are no 'moderates' amongst those that take back to the Law of Nature: they are immoderate in the extreme and acting in an uncivilized way.

We see this amongst leaders who talk of 'humanitarian grounds' for those who commit ruthless acts of violence using the weapons of war (Source: Independent UK), even in the face of the families who were hurt by such groups coming to ask for justice and law to exist to keep such terrorists from facing no day of reckoning for their crimes.  Another terrorist convicted of killing 9 and attempting to kill 11 more, is now to be on 'parole' for his actions against society and his Nation (Source: Irish Times).  It does not matter if they are Red Brigades or Red Army Faction: they sought to undermine Nations with their attacks and had no backing to take up the weapons of war against anyone.  There is no difference in kind between these groups and their people and those of the Islamic world or those still tearing at Nations to this day.

Now we are faced with expansion of terror networks abroad due to one Nation that has fostered it in their own borders, often through negligence and many times through willing cooperation.  Pakistan has a long history of this, terrorism is an outgrowth of their older cultures that seek to place personal war amongst tribal leaders to meet their own ends.  Today those groups that started out with a single 'cause' now have a grievance list miles long, and it comes down to one, single thing: they will kill to terrorize society, tear it down and seek to gain power as society crumbles.  This is a codified view of one of those groups, named al Qaeda, that has its view put forward in that those that disagree with it, who are to be beaten down into submission are 'savages' to them.  Others take up that exact, same methodology when they seek private war on land or at sea, and have no good in store for citizens of any Nation.

Today the attacks in India and Afghanistan demonstrate that the hotbed of terror is no longer *just* in the Middle East, but has many tendrils and many organizations and many heads to it.  If FARC goes down in Colombia, others already exist in South America to take their place and continue their ways, even if not as lucratively it will be done.  These terror attacks in India are sourced to these networks that are international and transnational, even when they have 'nationalist' heads to them.  The attacks based upon religion is something that Western Europe gave up after the 30 Years War with Westphalia, and yet others do not see that as 'civilized' and use religion as an excuse to kill the innocent.  And yet, when you confront them, there are those that seek not to and to excuse killing and justify it.  They are more than cowards: they hate society and civilization and will not say any word against those taking up private arms to kill without commission, without warrant, without any authority over them to seek a just end to such violence as a Nation would do.

Further these same people, those seeking a more 'humanitarian' way forward have crippled the recourse to keep international systems accountable: they weaken the legal system and seek to excuse any action so as to blame society for the ills of the individual.  Even when it is the individual exploiting those ills to their own ends and seeking to be held unaccountable.  That is the hard part of this: tearing apart the criminal and terrorist networks that have cross-integrated, cross-trained and support each other fully now.

Yet we used to have a clear and concise understanding of what to do with these types of people and organizations.  Even when they struck from shadows, and hid in civilian guise to exploit Nations, they could be found and retribution handed out.  That way of war those that are 'humanitarian' want no part of: the simple deployment of civilians under National commission to go after these groups on the foundation our ancestors put in place.  It was simple and well understood at the founding and Congress given those powers, which had been understood for generations if not thousands of years previously.  Hugo Grotius would write on those things and come up with the necessary limits of civilian law and yet the need for society to know that harm done to it had been returned in kind on a one-for-one basis as seen in On The Laws of War and Peace. 

That work and others by Grotius would join with pre-existing works to form new ones that would define what the Law of Nations was and how Nations, like England, had a common law in agreement to it.  It was from there that the foundation of the United States came:  from old Roman Law given international distribution, through a man caught up in the 30 Years War seeking to know what the causes of war and peace were along with the laws of the sea, and then later members of the Enlightenment finally putting these things down so that all would know, in any Nation, what Nations were and how they all conform to that same outlook.  If you haven't been taught these things, if you haven't read them then you are ignorant of them, and are uninformed as to how our world worked to give us what we have today.  They can be lengthy works, even in translation, yet their reading level is not high and none are beyond what can be taught in a week.

How can anything relating to those willing to tear down societies and Nations be regarded as 'humanitarian'?  Simply, it can't, as these are individuals who have returned to the state of nature on their own and are seeking uncivilized means to gain their way, be it for profit or power.  Those that serve them, help them, excuse them are complicit in this work.  It is not 'civilized' to be 'humanitarian' towards vicious and brutal outlaws seeking to destroy the system of Nation States.  That is complicity in barbarism.  When civil justice is applied to those waging war on their own, it lacks the power and depth to address the horror of their activities.  They take up the weapons of war and only, only if they put them down and hold themselves accountable TO the law can they be said to be seeking a civil end of their barbaric ways.  They accept the judgment of civil law by doing that.  Captured fighting they are not 'prisoners of war' but brutal savages willing to kill and due summary judgment on the battlefield without recourse to higher power: they are known for their deeds and actions, thus they are defined by them and not their words, not their 'reasons' and not their 'grievances'.  They have civil means to get these things addressed and WILL NOT TAKE THEM.

These are the opportunistic predators showing up on weak society and weakened civilization.  Being civil requires recourse and that recourse is via civil means to address such individuals and groups.  When their actions go warlike, they are willingly taking to war against Nations and all lawful citizens, no matter where they live.  We have means as a civilization to address them not *just* by civil means, although that is necessary, but by the means of war both Public and Private given sanction by civil means.  That is the strength of civilization: recognizing when it is being threatened and using the accountable means to address these barbarians.  Those we confront as a totality of civilization will follow no rules, no law and seek to evade justice.  We know that by their actions.  There is no nobility in being 'humanitarian' to such for they see it as weakness to exploit.

As I see the blood and flames in India, Afghanistan and from many points around the world, I see a deep and lax civilization dying and the parasites already proliferating to eat on this once proud thing we held in common.  It once protected us and we deemed it good and restrained by civil means, a bulwark to keep us alive and the intercourse between Nations civil.  When we give it other things to do, strap it down with all sorts of 'good' things that distract it from that ability to protect us, we are then shocked that our protection goes down and that the killers roam many lands and seas without recourse.  In festooning the Nation State with so much power, it becomes immobile at powerless as it cannot do all things at all times well.  Soon it begins to lose the ability to protect, to enforce laws and ensure that the lawless are addressed.

That is the time we are now in.

Give more to the Nation State at your peril.

For the next thing you give it will be the able to restrict good and imprison those that disagree with it.

That is when all those 'good things' become ill and the protector turns into the punisher unbound by civil restraints.

Look at Mumbai, today, and see the outcome of generations of being 'nice' and 'humanitarian' and of Nations unwilling to keep governments to doing only a few, vital things to protect society.

We had a choice of confrontation and calling barbarism for what it is.

We haven't as a society, a Nation and as humanity.

Now we pay.

In blood.

Brought to you by A Citizen of the Republic

The Fall of the Prince of Marbella

I damn well hope its his fall, anyway... prefer to see him locked up at Gitmo, but he has played his cards rather well throughout life and I expect him to do the same now.

Who the hell am I talking about?

Why, my favorite individual to point to about the connectivity of transnational terrorism, international organized crime and money laundering:  Monzer al-Kassar.

Ok, my background articles contain the details, so you get a listing of those, now:

1. A do to connect dots with: Monzer al-Kassar
2. More on dots heading outwards with Monzer al-Kassar
3. Monzer al-Kassar and Transnational Terrorism
4. A dot listing for those in need of reference
5. At least they weren't professional terrorists
6. Internetworking and the role it plays
7. But making it legal was supposed to solve it!
8. It is Four Degrees of Monzer al-Kassar time!
9. The killers ask for a better chance to kill
10. An easy terror incident to pin on... astoundingly *not* Monzer al-Kassar!
11. What don't you know, and why won't they tell you?
12. Red Mafia and its connectivity - The Brainy Don of Marbella
13. And now the view on the other side - Yeah, I gots problems with R and D folks in power
14. Of Clinton and Kosovo
15. Syria's credible threats - Syria threatening the US and Spain, did it go too far?
16. Ending Mugniyah and missing the point
17. After the fall of Trans World Commodities and its fallout
18. The Pattern of Pursuit
19. The madness in my method
20. Same old hope and change
21. From FARC to Venezuela to...
22. The FARC Contacts

Yeah, a couple of articles either directly or tangentially about one man, Monzer al-Kassar.  Who is he, then?  That one is hard to define, as he has been involved in so much over the decades that no single phrase describes it.  Take his background, as a reliable source or two points out, his family has been involved in the Bekaa valley drug trade since the late 1950's, at minimum.  While not necessarily the 'movers and shakers' of it, their support has been necessary to the Assad family having a steady source of income for Syria.  That trade, only in the few billions of dollars at source, has allowed Syria to take the 'middleman's cut' and parlay that into a decent, steady and small income stream as these things go for Nations.  Still, per weight, it is beating inflation rather handily while ramping up in market size.

So Monzer al-Kassar, eldest son of his generation, started getting involved in the late 1960's to 1970's with drug dealings across the UK, France, Italy and Spain.  Actually convicted in the UK for a few months and in Algeria (by one account), Monzer shifted into the next phase of his work in the late 1970's: arms dealing.  Starting with the Italian/Sicilian Mafia groups, he expanded very quickly to become someone of note for the French to approach in the early 1980's once Hezbollah came into being...

Now if *that* isn't a coincidence, having Hezbollah well supplied with arms and munitions and using the Bekaa valley for training, I don't know what *is*.  The deal with the French, however, is surprising as he had a murder charge in France pending against him, and yet he skated *that* by gaining diplomatic status with another Nation.  He was the 'go to guy', walking the streets of Paris after charged with murder there and, yes, got the hostages taken by Hezbollah freed.  You can make up your mind if *that* is pure coincidence or having a lot of good connections, but my feelings tend towards the latter as he is soon to be the most well connected man in that dark realm of narcotics, arms trafficking, money laundering and terrorism.  He started out that way early, and it went on from there.

After working with the French he got tapped by someone in the know to help out a trio of guys from the US:  Ollie North, Albert Hakim and Richard Secord.  Remember Iran/Contra?  Monzer al-Kassar worked one of the arms deals in that, which would include Polish arms transiting through the Netherlands, meeting up with a couple of the principles of Iran/Contra, and then trans-shipped via Portugal to central America.  There are indications that he was also involved with a Chinese arms shipment routed through another venue.  This would lead to the Reagan Administration being confronted with the fact that arms made their way *back* to Iran for US hostages in Lebanon.  That is *why* Monzer al-Kassar becomes important in the deal:  he had done the same for France.  The man who apparently connected the North group to al-Kassar was Jackson Stephens, who would show up in that, BCCI and as an early employer of Johnny Hwang for the Clintons.

Getting the idea here?

The way that the money was worked in the deal was through BCCI, making Monzer al-Kassar one of the large group of nefarious characters, like Saddam Hussein, Bert Lance, and Nadhmi Auchi... along with just about every crook and arms dealer in the world... who did business through BCCI.  Like John Keating.  What is interesting, and missed by most, is that Saddam Hussein and Nadhmi Auchi had already set up one of the largest money launding and illegal arms trade systems on the planet, the Al Mahdi, to supply Saddam with weapons in his war with Iran.  That system used BCCI, but was not a part *of* BCCI, just using it as a funds transfer system.  The question is: did Monzer al-Kassar know about and utilize the Al Mahdi system?  Considering that this system had ties to PLO, HAMAS, Hezbollah and the Italian/Sicilian Mafias, it is hard to see how he *didn't* know.  And as al-Kassar's speciality was spiriting Eastern European arms out to Bosnia, Kozovo and Yemen... there are only some few indicators that he may have used an exterior system, like the Audi Bank of Switzerland (Source: PBS Frontline documentary on al-Kassar), to move funds.  Actually, that is most likely the Audi Bank of Lebanon, Geneva office.  Also involved in all of this is Die Erste Bank of Austria (with some background on that organization here) and Arab Bank in Geneva which was Yasser Arafat's bank of choice as his widow would use that and BNP Bank (Source: BBC, 11 FEB 2004), and that ties Auchi to Arafat directly.  About the only other major figure he is tied to is that of Abu Nidal, as part of the BCCI-London Office work and moving arms via that with his brother, Ghassan, past various arms embargos and to terror organizations.  Plus his connection to the supernote trade in the Bekaa valley, which most point to Iran as an early starter, but the quality of the bills point to North Korea as the expected source, with Iran being an intermediary.

The Audi Bank would also show up in the next large scale move by Monzer al-Kassar, and that would be into Argentina.  Here the question is not so much *why* al-Kassar, but as to *who* made the connections.  The man to make connections with in the late 1980's was Carlos Menem, Argentine politician whose parents were from Syria.  With that original connection, be it from al-Kassar's deals via Iran/Contra or via Menem's connections via Syria or (most likely) needing connections and al-Kassar already had the contacts, it doesn't really matter as Hafez Assad and Carlos Menem came to an agreement whereby Assad would fund Menem's Presidential bid in return for nuclear and missile technology that Argentina had been previously working on with Egypt and Iraq - Condor II.  From that Monzer al-Kassar would get many benefits, like an exchange deal with the Colombian drug cartels of heroin for cocaine, introduce Hezbollah to the Tri-Border Area of South America, work Arms shipments from Argentina to Croatia, Bosnia and Yemen, put his own network of agents into place (even into the head spot of the Buenos Aires international airport inspections department), set up his own trade bank, and punish Argentina with the help of Imad Mugniyah and Iran for Menem bowing to US pressure *not* to give advanced missile and nuclear technology to Syria. 

From approximately 1988 to 1994, Monzer al-Kassar was a very busy man, bribing his way into oblivion by having Carlos Menem destroy all records of him and his transactions there, and undermine the court system via bribery.  We know that as a judge sitting on the case admitted to being bribed by him.  Still the Audi Bank proved a real boon in the money laundering, bribery and general mayhem that was going on around Monzer al-Kassar.  Even to the point where the Swiss would freeze his account and investigate him for a few years.  Of interest is it is that Swiss judge (not the bribed Argentine judge) that would start investigating the Bank of NY scandal way back on 10 JUN 2000.  So, while direct connections with Auchi cannot be confirmed, the confluence of events before the BoNY scandal hit, and how money was transferred for arms deals is of a lot of interest.

Outside of the Israeli Embassy and AMIA Center bombings, Hezbollah had a couple of preparatory bombings going on before that, in 1991, and was setting up their own 'charity' in the area, as part of Mugniyah's External Security Operations.  This was not Monzer al-Kassar's first dabblings in terrorism, as seen by his previous work in the early 1980's getting Hezbollah to release hostages via Iran for France and the US (Iran/Contra).  He was also involved with the Achille Lauro hijacking by PLF leader Abu Abbas, and would be tried on that in Spain... only to have one witness get drunk and fall off his apartment balcony to his death, another witness have his family kidnapped by a Colombian drug cartel and a third witness in jail in Italy recant his testimony.   And that is how a man charged with Piracy walks in the modern world. Strange how that happens, isn't it?  The upshot of that, having cover credentials from Yemen and other Nations and, generally being well connected, is that his bank accounts in Switzerland were unfrozen and he walked free of the Piracy charges.

If you include the death tolls by Hezbollah against the US Embassy and Marine Barracks, along with French military, the Israeli Embassy bombing, AMIA cultural center bombing, Achille Lauro hijacking and such you are coming up with a man sponsoring or taking part in the deaths of hundreds, piracy and general terrorism above and beyond his ability to launder money, get arms to places under UN interdiction and somehow transform fruit into military hardware at sea.  And that is *before* we get to the 21st century!  Just look at that list and the backers behind it:  Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, PLO, Red Mafia, Iraq, China.   Not to mention the individuals involved, like Imad Mugniyah or Semion Mogilevich the 'Brainy Don' of the Red Mafia.  Tying Arafat to Auchi and the same banks starts to tie al-Kassar into that entire system of funds transfers that would start to smell very rotten due to the BoNY penetration by the Red Mafia... with the judge just a few months before discovering *that* working on al-Kassar's case.

Heading into 2001 he would try to work out his deal with Menem for a gold mine in Tucuman, Argentina via Imperial Consolidated, but that deal would face problems and he would put forward charges that Imperial was working with Osama bin Laden... that *before* 9/11.  The status of the gold mine is not clear at this point in time, but the fall of Imperial (already having financial problems) and their counter-assertion that it was al-Kassar bringing bin Laden to *them* makes for an interesting case as bin Laden had an agent die on the way to Marbella, Spain in a plane crash.  It is speculated that the agent was to meet with either with al-Kassar or Mogilevich (who kept a residence there) or *both*.  Fascinating stuff happening just before 9/11!

After 9/11 we come to the Madrid Bombings of 3/11 as looked at by Joe Aguilar at Winds of Change and Barcepundit who translated an article about an undercover officer who was working on al-Kassar's case and, actually, *for* him and traces the phones used in the bombings to a company owned by Kassar.  That and a number of connections to Algerian terror organizations, which look to be the perpetrators of the plot... but someone supplied the technology and know-how for them to pull it off.  That gets us up to Monzer al-Kassar's arrest in Spain in 2007 as the US was looking to extradite him on a FARC sting operation and his finally arriving in the US a few days ago.

 

The above is the 'bare-bones' sketch of what Monzer al-Kassar has been dealing in, and does not look at a number of suppositions put out by others on things like the Pan Am 103 Lockerbie bombing or some of Kassar's other work in Iraq, where he was (at least up until last year) the #1 wanted man there for getting arms to insurgents.  That without having set foot inside of Iraq, mind you.

While the charges on the DEA case are pertinent, they also point to the unraveling of FARC and the penetration of the FARC arms network.  That is the integrated drug/arms/money exchange system by FARC and reaches pretty much worldwide to Russia, Central Asia, Oceania, Middle East, Africa and Europe, as well as to drug cartels in Mexico.  As more comes out from that, the deeper connections with past goings-on are coming to the forefront, and the opportunity to clear up some long-standing problems of the late Cold War and post-Cold War period. 

One of the central figures in that is Monzer al-Kassar.

This then puts the question of his ties to those in power in various Nations in question - the Four Degrees of Monzer al-Kassar game is no joke as he is one of the most highly connected individuals between the dark world of crime and terrorism and the gray world of political expediency.  The central charges of conspiracy to terrorism and such ignore the greater problem that such corrupting influences that he represents have spread far and wide.  You do not get Colombian drug Cartels kidnapping people to help out such an individual by *chance*.  That points to a deep connection to the criminal world, reaching into jails across the globe.  Not only does he have those connections and the higher ones to politicians, but the lateral ones to banking and finance: his work to launder money from the Bekaa valley drug trade, arms deals and various other black world projects points to a deep and long term problem uncovered by the BoNY scandal.

At heart Monzer al-Kassar is one of the prime movers in the realm of illegal war and private war, seeking to undermine the US, in particular, and the West in general.  He is skilled enough to have been untouchable for decades, not only was it hard to pin anything on him, but once in court cases tended to evaporate out from under prosecutors.  By using that organized crime and terrorism *reach* he could *touch* nearly anyone with threats or simple death.  And that brings up a very troubling part of the DEA work:  beyond the agents involved in the 'sting'... no, hold on a second... *including* them, just who does this case depend upon?  Anyone with connections to arms dealing, narcotics trafficking or having contacts with the Red Mafia or the combined Kassar/Auchi contacts group may have a hard time staying alive.

Even in a supermax.

Having seen a couple of Spanish, Argentine, and Swiss cases just fall to pieces around him, there is no guarantee that even with iron-clad proof of wrong-doing that he will not walk away from the charges.  He is the master of technicality, and knows how to operate so as to have ample fall-backs and back-ups in the legal realm.  Two or three charges might not be enough to do it, and even those that gain a conviction have tended to be overturned on further review.  Given a year of preparation, which he has *had*, getting any case to stand up against him in Federal Court is going to be a problem.  If he was hit with every possible sanction, starting from the Hezbollah bombings and Iran/Contra all the way to the present, including at least one episode of piracy and another of aiding and abetting it, there might be a possibility to get *something* to stick.

The best possible world would have the Piracy charges with Abu Abbas be confirmed, they are damned simple and need to show simple collusion.  With that the entire network of Kassar contacts could be brought in on the aiding, abetting, working with, giving material aid to Pirates.  Those are, by far, the simplest federal charges in the world to make stick as they were aimed directly at those waging private war against any Nation.  Absent that, you are stuck in the mush of the terrorism laws, RICO and various other conspiracy laws highly limited by the US territorially.

And then there is the final problem:  the next President.

That Four Degrees game?

He is connected to Obama (via Auchi and Alsammarae), Clinton (via Marc Rich or Jackson Stephens) and McCain (via Depriposka if not Keating or Stephens), and there will be heavy pressure on each of them to *not* keep Monzer al-Kassar in jail due to *his* knowledge of various US Presidential Administrations and Congressmen.  He is a bi-partisan threat, and one of the nastiest to have been seen in decades if not longer.  I don't expect that even a supermax will hinder al-Kassar's operations and that of his family: they have been in the business far longer than the current crop of politicians have. 

I expect him to walk unless he actually can exploit federal hospitality, of course...

To the Candidates for President:  If you want my vote you will appoint a fully independent investigation inside the FBI, CIA, Treasury, and DoD to gather evidence of ALL wrongdoing by this guy and then follow each and every one of them up and if it leads to *you* step down from the Office of President.

Everyone who has bitched, moaned, complained about the war, FISA, 'civil liberties' and 'terrorism is just a tactic':  this is the Civil side of going after terrorism and it will lead to your favorite policial party, backers, organizers, and possibly some of your friends.

If Monzer al-Kassar has Piracy charges *stick* against him, then every contact, supplier, friend, confidante... EVERYONE who knows him and has helped him can be brought up on federal charges of showing that help to a Pirate and be slammed away for a decade.  Everyone that al-Kassar reaches out *to* can be brought *in* and put out of circulation.

No exceptions.

None for political party.

None for office.

None for Nation of origin.

None for who they back.

No one.

That will lead to the organizations of al Qaeda, HAMAS, PLO, Hezbollah, FARC - everyone in those organizations can be brought in as they support that ORGANIZATION.  And a few of them, like Hezbollah and al Qaeda, should really be brought up on Piracy charges for their attacks on the USS Cole and the unarmed merchant vessel attacked by Hezbollah in 2006.  Plus parts of the PLO have done sea born attacks and invasions of Israel, which is, yes, Piracy when done by non Nations.

You want the Civil side of confronting terrorism?

Now it the time to start.

That is if you *care* about curbing this form of private war and making it very unattractive to those doing it or those looking to do it.

These people have cast all civil rights aside and put themselves above all Nations as final arbiter of life and death.

The charges are very, very simple to figure out.

They chose this path to go down.

Now we can show them the error of their ways... if we have the guts to stand for anything and demonstrate that there is a place for the rule of law amongst men and Nations.  It is nasty, it is rough, it is hard, it is not nice.

No one said being civilized was any of those things.

It is, however, necessary to uphold it so you can treat those who abide by being civilized in a civil fashion.

And those who don't?

Outside the law of civilization and adhering to the Law of Nature.

They want that.

And it is what they should get in full and complete measure.