Can murder be commensurate with justice?

Ed Note: I found this while going through files from this past semester. I wrote it, for a class, back in November following the killing of Libyan leader, Colonel Qaddafi. The news is months old, but the point of the piece remains salient. 

Deceased former Libyan leader, Muammar Qaddafi

What we know: Qaddafi was captured alive, beaten and dragged behind a vehicle, and shot in the head. The exact details of those events are unclear, but numerous reports and witnesses have corroborated that Qaddafi was intentionally shot in the head after he was captured.

Qaddafi was a cruel and ruthless dictator who undoubtedly oversaw the torture, disappearance, and killing of many Libyans over his four decades of tyranny.  Qaddafi was wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, crimes which were great in their quantity and severity.

The local and global reaction to Qaddafi's killing has been varied, but the enormous majority of state representatives and media outlets have heralded the end of a dark era in Libyan history, the demise of a cruel dictator.  On the other end of the spectrum, human rights advocates and lawyers have condemned the killing of Qaddafi because it eliminated Qaddafi's right to due process and undermined the court's ability to seek truth and accountability for his crimes. Absent from the discussion has been analysis of the ubiquitous acceptance of justice by execution.

Pundits in Washington, Paris, and London didn't outright condemn the killing of Qaddafi because it's actually the solution they sought from the beginning. Several possible Qaddafi hideouts were bombed throughout the course of NATO's offensive in Libya, and to my understanding, bombs are usually intended to kill, not read Miranda rights.

The United States has been incredibly consistent, especially under the Obama administration, in its insistence on using targeted assassinations and extrajudicial killings in a handful of countries. The United States recently assassinated U.S. citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, while he was in Yemen, and shortly thereafter, another U.S. drone strike also killed his teenage son, also a U.S. citizen.  In an aura of secrecy, the Obama administration has refused to release information about the rationale for those targeted assassinations and has even declined to name the intended targets of those strikes.

The United States also felt no obligation to explain why Osama bin Laden was killed instead of captured.  Initially the U.S. described the events at Bin Laden's compound as a “firefight” but later conceded that Bin Laden was unarmed when he was killed.

The most shocking element of these examples is the flippancy with which a major world power, theoretically subject to the confines of international law, decides who should be killed instead of given due process. In today's world, the burden of proof for execution is as simple as making a statement, such as, “it was not possible to subdue and arrest the individual, so we used the necessary force.” Period. End of Q & A.

This lack of consideration for seeking justice through the legal process was recently demonstrated by former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer, in her NPR interview regarding the sending of US troops to stop Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army leader. Frazer was asked, “and what would success look like in this situation? How will you know if this mission has succeeded?” She responded, “Kony's dead. I think that's the most important strategic goal, is that he's dead. Obviously, if you capture him, that's just as well. But basically, to remove him from the battlefield.”  Frazer's inclination to cite killing Kony as the primary objective of the mission, and only later adding the footnote that capturing him would serve the same purpose, speaks volumes about the U.S. approach to “justice.” Clearly, justice by murder is possible, even preferable.

Many of those disgusted with the killing of Qaddafi, the subsequent celebrations in the streets, and the days-long display of Qaddafi's body in a meat locker have asked how the Libyan people could celebrate death in such a manner.  But our critique of 'justice by execution' would fall short if we failed to broaden the scope of our discussion beyond the acts of the Libyan rebels.

The fact is that the United States has cornered the market on executions, targeted assassinations, and arbitrary killings. We would have done the deed with a drone, I mean, hell, we tried a number of times but just couldn't finish him off.

The decision to kill Qaddafi – Awlaki, his son, and Bin Laden – fails to consider the function of the legal process and blurs the distinction between ourselves and those we abhor.

In death, there can be no truth-telling, no explanation of disappearances or cruel repression.  Peace will not magically arrive to Libya's doorstep because their dictator has a bullet in his head.  Qaddafi's regime has come to and end, and would have likewise ended if Qaddafi was sitting in a cell awaiting a national or international criminal trial.  The killing of Qaddafi demonstrates the incongruity of the US seeking to establish more democratic societies around the world while, at the same time, teaching the world the benefits of killing those whom you deem worthy of death.  

U.S. turned on the sink and refuses to turn it off or pay for clean up

I am reading a fine book by the practical philosopher, Peter Singer, called One World.  Singer suggests that the world is increasingly becoming one, and therefore, as the human race we must adapt our ethic to account for a singular, globalized world.  One of Singer's chapters, called One Atmosphere, argues that the reality one global climate, increasingly subject to rising temperatures, necessitates that we embrace an ethic that recognizes our responsibility to maintain and protect the environment.  Much of the chapter highlights the responsibility of industrialized countries, particularly the United States, in the dramatic acceleration of greenhouse gases, and subsequently, the industrialized world's contribution to global warming.  Sadly, those most culpable for gross emissions refuse to commit to legally-binding agreements that would reduce emissions and the possibility for continued global warming.  One passage struck me as particularly profound:

It is true that there are some circumstances in which we are justified in refusing to contribute if others are not doing their share.  If we eat communally and take turns cooking, then I can justifiably feel resentment if there are some who eat but never cook or carry out equivalent tasks for the good for the entire group.  But that is not the situation with climate change, in which the behavior of the industrialized nations has been more like that of a person who has left the kitchen tap running but refuses either to turn it off, or to mop up the resulting flood, until you -- who spilt an insignificant half-glass of water onto the floor -- promise not to spill any more water.  Now the other industrialized nations have agreed to turn off the tap (to be strictly accurate, to restrict the flow), leaving the United States, the biggest culprit, alone in its refusal to commit itself to reducing emissions.

We teach life, Sir.

Musician sings Occupy-inspired protest song to the world's leaders

Hawaiian musician, Makana, was invited to perform some pleasant background music for the summit of APEC, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, which included the presence of Barack Obama. Makana, who had recently recorded a protest song inspired by the Occupy Movement and the greed of Wall Street, decided to sing his song for the leaders of the world's economic powers. He ended up singing the song for 45 minutes, yep, forty-five minutes.

Here is the music video:


Here is a video Makana posted that speaks to his conviction to sing the song:

We don't do universal rights, We're America

For one of the classes I currently have, we read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (go read it). This is a foundational document for human rights practitioners and advocates as it forms, in part, what is known as the International Bill of Rights.

Here are some excerpts:

Article 18 - Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Article 19 - Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Article 22 - Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.
Article 24 - Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.
Article 28 - Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.
Article 29 - (1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.

My professor asked us after having read the declaration, "What was your impression of the declaration when you read it? How did you feel when you read it?"

One of my classmates from the Middle East/North Africa raised her hand and asked if we were to respond based on the most recent time we had read it, or the first time we had read it.  The professor said we could respond however we wanted, and another classmate from South America proceeded to recount her feelings the first time she read the declaration during elementary school.  The clarity of her answer started to fade as I got hung up on the fact that she had read the declaration in elementary school.

The first time that I had read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in completion was for this every class, in graduate school. I am 26 years old, educated in the United States with a BA degree in the humanities, and now pursuing an MA degree in peace studies, and I finally got around to reading the declaration.

I'll take the blame for some of this. I was doing human rights work in the West Bank and rarely sat down and read human rights law or international conventions, something, in retrospect, I should have done.

But I think the issue is larger than a personal issue. Several students in the class, from outside the US, talked about reading the declaration in a public elementary school.  As opposed to teaching international law and international human rights conventions, we, in the United States, have a degree of contempt for international law and human rights law.

Or maybe the contempt is at the governmental level, most clearly exemplified by George W. Bush and his cronies, while the public is simply unaware of international law and international human rights. We learn the Bill of Rights, found in the US Constitution, but we know damn well that only applies to people in the United States, and frankly, it may only apply to US Citizens, unless you're Muslim and/or brown, or your last name is Awlaki.

We've even created prisons outside of the United States so that we don't have to extend domestic law to those people, knowing full well that we will not extend international human rights standards to those we've locked up in these clandestine prisons.

What if we read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 5th grade classrooms and talked about how these rights should be granted to and protected for all people, regardless of where they reside of where they were born. Sure, that would somewhat undermine the "supremacy" of the United States and the elitist, not to mention fictional, notion that the US has the market cornered on values. But we'd be conveying a message that all people are equal, even across national boundaries, that there's a set of moral standards and baseline behavior, codified in international law, that we're obligated to respect. Now wouldn't that be a dangerous message for the empire of all modern empires. 

Kroc Institute's 25th Bday

The Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame just celebrated its 25th anniversary. Here is a timeline -- with text, photos, and videos -- of the history of the program. Check it out.

Kroc Institute 25th Anniversary on Dipity.

Trailer for upcoming film: Some of my best friends are Zionists

This needs to be watched. It's compelling.


Initial Development Trailer:  Some of My Best Friends Are Zionists from Open Letter Productions on Vimeo.