From a personal perspective, I don’t believe in the benevolence of foreign powers, and no one can convince me otherwise. Global power brokers use justice, among other things, as a tool to drive their own agendas and secure their own benefits; values to them are simply a matter of convenience, embraced when they lead to profit, and ignored otherwise.
Recent history is filled with instances of these dualities, and to name a few, Slobodan Milosevic was deemed to be an ethnic cleanser by the international community, for crimes similar to those committed by walid jumblat, the friend of the bush administration; and while the USA was going after Milosevic's hide, jumblat was being invited on several occasions to the US where he was received by influential figures within the administration. Consecutive US administrations not only encouraged Saddam Hussein's fist of steel inside Iraq, but they helped him build his chemical warfare arsenal, until Bush and Cheney decided to form a worldwide coalition to invade Iraq under the WMD pretext. How many times did the United States use its veto power to prevent the UN's security council from adopting just decisions to limit or condemn the israeli atrocities, be it against Lebanese or palestinians? (41 US vetoes between 1972 and 2006 on critical decisions, let alone vetos against condemnations)
International justice is a vehicle the super powers will ride whenever they need to drive somewhere, ironically, at the very expense of justice itself. In my book international justice is as flaky as the weather in February.
Now back to the Hariri case, I want to reiterate that the tribunal will not be able to reach a verdict that everybody will find to be convincing. The concerned masses have already developed their own theories and are very set on believing them; to illustrate further, you can rest assured that while some folks will be disappointed at the vindication of the Syrian regime, others will be equally disappointed if that regime was found to be implicated in the assassination, and in both cases one group will always claim that the verdict is politically motivated. At the end of the day people have their minds set, and the credibility they are willing to accord the tribunal depends exclusively on whether or not the tribunal’s verdict will match the judgment they’ve already made.
Personally, I don’t care about who killed Hariri, and I bet this statement will catch the eyes of some FM ‘truth’ paratroopers on the forum. Why should Hariri matter more than the other 100,000 martyrs in Lebanon? We know for a fact who is responsible for a big chunk of that grim toll and yet we’re not doing anything to bring these known killers to justice, doesn't it make it sort of absurd to invest so much effort in bringing justice to this one man while steping on all other victims?
what kind of a justice is that which is measured by the weight of someone's gold? s-c-r-e-w justice if this is indeed what it has been reduced to.
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From a personal perspective, I don’t believe in the benevolence of foreign powers, and no one can convince me otherwise. Global power brokers use justice, among other things, as a tool to drive their own agendas and secure their own benefits; values to them are simply a matter of convenience, embraced when they lead to profit, and ignored otherwise.
I'm not arguing otherwise. This is the selective justice argument.
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Recent history is filled with instances of these dualities, and to name a few, Slobodan Milosevic was deemed to be an ethnic cleanser by the international community,
But I had to stop reading after this. As I'm sure you're well aware, a guilty verdict in Milosevic's case was far from certain. Other than badly informed conspiracy theories, international tribunals, when they have been established, require a very high burden of proof to prove guilt. For this reason, I don't think that the fact that the US et al. supported its creation will influence the conclusions it reaches.
Selective justice I would agree on. Why give so much attention to this case rather than all the other crimes in Lebanon's past (and present) that deserve investigation. I couldn't agree more. But that is a different story to the one I'm addressing in this thread. And I don't see how the selective justice argument undermines the professionalism and credibility of the IT.
To those people who complained bitterly about Lebanese sovereignty being given away to a supposedly highly politicized, unfair, corrupt tribunal, would you really rather have had the Lebanese judicial system be responsible for handling this case???
You should be asking why a unique form of international tribunal was set up specially for the Hariri case, one aspect of which involves concessions of sovereignty to an international body even though it is using Lebanese law? That alone would make one think that the motives behind tribunal are embedded within this tailor made first of it's kind tribunal.
Yes I would rather have the Lebanese judiciary responsible. Better the evil you know than the one you do not. International bodies can be assigned supervision and transparency watchdog rolls, but I do not feel comfortable giving an international body this much power over domestic affairs, especially a new experimental body that has not been tested in previous similar cases.
Is it not a good thing that the instant the IT was given the responsibility for determining whether or not continued detention was valid, it said no they must be released right away?
It is a good thing assuming the generals where innocent, and there is no reason to think they were not.
The issue of sovereignty is a very valid concern, I agree. But don't you think that the fact that these 4 generals were held for 4 years in Lebanon without trial is indicative of the inability of our judicial to objectively handle their imprisonment? And don't you think that the immediate repudiation of this detainment by the IT, as soon as it was posed with the issue, should at the very least reduce your suspicions about it?
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Does this not tentatively indicate that the tribunal will not haphazardly base its decisions of weak, flawed, tenuous evidence?
No it does not. Delaying holding of the generals for too long under mounting pressure compromises it's credibility in the eyes of the public. They were released now before the elections instead of waiting only two more months, if anything this is an indicator that the IT is concerned with it's public image for some reason. Being concerned about the credibility you project to the public, is not sufficient to make you credible. The two should not be confused. Ever heard of the credit card scammer who spends years building good credit, until he pulls off one big theft? I am not saying this is the case but it is a possibility.
This is a catch-22. I can't argue against those. They either did the wrong thing and therefore are evil, or they did the right thing for the wrong reasons and therefore are evil. No reason can argue against such logic.
Now back to the Hariri case, I want to reiterate that the tribunal will not be able to reach a verdict that everybody will find to be convincing. The concerned masses have already developed their own theories and are very set on believing them; to illustrate further, you can rest assured that while some folks will be disappointed at the vindication of the Syrian regime, others will be equally disappointed if that regime was found to be implicated in the assassination, and in both cases one group will always claim that the verdict is politically motivated. At the end of the day people have their minds set, and the credibility they are willing to accord the tribunal depends exclusively on whether or not the tribunal’s verdict will match the judgment they’ve already made.
I actually agree with this part of your statement, but I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the implications of it. When our domestic judicial system can't handle such contentious issues, and international law is a fallacy, does that mean that you believe in the law of the jungle? Can Jumblat and Geagea and Saniora and Berri and everyone in Lebanon who has supporters never ever be legally held accountable for anything because some people won't accept the outcome of the legal proceedings? And, by undermining the IT, the very inability to accept its objectivity completely erodes any possibility of achieving some modicum of justice.
Objectivity does not exist in Lebanon, therefore let's do away with the idea that there might be something called justice because it relies on the myth that an objective interpretation of the law does exist.
I'm not arguing otherwise. This is the selective justice argument.
But I had to stop reading after this. As I'm sure you're well aware, a guilty verdict in Milosevic's case was far from certain. Other than badly informed conspiracy theories, international tribunals, when they have been established, require a very high burden of proof to prove guilt. For this reason, I don't think that the fact that the US et al. supported its creation will influence the conclusions it reaches.
Selective justice I would agree on. Why give so much attention to this case rather than all the other crimes in Lebanon's past (and present) that deserve investigation. I couldn't agree more. But that is a different story to the one I'm addressing in this thread. And I don't see how the selective justice argument undermines the professionalism and credibility of the IT.
Ulterior motives behind the selection blemish credibility. The ultimate goal of justice has to be justice itself, and selectivity negates this concept.
I actually agree with this part of your statement, but I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the implications of it. When our domestic judicial system can't handle such contentious issues, and international law is a fallacy, does that mean that you believe in the law of the jungle? Can Jumblat and Geagea and Saniora and Berri and everyone in Lebanon who has supporters never ever be legally held accountable for anything because some people won't accept the outcome of the legal proceedings? And, by undermining the IT, the very inability to accept its objectivity completely erodes any possibility of achieving some modicum of justice.
Objectivity does not exist in Lebanon, therefore let's do away with the idea that there might be something called justice because it relies on the myth that an objective interpretation of the law does exist.
which actually brings me to why i am at odds with the concept of the law itself, or the legitimate conduit to enforce the rules of the many, on the few; or those of the powerful on the less fortunate.
law is easily abused, and justice is easily twisted, be it in a court martial in battle fields or in a more stylish one in palaces, it can be use to enforce slavery, to intimidate, to commit capital crimes and on very rare occasions, to bring justice.
but honestly? i believe that a time may come when one of their victims may decide to take justice into his own hands.
Give me the right tools and i will convincingly portray to some that Jean Paul II was behind Hariri's assassination. I simply invest no stock in international justice, things are very rarely what they seem to be on that stage.
to elaborate further, I suspect that the vindication of the 4 officers today may be a simple show to establish credibility in order to market some insane theory further down the road. now i may be wrong on this one, but all you need to accept this as a possibility is to read a few of the memoires of folks like Henry Kissinger and a couple of reports on how the case to invade Iraq was made.
ironically enough, if you do a google search for selective justice, you'll find the hariri case being in the third entry in a report from Amnesty International, that pretty much makes my case vis-a-vis what could easily be conceived as a charade.
The Farteen are trying to cover their shame by saying how fair the IT is. The fact is that is hasn't started, and the past 4 years have gone in vain for the "truth" seekers. What happened yesterday is very fair when you consider how the Farteen intentionally tried to politicize the IT from day one, all being based on personal vandettas. We will soon see Sa3doune returning to his home country because if it wasn't Syria that did it, then he doesn't care.
Ulterior motives behind the selection blemish credibility. The ultimate goal of justice has to be justice itself, and selectivity negates this concept.
Then can we agree on condemning both the US and Sudan for human rights abuses? In fact, can we also agree that the complaints we make about human rights abuses anywhere are accompanied by equally strong campaigns against the way foreign maids in Lebanon are abused?
If there is one place (other than the World Cup) where huge political power does not automatically translate into power over outcomes, it is international law. Nicaragua vs. US (1986) at the ICJ, and Antigua vs. US (1997) at the WTO are two examples that come to mind right away.
Can I interpret your silence on my other points as agreements with their validity? Does the fact that a legal outcome won't be accepted by everyone mean that we might as well do away with the justice system? And does the fact that not every single case gets legal attention mean that not a single case should ever appear before court?
which actually brings me to why i am at odds with the concept of the law itself, or the legitimate conduit to enforce the rules of the many, on the few; or those of the powerful on the less fortunate.
law is easily abused, and justice is easily twisted, be it in a court martial in battle fields or in a more stylish one in palaces, it can be use to enforce slavery, to intimidate, to commit capital crimes and on very rare occasions, to bring justice.
but honestly? i believe that a time may come when one of their victims may decide to take justice into his own hands.
Give me the right tools and i will convincingly portray to some that Jean Paul II was behind Hariri's assassination. I simply invest no stock in international justice, things are very rarely what they seem to be on that stage.
to elaborate further, I suspect that the vindication of the 4 officers today may be a simple show to establish credibility in order to market some insane theory further down the road. now i may be wrong on this one, but all you need to accept this as a possibility is to read a few of the memoires of folks like Henry Kissinger and a couple of reports on how the case to invade Iraq was made.
ironically enough, if you do a google search for selective justice, you'll find the hariri case being in the third entry in a report from Amnesty International, that pretty much makes my case vis-a-vis what could easily be conceived as a charade.
I already told you I agree on the selective justice point.
I was arguing against your argument, which I interpreted as follows: the fact that the motivations behind a party's support for something, if these motivations are for the wrong reasons, this in itself undermines the credibility of that which they are supporting. Because on this forum a thousand times I have seen statements like "if they want to support us, that is fine, we won't change our principles or the way we operate regardless." It is the same for international law.
which actually brings me to why i am at odds with the concept of the law itself, or the legitimate conduit to enforce the rules of the many, on the few; or those of the powerful on the less fortunate.
I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous. You don't believe in the concept of the law as it exists purely as a tool for the strong with which to batter the weak into submission?
30th April 2009
