Arresting the Hezbollah
The Globe and Mail reports, “Warrants issued for the arrest of four men wanted for the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri have the potential to tear Lebanon apart – but don’t expect the men to stand trial or even be arrested any time soon.”
The men reportedly include Mustafa Badreddine, said to have been Hezbollah’s deputy military commander, and brother-in-law of the late Hezbollah military commander Imad Mughniyeh. The others – Salim Ayyash, also known as Abu Salim; Assad Sabra and Hassan Anise, who changed his name to Hassan Issa – are relative unknowns. …
“If they try to serve the warrants they’ll be blocked,” Mr. Makdisi said. And if they ever should actually arrest someone, all hell will break loose.
The trouble with “international law” is it needs projectable force to enforce it. If the system could do without it, then President Obama wouldn’t have to ask for funding to prosecute the non-war against Libya. The warrant against Khadaffy would for example serve itself. One professor says that the ICC’s main defect is that it won’t Americans. But he’s got the problem completely backwards. If the ICC ever issued such a warrant, the odds are that President Obama would fall all over himself to comply, provided the party named was not himself.
Many Western officials have hailed the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, his son, Saif and his intelligence chief Abdualla Al-Senussi for crimes against humanity as a breakthrough in the war against Libya’s leader. … these arrest warrants may diminish the credibility of the ICC … mbedded in a system of governance that forecloses the prosecution of officials of the great powers (in particular the US, Britain, China, Russia and France). Not a single official from one of these states has been indicted before an international criminal court since 1945.
On the other hand Khadaffy and Hezbollah will simply defy the warrant. Their refrain is Bob Marley’s famous line. “I shot the sheriff. But I didn’t shoot no deputy.”
“No Way In” print and Kindle edition at Amazon
Tip Jar or Subscribe for $5
Hezbollah is already on public record that they will cut off the hands of anyone who attempts to arrest even one of their “fighters.” Not a single person doubts the sincerity of their threat.
Hezbollah is a non-state within a state. The writ of the sovereign nation of Lebanon stops in South Beirut, and everyone knows this. The Cedar Revolution has been thoroughly co-opted by Hezbollah’s unofficial rule over all of south Lebanon, and there is not a thing anyone can do about it, unless they wants to take on Hezbollah’s 40,000 new rockets and many thousands of fighters.
No one is going to serve any arrest warrants in Lebanon. No one is going to lock up any member of Hezbollah in a jail, or put them on a plane to Brussels.
As for the ICC in Brussels arresting heads of state or accused military officers for ‘war crimes,’ the U.S. refuses to recognize the ICC because the very first warrants would go out to American generals. When Brussels suggested such a thing to Secretary Rumsfeld some years ago, he responded by telling them that as soon as one American general was indicted the United States would pull all of the NATO presence out of Belgium, a loss of billions to the Belgium government.
Hezbollah is going to get away with murder. They are thugs, a gang, a criminal enterprise that has not just bribed the local judges and police, but has massed a gang so huge and so dedicated and so well armed that nothing short of a full war can bring them to justice. Fighting five engagements already, we’re not going to start a sixth war in the Islamic world, so Hezbollah wins…and Tehran applauds.
Hi, Wretch.
Check this out in the Australian.
“Strauss-Kahn Rape Case Close to Collapse”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/strauss-kahn-rape-case-close-to-collapse/story-e6frg6so-1226085491782
Cliche piled on cliche. Don’t you just love it!
The process is very clear and quite well thought out, in fact
“Here’s what happens next:
1. The Lebanese government has 30 days to find the four suspects, serve them with the indictment, arrest them, and transfer them to the STL headquarters in Leidschendam.
2. If after 30 days, no one is arrested, and “if the STL President considers that reasonable attempts to serve the indictment have been made, he may order a public advertisement after consulting the Pre-Trial Judge.
The Registrar would then send an advertisement calling on the accused to surrender to the Lebanese authorities for publication in the media.”
3. “If the accused has not been arrested within 30 calendar days of the public advertisements the Pre-Trial Judge can ask the Trial Chamber to initiate in absentia proceedings.”
The confirmation of an indictment does not mean that the person(s) named in the indictment is/are guilty of the crimes of which they are accused.
It simply confirms that the case put forward by the Prosecutor has met the burden of proof required at this stage of the process – prima facie evidence.
In simple terms this means that if this evidence were presented uncontested at the trial, it would lead to a conviction.
It is not controversial to recognize that the Hariri investigation has been hobbled (some would say deeply compromised) by problems of unreliable testimony, sullied crime scenes, unprofessionalism, and witness intimidation (and perhaps liquidation, in the case of Wissam Eid).
If the case largely depends on evidence from telecommunications data (as the CBC account suggests), maybe Hizbullah thinks that they can beat the rap.”
http://qifanabki.com/2011/06/30/will-hizbullah-send-lawyers-to-the-hague/
So in 30 days we will know the flow chart moving forward.
If the defendants show up their probable best strategy will be to contest the credibility of the telecommunications data.
This is certainly a much ” smoother ” process that that for Balkan war crimes–20 years in some cases.
Still, it may take some time to find the truth or the guilt in this matter.
Lebanon, though beautiful–and once the Switzerland of the ME–is now trivial to American fundamental interests which are–jobs–favorable trade-and a robust American economy.
KSA IS to relavent American fundamental interests–because
1/KSA are buying $ 60 billion of US defense product–which creates a lot of jobs and wealth for American families.
And because
2/ KSA supplies 10 per cent of our oil–we could solve that by domestic drilling.
Lebanon is trivial to American fundamental interests–that is why Reagan got us out in the early 1980s and we now ignore it–no threat–no profit–no point
The ICC: milk monitors armed with cap pistols – at least, until we trade our sovereignty for a mess of pâté pottage.
Someone at PJM altered my post a look into into it
The process is very clear and quite well thought out, in fact
“Here’s what happens next:
1. The Lebanese government has 30 days to find the four suspects, serve them with the indictment, arrest them, and transfer them to the STL headquarters in Leidschendam.
2. If after 30 days, no one is arrested, and “if the STL President considers that reasonable attempts to serve the indictment have been made, he may order a public advertisement after consulting the Pre-Trial Judge.
The Registrar would then send an advertisement calling on the accused to surrender to the Lebanese authorities for publication in the media.”
3. “If the accused has not been arrested within 30 calendar days of the public advertisements the Pre-Trial Judge can ask the Trial Chamber to initiate in absentia proceedings.”
The confirmation of an indictment does not mean that the person(s) named in the indictment is/are guilty of the crimes of which they are accused.
It simply confirms that the case put forward by the Prosecutor has met the burden of proof required at this stage of the process – prima facie evidence.
In simple terms this means that if this evidence were presented uncontested at the trial, it would lead to a conviction.
It is not controversial to recognize that the Hariri investigation has been hobbled (some would say deeply compromised) by problems of unreliable testimony, sullied crime scenes, unprofessionalism, and witness intimidation (and perhaps liquidation, in the case of Wissam Eid).
If the case largely depends on evidence from telecommunications data (as the CBC account suggests), maybe Hizbullah thinks that they can beat the rap.”
http://qifanabki.com/2011/06/30/will-hizbullah-send-lawyers-to-the-hague/
So in 30 days we will know the flow chart moving forward.
If the defendants show up their probable best strategy will be to contest the credibility of the telecommunications data.
This is certainly a much ” smoother ” process that that for Balkan war crimes–20 years in some cases.
Still, it may take some time to find the truth or the guilt in this matter.
Lebanon, though beautiful–and once the Switzerland of the ME–is now trivial to American fundamental interests which are–jobs–favorable trade-and a robust American economy.
KSA IS to relavent American fundamental interests–because
1/KSA are buying $ 60 billion of US defense product–which creates a lot of jobs and wealth for American families.
And because
2/ KSA supplies 10 per cent of our oil–we could solve that by domestic drilling.
Lebanon is trivial to American fundamental interests–that is why Reagan got us out in the early 1980s and we now ignore it–no threat–no profit–no point
May I point out that the comic opera ICC’s penchant for issuing threatening statements against people around the world, may make them a valid target for kinetic response. They should really watch all that tut-tut-tut. Should anyone seize, say, Dick Cheney under an ICC warrant while he traveled in Europe I would consider that an act of war by the immediate parties involved. The unwisdom of the ICC is breathtaking.
The entire EU is beclowning themselves over Libya, they’ve got me rooting for Kaddafi.
“One professor says that the ICC’s main defect is that it won’t [FILL IN THE BLANK] Americans.” Tad ambiguous.
The US refused to join the ICC for good reason. The fundamental problem is that people fail to understand the fact that Law is a product of a legitimate Sovereign. In the US and a few other countries that is the people acting through an established constitutional order.
As an aside, in a few countries still the Sovereign is an inherited monarch whose authority is considered legitimate because the people have assented to it over many generations. In almost every current case of hereditary monarchy that position is embedded within a functioning democracy and the two sources of legitimacy, the General Will as Rousseau phrased it and Bagehot’s Custom support each other.
In many places where most of humanity reside there is no legitimate Sovereign but only agents of force exercising de facto authority. There is a difference between an authority legitimated by Custom and the willing assent of a free people over time and an authority that endures by inertia in perpetuating itself through the use of force and the degradation of those under it. That includes China and every Islamic nation.
The UN Security Council has the authority to create law in effect by making a decision regarding a threat or breach of the peace within a state and ordering active measures, including the use of force. As constructed the UNSC was controlled by the victorious democracies of WW-II. The other nations that subscribed to the Charter recognized the reality that the Powers had both that capacity and that their governments were legitimate. Unfortunately the inclusion of the Soviet Union and China (then under the KMT but still not a democracy) compromised the legitimate authority of the UN. This meant that the potential for illegitimate or revolutionary authorities to claim the ability to create law was introduced. The Americans compounded the problem by using the UN General Assembly to authorize the Korean War, after a singular Security Council resolution with the Soviets absent.
We can consider the possibility now that Israel can claim that it will act on behalf of the ICC in entering Lebanon to serve the warrants.
There is a report that Israel sent a message to Assad through Turkey to the effect that if Hezbolla attacked Israel in any way they were going to target him personally. That, to me, sounds quite credible. That’s the way things are done. Anything that you read or see in the public media is pure blather.
“The entire EU is beclowning themselves over Libya, they’ve got me rooting for Kaddafi.”
Everybody wants to ride the strong horse. NATO is a weak old nag that belongs in the glue factory.
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Security/Default.aspx?id=1316884
No boots on the ground eh!
Back to the future;
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/barbary.htm
206 years later we need 2,200 marines to do what Lt. O’bannon, a Gunnery Sgt., 6 Privates, 66 sailors and 400+ mercenaries did. Habu wasn’t there or so he says.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Derne
3-5 No worries Victor O’Bannon, we know who you are because you always macro insert your favorite phrase;
“KSA are buying $ 60 billion of US defense product”
It’s the only signature you need.
“Should anyone seize, say, Dick Cheney…”
I wouldn’t be so fast Josh. If Cheney was seized by the ICC while the communists were still running the justice department they would celebrate in joy. Suppose Eric Holder would object?
Leftys’ still whine over the fact that the US went to war in Iraq just because Saddam tried to assassinate a sitting US president. A republican helping his republican dad? Tut tut tut.
I’m with you on Kaddafi.
Just for grins, let’s play a mind game.
The four are spirited out of Lebanon without anybody noticing until they’re gone. That would be a hell of a special op. Not likely.
But, as a hypo, suppose it happened.
What would be the reaction of the various parties? Can we learn anything valuable from pursuing this hypo?
Perhaps they’ll give themselves up, then allow themselves to be part of a large, public media campaign. Not that they aren’t guilty of accused crimes, but that they were doing “god’s work”, etc.
Could they be served with the papers by drone? The warrants and so forth could be taped to the warhead. Twenty kilotons would be about right.
oMan, you have the right idea but it is a tad overkill, how ’bout just etching it onto a bullet?
“I would consider that an act of war by the immediate parties involved. The unwisdom of the ICC is breathtaking.”
and arresting DSK like he was under falsh pretentions, then parading him like the biggest criminal, isn’t it what could be considered as act of war too? considering that this man was on the verge to become the first person of a country, ah yes of “surrender-monkeys” that didn’t follow Chesney invitation to accompany the biggest anti-religious crusade in Irak, cuz, these apes thought that there weren’t WMD at all, the very pretext for the war
hmm sorry, I couldn’t help it
Stoicheion
isn’t it funny?
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=6954254&c=MID&s=AIR
http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/libya/articles/20110629.aspx
me thinks that there are nice people across the pond, that don’t know that lying is a sin
BFtP @8 — Wonderfully lucid.. thank you
MC @17 your sarcasm, like your wine, does not travel well
orphane,son of liberty
that’s the right name for your country, and don’t worry our wine gets better with aging !
stoicheion
sorry, I like you
though I forgot that one
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43602825/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/t/report-libya-complains-about-investment-losses/?fb_ref=story_text&fb_source=profile_oneline
hmmm, anything to do with the WS banksters?
WMD were hardly the only reason that the US invaded Iraq. I think everyone here is familiar with that.
Regardless of age, California wines are clearly superior to French wines, though French wines are a close second.
As a criminal investigator, I felt some grim satisfaction over investigators’ uncovering evidence about DSK’s accuser, which evidence questions her veracity. I have investigated cases where it seemed that the evidence against the accused was air tight but which fell apart after additional probing. You can never judge a case by its cover.
Tuduri
the Chinese aren’t buying Californian wines, why?
hmm Vance career might have suffered if he’d persisted in his accusation !
MC
Who cares why the Chinese don’t buy California wines, if that is fact is true.
But my favorite is a cold California Chardoney with Chinese food, particularly Dim Sum.
I used to prefer eating San Francisco sourdough. But my Vietnamese wife got me to start eating sweet French bread. Ummm, some French bread with butter and Camenbert and a glass of Chardoney. Yum.
The best restaurant I ate at in Paris when I was a student many years ago was Vietnamese! Well, maybe that’s because I couldn’t afford the nicer Parisian ones.
I’m getting off topic…sorry, W.
DSK may still be guilty, but I wouldn’t want to be his accuser on the witness stand during cross examination.
tuduri who cares of your average tastes in food and beverages in the occurence
“I wouldn’t want to be his accuser on the witness stand during cross examination”
yeah, he is surendering LMAO
Re. #8. Blast From the Past
“We can consider the possibility now that Israel can claim that it will act on behalf of the ICC in entering Lebanon to serve the warrants.”
Why should they pull chestnuts from campfire for these pompous clowns?
grrr 26,
Why? Because they are at war with Hezbollah. When the Israelis act and how will determined by what is in their best interests. We can assume that very serious people in Northern Command and in Jerusalem constantly review the situation. My expectation was that Bibi & Co. may give themselves a small moment of schadenfreude, just a passing pleasure among great and terrible events, by sending a message to that effect to the ICC when the real war starts. Perhaps they may even have an earnest young policewoman and a cameraman accompany the troops when they cross the border so she can be seen, in starched white uniform, knocking on doors to find the fugitives.
What I really loved about the United Nations was how they made absolutely sure that Hezbollah would not re-arm after the last fight. Armed to the teeth is what they are and as usual the U.N. sits passively by.
18. Marie Claude
Yes, the USA IS active in Libya. The won is playing fast and loose with the law. He knows being impeached is about his only chance for re-election. I think he is running a bluff. But it isn’t what I think, it’s what The Weeping Boner thinks…
That article had more fools claiming that the War Powers Act is unconstitutional. I found out decades ago that you shut them up by asking which part of the Constitution it violates. They start mumbling and change the subject.
BTW, when is Sorry-ass-key going to get some real security? In America NOBODY gets in the rope line without the Secret Service knowing all about them.