Atrocity and legalism

Daedalus

Volumn 132, Issue 1, 2003, Pages 73-82

  Bass, Gary J ^a  

^a PRINCETON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 3943077649     PISSN: 00115266     EISSN: 15486192     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (25)

1. George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia (1938; reprint, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980), 231-232.
2. Michael Waizer, Just and Unjust Wars:A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (New York: Basic Books, 1977), 197, 200, 203.
3. Steve Vogel, "12 Remains From Pentagon Are Identified," The Washington Post, 20 September 2001, A22.
4. Robin Wright, "Islamic Nations Isolate Taliban," The Los Angeles Times, 23 September 2001, A1.
5. Judith N. Shklar, Legalism: Law, Morals, and Political Trials (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986), 131.
6. Gustav Niebuhr, "Groups Plan Vigils and Rallies to Urge Alternatives to War," The New York Times, 4 October 2001, B6.
7. Greg Hansen, "War Could Make the Terrorist Threat Worse," The Christian Science Monitor, 24 September 2001, 9.
8. Even critics of the trials recognized this. See Radhabinod Pal, International Military Tribunal for the Far East: Dissentient Judgment (Calcutta: Sanyal & Co., 1953), 10, 14, 17, 31.
9. Nor would turning over bin Laden alone have satisfied the White House; to prevent another attack on American civilians, Al Qaeda needed to be uprooted. Bob Woodward and Dan Balz, "A Monumental Struggle Between Good and Evil," The Washington Post, 28 January 2002, A10.
10. Henry Morgenthau Jr., Morgenthau Diary - Germany (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1967), vol.1, 490.
11. See also ibid.
12. For another look at this tension, see Ruth Wedgwood, "The Rules of War Can't Protect Al Qaeda," The New York Times, 31 December 2001, A11.
13. For a viewpoint less sympathetic to the 'White House, see Aryeh Neier, "The Military Tribunals on Trial," The New York Review of Books, 14 February 2002, 11-15.
14. Barton Geilman, "U.S. Was Foiled Multiple Times in Efforts To Capture Bin Laden or Have Him Killed," The Washington Post, 3 October 2001, A1.
15. See Thom Shanker and Katharine Q Seclye, "Behind-the-Scenes Clash Led Bush to Reverse Himself on Applying Geneva Conventions," The New York Times, 22 February 2002, A12.
16. "Report by the Assistant Secretary of War (McCloy) of a Telephone Conversation with Secretary of War Stimson," 28 August 1944, in Bradley F. Smith, ed., The American Road to Nuremberg: The Documentary Record, 1944-1945 (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1982), 23.
17. In Radhabinod Pal, "Law of Nurnberg Trial," American Journal of International Law (January 1947): 25; italics added. Regardless of what one thought of George H. W. Bush and Clin ton's near-zero tolerance for American military casualties, there seems to be broad consensus on having no tolerance for American civilian casualties.
18. For a sober analysis of the question ofAmer ican complicity in war crimes, see Telford Taylor, Nuremberg and Vietnam : An American Tragedy (Chicago, Ill.: Quadrangle, 1970).
19. Smith, ed., American Road to Nureinberg, 13-14.
20. Anne-Marie Slaughter, "Terrorism and Justice," Financial Times, 11 October 2001, 23.
21. Harold Hongju Koh, "We have the Right Courts for Bin Laden," The New York Times, 23 November 2001, A39.
22. See the Gallup findings summarized in two articles by Andrea Stone in USA Today, 27 February 2002: "In poll, Islamic world says Arabs not involved in 9/11," 1A, and "Kuwaitis share distrust toward USA, poli indicates," 7A. Just over a decade after the American-led liberation of Kuwait, Gallup found that 36 percent of Kuwaitis think that the attacks on the World Trade Center were justifiable, and 89 percent believed that Arabs were not involved in the attacks. 62 percent of Jordanians, 64 percent of Saudis, 68 percent of Pakistanis, and 41 percent of Moroccans said they had an unfavorable image of the United States.
23. Shklar. Legalism, 165.
24. Ibid., 51.
25. "Memorandum for the President - Re: Punishment of War Criminals," 29 May 1945, in Morgenthau Diary. vol.11, 1544-1545.