I have a new essay on SSRN, entitled "Retreat from Nuremberg: The Leadership Requirement in the Special Working Group's Definition of Aggression." Here is the abstract:The International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction over the crime of aggression is contingent upon the Assembly of States Parties adopting a definition of the crime. To that end, the Special Working Group on the...
In keeping with my recent spate of hopeful posts, it's my pleasure to mention that Israel is poised to appoint its first-ever Muslim minister:An Arab-Israeli legislator of the centre-left Labour Party is to become Israel's first-ever Moslem minister, Israeli news channels reported Wednesday night. Labour Party head Amir Peretz has decided to appoint Raleb Majadele from the central Arab-Israeli town of Baka el-Garbia as science,...
Ostensibly as a "concession" to the Democratic-controlled Congress, William Haynes II has withdrawn from consideration for a position on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. The Democrats filibustered his nomination in 2004, but Bush renominated him last year. Opposition to Haynes, who was General Counsel of the Department of Defense, centered on his responsibility, as...
One of the basic issues regarding Bush's intention to escalate the war in Iraq by committing 20,000 more troops is where the additional troops will come from. As Colin Powell has pointed out, the U.S. military is "about broken" — "[t]he current active Army is not large enough and the Marine Corps is not large enough for the kinds...
The IHT has officially dismissed Saddam from the Anfal trial. The trial will continue against Saddam's six co-defendants, which include his cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, the infamous "Chemical Ali." ...
Okay, in less than a week I have found myself in complete agreement with Christopher Hitchens and Charles Krauthammer, both of whom have written exceptional editorials on Saddam's execution. Isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse or something? ...
Here's a sentence I don't write very often: Kudos to President Bush. I'm not particularly enamored with Khalilzad's work in Iraq, and I have a number of issues with his reliably neocon worldview (see here and here), particularly his membership in the Project for the New American Century; his colonial-like attempts to fix Afghanistan's 2004 election, which earned him...
Two days before Saddam was executed, Iraq's deputy justice minister, Bosho Ibrahim, told the Associated Press that executing Saddam within 30 days of the Cassation Panel’s decision to uphold his death sentence would violate Iraqi law. “The law does not say within 30 days,” he said, “it says after the lapse of 30 days.” The Cassation Panel rejected Ibrahim’s...
Whenever I discuss Saddam here in New Zealand, people always want to know to what extent the U.S. supported his regime. Fortunately, I can now refer them to Juan Cole's recent post "For Whom the Bell Tolls: Top Ten Ways the US Enabled Saddam Hussein." Summarizing, the ten ways are as follows: The CIA was...
Juan Cole has an excellent article on Saddam's execution at Salon.com. Particularly interesting is what he has to say about the decision to execute Saddam today, which appears to be designed to further alienate Iraq's Sunnis:The tribunal also had a unique sense of timing when choosing the day for Saddam's hanging. It was a slap in the face to...
Let us hope that his death doesn't breathe even more life into the insurgency. I fear that it will. ...
According to reports, Saddam will be executed before the Muslim holiday Eid Al-Adha, which begins this Sunday. Saddam will hanged, although he has expressed a preference for a firing squad. The Iraqi government's decision echoes the Nuremberg trial, where the IMT deliberately denied the condemned defendants a firing squad, the preferred method of execution for soldiers. Indeed,...
