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31 Jul

...in Lebanon. A few more thoughts before handing it over to the legal experts: It may help to keep in mind what Stephen Poole has said about 'asymmetric warfare,' defined here by Robert R. Tomes: 'A simple theoretical construct underlies the theory and practice of counterinsurgency warfare. It is the essence of what today’s theorists and strategists term asymmetric warfare: although an asymmetric distribution of resources and abilities actually favors counterinsurgent forces, they are often inappropriately wielded. The conflict is asymmetric because there is a “disproportion of strength between the...
31.07.06 | |

27 Mar

...the late-term, highly circumscribed state of the Bush approach to the war on terror. That is, after the Administration's policies were heavily revised as a result of losing a sequence of battles at the OLC, Justice and the Supreme Court, as well as in terms of public opinion. The early Bush record of outlier policies in the war on terror, which is dominated by executive overreach, is conveniently discarded out of sight when Julian tries to draw a circle of reasonableness around "the basic legal framework" of the Bush Administration....
27.03.10 | |

19 Mar

...as an "apartheid" state. Terms are inverted. Reality twisted. At least Yiftahel created a new term. Quite a simple tact, if nefarious, really. Anon A DNA study of Jews and Palestinian Arabs (including Bedouins) found that these were more closely related to each other than to people of the Arabian Peninsula, Ethiopian Semitic-speaking people (Amharas, Tigrayans , Harari and Tigre people), and the Arabic speakers of North Africa. Genetic studies indicate that modern Jews (Ashkenazi, Sephardic and Mizrahi specifically), Levantine Arabs, Assyrians, Samaritans, Maronites, Druze, Mandaeans, and Mhallami, all have...
19.03.17 | |

23 Feb

...they would gladly speak of "freedom of religion." I myself don't like the phrase because it doesn't work very well in traditions like Daoism, Confucianism and Buddhism. In any case, we might be likewise be troubled by Samelson's (note the spelling) use of the phrase "acts of faith," as faith does not carry the same meaning for all religious traditions, indeed, the concept is not found in all religious traditions. And where similar terms are found as, say, in Buddhism, their meaning is often rather different from the conception of...
23.02.10 | |

06 Dec

Rob In ordinary parlance, 'specific direction' would generally be taken to mean an order or instruction. If the Tribunal is going to use such poorly worded jargon, it can expect to have its decisions misinterpreted by the law public. Kevin Jon Heller Law is not ordinary parlance. Would you say the same thing about a journalist who didn't bother to learn a medical term, or a chemical term, or a physics term? Rob No I wouldn't. Although many legal (and medical and scientific) terms prima facie have a technical meaning,...
06.12.13 | |

10 Jul

Marissa Number 11 is a very strange question... First of all, if the settlers resisted they would most likely be doing so against the army. They would not start bombing random cafes in Jerusalem or firing rockets on Sderot. This is a major distinction. Hamas terrorists, in addition to attacking armed soldiers, attempt to harm civilian populations. When fighting soldiers, they use illegitimate means such as human shields and do not wear uniforms. Secondly, the term "freedom fighters" is a preposterous term which today is coined to give a human...
10.07.09 | |

07 May

el roam Thanks for an interesting post . To my best knowledge , this is the issue : If hunting whales, in high seas, in such or such circumstances, is forbidden , according to the international law, and the observation of such activists was reasonable in light of the given specific situation (ad hoc) then: The term: " private" should be split off to two observations: One is the : purpose , here we deal then with public act, and not a private one.Since, the circumstances, prima facie, indicated clearly...
07.05.15 | |

02 May

...The notes to the book are exceptionally rich, too, and my research assistants are busily scurrying about finding things that Mark identifies in them. But now let’s get down to the True Nub of the matter … Mark manages to cite just about everyone who’s anyone in the notes but, according to my research assistants, he didn’t manage to cite the Esteemed Author (who might that be?) who closed out a New York Times Magazine essay on the laws of war with the Marvelously Constructed & Pithy Sentence: “Reciprocity matters.”...
02.05.09 | |

17 Jun

...cooperation if that is a common objective on both sides. The way it seems to be being played now is for a short term hand off to the next President on our side and maybe the same for the Prime Minister on the Iraqi side. It seems that the US removing troops is not incompatible with the US having a longer term special relationship with Iraq in terms of economic, social and security assistance on terms that are acceptable to both countries. We broke it, so we own it (or...
17.06.08 | |

25 Oct

...do whatever it pleases. I bet he has big poster in his living-room, with quotes by John Bolton, such as: "It is a big mistake for us to grant any validity to international law even when it may seem in our short-term interest to do so because, over the long term, the goal of those who think that international law really means anything are those who want to constrict the United States." "There is no United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally be led by the only real...
25.10.11 | |

28 May

...combatants falling into any of these three categories may or may not resort to terror tactics, but that is legally meaningless to the question of whether they can be targeted. Thus using the term "terrorist" in this context is playing word games and trying to insinuate a host of false assumptions into your argument without admitting that you are using them, especially when you attribute the term to someone whose argument you are criticizing. There are a variety of states of hostility short of armed conflict. North Korea, for example,...
28.05.10 | |

10 Nov

...I guess even in the case of an armed attack from non-state actors from within a country like Syria, USA would not have the permission to operate against these individuals within the Syrian territory.I don't think International Law would deem such an incursion as totally justified, as long as the country concerned approves such an operation. Also the term "hot pursuit" on land is not something accepted by the majority of the IL experts, though I know USA, Israel and Turkey referred to the term as justification of their cross-border...
10.11.08 | |