Responsibility To Protect: But who? And from what?

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DOES THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY’S “Responsibility To Protect” apply to Islamic State? (IS) Has the violence unleashed by IS against civilians living in Syria and Iraq reached a level of intensity comparable to the genocidal slaughter unleashed against Rwanda’s Tutsi population in 1994? If the present level of military intervention is not maintained, or stepped-up, are hundreds-of-thousands, perhaps millions, of innocent non-combatants in imminent danger of losing their lives?

The answer to this question is, clearly, “No.” The IS regime, while indisputably brutal in its treatment of non-Islamic religious minorities, prisoners of war, civilian aid workers, journalists, and persons found guilty of committing homosexual acts, it has not (to date) engaged in the indiscriminate mass slaughter of entire populations.

The international community’s responsibility to the victims of IS violence is, therefore, to make every attempt to bring those responsible for what are clearly war crimes and crimes against humanity before an appropriately constituted international criminal tribunal (ICT). This would be modelled on of the bodies set up to deal with the massive human-rights breaches in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.

The prospect of being arraigned before such a tribunal may or may not be acting as a deterrent to the IS leadership, but it is, demonstrably, influencing the personal political calculus of those IS operatives responsible for carrying out its many atrocities. The very fact that these individuals wear masks indicates that they know they are committing heinous crimes and are anxious to escape legal retribution.

The contrast between these masked perpetrators and the unmasked American military personnel who allowed themselves to be photographed tormenting Iraqi detainees at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison is instructive. Had the latter known that their actions would one day be made public, most of them would never have participated, or, having gotten involved, would’ve made absolutely certain they could not be identified.

Like the long-since destroyed videos of CIA waterboarding sessions, the images of Abu Ghraib were never intended to see the light of day. IS propaganda videos, on the other hand, are intended to both terrify the infidels and inspire the faithful. They are, therefore, made with guilty intent, and their creators know well what will befall them should they ever be identified and arrested by the agents of international justice.

It is as well to remember, however, that IS is by no means the first belligerent power to release video images demonstrating the strength of their will and the power of their weapons. The First Gulf War (1990-1991) is often referred to as “The Nintendo War” on account of the computer-game-like images of United States precision-guided munitions striking their targets.

Of course the US armed forces’ public relations team did not allow the audience back home to witness what was happening to the human-beings sheltering inside the buildings that were exploding in such a satisfyingly dramatic fashion on their television screens. The carnage wrought upon human flesh by high explosives puts the gruesome efforts of IS executioners to shame.

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Nor was it the practice of either the American or the international news media to give the military commanders who authorised these precision-guided missile attacks colourful monikers like “Jihadi John”. Soldiers following the lawful orders of their superior officers are generally not regarded as criminals – not even when those orders are publicly acknowledged to have been deliberately formulated to generate “shock and awe” in the civilian population.

Those who find themselves outraged and repulsed by IS propaganda videos showing prisoners being beheaded or burned alive should, perhaps, ask themselves if they experienced similar emotions back in March 2003 when the US media was gleefully beaming-out images of Baghdad aflame. The American message back then was as unequivocal as the IS message is now: “This is what becomes of evil-doers.”

The crucial difference being that, in the case of the Americans, the message wasn’t personalised. Innocent people’s bodies were certainly ripped apart and/or burned beyond recognition in the manufacture of America’s message to the peoples of the Middle East, but we only got to see such “collateral damage” occasionally – as when a Cruise missile somehow went astray and incinerated scores of women and children taking refuge in a concrete shelter.

Repeat such exercises often enough and it is hardly surprising that the effect upon those in receipt of such explosive communications is brutalisation beyond the reach of pity or remorse.

The international community has a responsibility to protect the unfortunate “citizens” of Islamic State – or, at least, that is what those who argue for 100 Kiwi soldiers to be sent to Iraq are insisting. But, then, didn’t that same international community have a responsibility to protect the people of Iraq when the world’s most powerful military machine was rumbling towards its borders in 2003? And wasn’t it that same terrible machine, as it rained down phosphorous flares on the city of Fallujah, that nurtured, with every bomb dropped and bullet fired, the fell creatures who now hold sway across broad swathes of Iraq and Syria?

If Islamic State has citizens, it is the West that made them.

14 COMMENTS

  1. If Islamic State has citizens, it is the West that made them.

    Granted, the West has much much to answer for. Yet, Chris, you steadfastly refuse to examine the role of religion and faith. Politics , conflict, poverty and religion. All are complicit in this mess.

    • Much as it would fantastic to do so, we are not going to rid ourselves of religion anytime soon, there’s a whole lot of evolving to do before the human race understands that we are an accident of nature and that when we are dead things will be pretty much like what they were before we were born, and how important in the universe we truly are, which is not at all.

  2. Sorry, Chris, but you can’t compare the waterboarding and humiliations at Abu Ghraib with what IS are currently doing.

    At the end of the day, the prisoners were humiliated, abused and tortured, but they weren’t slaughtered and US soldiers were punished. Can’t see IS leaders doing that.

    ‘Collateral damage’ is what’s happening in Israel under Palestinian attack…don’t see you condemning that.

    • “Under Palestinian attack”?!

      Well, gosh, Andy, last time I looked, Palestinians hadn’t invaded Tel Aviv with infantry and armoured vehicles; nor were Palestinians building illegal settlements in Israel, contrary to international law; nor protecting their airspace with an “Iron Dome” anti-missile system…

      And the “Palestinian attack” seems to have yielded a mighty big death toll in Gaza whilst at the same time someone in Israel broke a finger-nail…

      I hope your slanted view on reality is drug induced. Because if you’re sober, may your god/deity/invisible friend help you through your delusions.

      • Hear hear Frank. The wilfull blindness and stupidity of such as Andy never ceases to amaze me. Andy obviously didn’t read the same article that we did.

  3. Jeez, you guys are disgusting. This is the worst kind of moral equivalence that you are spouting, As a 68 year old Nzer I have no respect for you if you spout these opinions at all. FMac, you are even worse than CT if that is possible. Yuck!!

    • I agree, to compare Abu Ghraib with the mass beheadings of ISIS is completely false. A policeman who injures a suspect, or even an innocent bystander, in the course of an arrest is not judged by the same standard as a mugger who deliberately assaults someone.

      Whether you agreed with the US invasion of Iraq or not, the people of the areas controlled by ISIS need help, and to say that they shouldn’t be helped because the Tutsi’s of Rwanda weren’t is nonsense.

      There were Islamic extremists in Iraq long before the Americans arrived, it has always been a violent and unstable place. It is arguable whether it is better or worse under its current government compared to Saddam Hussein’s, but to allow ISIS to take over would be irresponsible.

  4. I remember blogging on a US site in 2005 – that white phosphorus was part of Bush’s ‘no child left behind’ policy in Fallujah. They were outraged – though none of them were Bush supporters.

    There is a dread equivalence between these end-times cultists, Bush and ISIS, neither are good folk to follow, nor indeed to live anywhere near.

  5. I am not entirely convinced that America solely, has created Islamic State. You look around at just about all of the countries in this region, they have for as long as I can think of, been ruled in some way by fairly ruthless dictators in some shape or other. If we left them alone and they sorted their own shit out, I am pretty convinced that what you’d end up with is just another set of ruthless dictators.

    America and the rest of the western world have stirred the pot, by the creation of Israel (conscience salve), the arbitrary drawing of lines on maps years ago, and of course oil. I’m sure that without those things the various factions would still be scrapping with each other.
    Many of these societies have a very degraded view of women’s places in the world and therefore are too male centric and the leadership becomes more brutal and warlike, balance is what they need and until such times as women have as much say in the running of things as men then they will carry on the way they are.
    If you want to blame anything at all, blame religion first and foremost, it is a huge con game, invented to control the people, and if you have a tolerance of brutality you will do very well under such systems.
    I don’t expect any change anytime soon, so we will probably end up playing this game of whack-a-mole forever.
    The rest of the world should not turn away, but what on earth is this going to turn into. And we go in there for the peaceful people in the region, not to save our own butts, they are not particularly threatened at the moment.
    We are damned if we do and probably damned if we don’t, all I can hope for is that we somehow or other figure out that whatever we do, it is for the right reasons.

  6. All these forces are acting in their own interest so moral outrage is subjective for sure.

    New Zealand is rare in being a country that is in a position to take a more neutral and independent position in regards to world affairs. We can make a far greater contribution to a more peaceful and fair world this way. This would be far more courageous than sending troops to add to the carnage, as it would involve a bit of backbone.

  7. Gee Chris I thought the photo and heading was about NZs disabled abused and mentally ill being bullied and intimidated by police because services have been cut to the point of abuse.

    When police came to the place I was living in Wainuiomata with tazers and a police dog after I phoned ACC Disputes Tribunal begging for help, I had to move out because my flatmate got scared. I had moved in because I couldn’t get any services in the Wairarapa and could no longer afford to live in a house.

    Or when two policemen turned up, violently arrested and humiliated me with tazers on Xmas Eve after I had phoned Healthline for help because I had the flu and couldn’t breath, I should have got that on video. Or a few weeks ago when I phoned Stephen Joyce’s office about the job app and became upset because I hadn’t worked in so long (thanks to ACC and mental health) and they sent two policemen with tazers to humiliate and arrest me outside Greytown supermarket.

    Maybe all this focus on other people’s problems is a way the government and media avoid our own human rights abuses, government created violence and corruption.

  8. An excerpt from a piece by Grame Wood on What ISIS really wants

    ‘Following takfiri doctrine, the Islamic State is committed to purifying the world by killing vast numbers of people. The lack of objective reporting from its territory makes the true extent of the slaughter unknowable, but social-media posts from the region suggest that individual executions happen more or less continually, and mass executions every few weeks. Muslim “apostates” are the most common victims. Exempted from automatic execution, it appears, are Christians who do not resist their new government. Baghdadi permits them to live, as long as they pay a special tax, known as the jizya, and acknowledge their subjugation. The Koranic authority for this practice is not in dispute.’

    Maybe the indiscriminate killing has already started Chris

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