An accusation of war crimes, like accusations of rape, sexual harassment, and racism, imposes tremendous social stigma, and without regard to its veracity taints the reputation of the accused
An accusation of war crimes, like accusations of rape, sexual harassment, and racism, imposes tremendous social stigma, and without regard to its veracity taints the reputation of the accused.
Should Americans come to harbor serious doubts about whether their country engages in war crimes as an official policy, their belief in the justice of their cause will wither, along with their willingness to fight for it.
U.S. view: (1) long pre-9/11 history of Islamist mistreatment of detainees and other LOAC violations goes unmentioned; (2) Islamist violation of detainee rights is independent of U.S. detention policy, (3) even the most exaggerated Islamist claims of torture at the hands of U.S. interrogators pale beside the ritual butchering of Western hostages by Islamist captors
U.S. view: (1) long pre-9/11 history of Islamist mistreatment of detainees and other LOAC violations goes unmentioned; (2) Islamist violation of detainee rights is independent of U.S. detention policy, (3) even the most exaggerated Islamist claims of torture at the hands of U.S. interrogators pale beside the ritual butchering of Western hostages by Islamist captors
CLOACA view: (1) U.S. policies for “shattered” alliances, diminished influence, and eroded national security; (2) coercive interrogation had “detrimental impacts upon military professionalism, honor and integrity, morale, retention, and recruitment,” as well as the increased probability U.S. troops will lose respect for LOAC and commit other war crimes sua sponte; (3) U.S. violations of LOAC “increased violence in Afghanistan and Iraq…and created a generation of violence in alleged revenge.”; (4) U.S. war crimes justify reciprocal abuse of U.S. POWs by Islamists; (5) U.S. “war crimes” recruit more Islamists than U.S. military action has killed and captured, (6) detainee recidivism results from “torture” in U.S. detention; (7) “even if [U.S. detention policy] has made us safer, it is an abandonment of core principles…and…we should reject it categorically.”
Implication: far better that Americans should die than Islamists suffer discomforting interrogations that disrupt plans to kill Americans
CLOACA: (1) U.S. is “attacking our most cherished values” and policies are a ‘but-for’ cause of the terrorism [it] experiences[.]”; (2) U.S. policies responsible for “death and torture of innocent people.”; (3) U.S. conduct post-9/11 is an episode of jurispathic auto-degradation; (4) U.S. “war crimes” produce “effects more damaging than any imposed by our enemies[,]” but “[s]ome damage…is irreparable[.]”
CLOACA: (1) U.S. is “attacking our most cherished values” and policies are a ‘but-for’ cause of the terrorism [it] experiences[.]”; (2) U.S. policies responsible for “death and torture of innocent people.”; (3) U.S. conduct post-9/11 is an episode of jurispathic auto-degradation; (4) U.S. “war crimes” produce “effects more damaging than any imposed by our enemies[,]” but “[s]ome damage…is irreparable[.]”
Implication: American veneration of the rule-of-law in the abstract is vastly more precious than real-world survival, and, because the U.S. cannot engage Islamists without further betraying LOAC, it should break off the battle whatever the consequence
CLOACA would refer alleged war crimes by civilian leaders—whom they identify as the ultimate architects of LOAC violations—to international courts for prosecution
CLOACA would refer alleged war crimes by civilian leaders—whom they identify as the ultimate architects of LOAC violations—to international courts for prosecution
threatens not only their personal liberty but their proclivity to act with vigor and dispatch in defending national interests, even if potential charges are groundless
German indictment of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Italian investigations of President Bush and Prime Minister Blair for the intervention in Iraq, Spanish investigations of an Israeli defense minister and of U.S. lawyers for coercive interrogations, Italian investigation of CIA officers for renditions, and attempted Pakistani extradition of a CIA general counsel for TK by way of UAV strikes are but some of the campaigns waged against Western leaders.
“Counter-counter-terrorism via lawsuit
CLOACA (1) substitutes its judgments for those of Congress and the executive while turning to foreign governments and unelected judges to threaten prison and fines should U.S. officials remain stalwart and steadfast in executing these policies, (2) subordinates the methods and means chosen to serve the survival imperatives apprehended by a democratic political community to its own vision of law and morality, (3) advances a narrative that relies for its rhetorical force upon an overt imputation of lawlessness and immorality to the U.S. and the risible arguments that Islamists pose little threat and are in fact the real victims of the war
PSYOPs effects: (1) if U.S. misconduct in waging war is so severe that government officials should be hauled before foreign criminal courts, then not only must the policies and practices that constitute this misconduct be discontinued but the assumption upon which these policies rest—that they are lawful and necessary—is false, (2) undermines American political will by lending the imprimatur of expertise to the propositions that the U.S. is an immoral nation fighting an illegal war by unlawful means at the behest of a criminal leadership, and that it must abandon its policies, and quit the war, to regain its legitimacy
Explanations range across cultural, professional, ideological, psychological, political, philosophical, functional, and theological domains
