The writer was Pakistan’s ambassador to the EU from 2002-2004 and to the US in 1999
tariq.fatemi@tribune.com.pk
The past week could not have been a pleasant one for Americans, at least for those few that take an interest in matters of state policy or have some understanding of the admirable principles enshrined in the Constitution.
For a start, we had the sad spectacle of defence secretary-designate Chuck Hagel being grilled during his confirmation hearings by Republican senators, but not about his views on the department’s budget or even about the war in Afghanistan. These issues held little interest to these honourable elected representatives. Instead, their effort was to “bully him into a rigid position on Israel policy”, as commented by The New York Times. It is, therefore, no surprise that this newspaper, which has been a strong advocate for Israel, was constrained to lament that “the sad truth is that there is more honest discussion about American-Israeli policy in Israel, than in this country”.
We were then greeted with the news that a secret legal review on the use of cyber weapons had come to the conclusion that the president has the power to order a pre-emptive strike if the US detects credible evidence of a major digital attack looming from abroad. While details have been kept a closely guarded secret, US officials have admitted that President Barack Obama did authorise the only known use of cyber weapons by one state against another. This was early in his first term when he ordered the use of cyber-attacks against Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities.
The US has thus entered into a gray zone of international law, which permits a country to defend itself against threats, but not to unleash an attack on the mere presumption of an adversary’s motives or intentions. In particular, the right of pre-emption has been severely criticised for undertaking armed action on conjecture, as was evident in Bush’s decision to attack Iraq.
The same week, we were treated to a rather ingenious assertion by White House officials that drone attacks were “legal, ethical and wise”. This was prompted by media criticism of the leaked Justice Department memo which claimed that it was legal to kill US citizens abroad, if believed that they were senior al Qaeda leaders who posed an “imminent” threat of violent attack against Americans. Of course, the memo adopts an elastic definition of an “imminent” threat, while rejecting any role for courts to review or restrain such decisions.
The memo was released as Obama’s counterterrorism advisor and nominee for CIA Director was preparing for confirmation hearings before the Intelligence Committee. Not surprisingly, the American Civil Union characterised the paper as “a profoundly disturbing document” and one that was “hard to believe was produced in a democracy built on checks and balances”. A number of senators have also questioned the president’s power to authorise the killing of Americans, without due process of law.
As if all this was not enough to send a shudder down the spine of those who believed that the US was not only a democracy but one strongly committed to supremacy of law and therefore, different from authoritarian states that disposed off their citizens with nary a second thought, it was also revealed that the US had used its enormous powers to not only browbeat such dictatorial regimes as those of Pervez Musharraf and Hosni Mubarak, but even such icons of democracy as Canada, Australia and Denmark, to offer their services and facilities to run secret detention, rendition and interrogation programmes. Incidentally, the Senate Intelligence Committee’s 6,000-page report on CIA’s programme remains classified. So much for this bastion of freedom and human rights!
While we all knew that former president George Bush had little, if any legal or moral misgivings about violating the sanctity of international laws, his much trumpeted successor has gone one better, claiming for the executive extraordinary powers, without review by either the legislature or the judiciary, of the kind never envisaged by the founding fathers. Dictatorial regimes must surely be rejoicing.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 13th, 2013.
COMMENTS (17)
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Dear Cautious, your CIA credentials are hanging out yet again! The grilling of Chuck Hagel by the two bought and paid for Senate foriegn affairs committee members; Senator's McCain and Graham was an absolute disgraceful episode; that had been telegraphed in the Zionist owned US media for weeks prior, and as such was to be expected. Actuall the American public is concerned with the drone attacks, they are overwhelmingly in favour of this criminal act of murder of innocent women and children ! I doubt they will be so in favor when the 30,000 drones are flying over the USA doing the governments killing of US citizens.! drones are not the only war crime , sanctions are levelled at a nation the whole population suffers this is collective punishment and is specifically banned by the UN charter and Geneva conventions., but hey Cautious don't let a little thing like international law stop the USA deploying these tactics. You do realise that droning Nations gives those Nations the right to respond proportionately and in kind! which US senators / Congessmen President would you like to loose to a foreign drone attack?? After all you came you saw he died. I refer of course to Colonel Gadaffi. I wonder if you would laugh so much to see John Mc Cain suffer being buggered on your TV. I chose McCain because Graham would probably enjoy it! To Claim that Google the well know CIA asset is a reliable source in connection to anything Iranian shows the level of your cognitive disonance hard to believe and still be capable of breathing. The current US government is clearly and in plain site a criminal cabal.
Dear John B, Your discourse upon preemptive strikes sounds very similair to the propaganda nonsense we hear from CentCom when they attempt to justify outrageous behaviour, which in plain English is immoral and just plain wrong..
@gp65: My comment on preemptive strike was censored, but let me try again. It is hard to define in terms of black and white whether preemptive strike is an offensive move or a defensive move.
Kargil was an offensive move from PAK, as there was no imminent threat from India. Mobilization of India troops after Mumbai was actually a defensive move of preemptive strike, although PAK may consider that as an offensive move.
Abbottabad was a classic preemptive strike and Iraq war was in fact a successful preemptive strike operation, even though the reasons given were turned out to be falsely planted from many sectors, chief among them also include Iraqis. More people are killed in Iraq today than during the active war, and nearly all Iraqi deaths were caused by iraqi violence perpetrated by Iraqi themselves.
Preemptive strike doctrine comes with risk of full scale war and unless one is sure of going in all the way through and finish the task, it is not an useful doctrine. Bangladesh war in which India was involved is a classic preemptive doctrine of modern era, whereas every other war from PAK on India is an offensive war.
Every country's military when they patrol the seas, air or land is operating on the preemptive strike doctrine, not on a defensive doctrine, although it may appear as a defensive patrol.
@Sexton Blake
A simple google search using the term "Iran cyber warfare" nets you over a million hits - this isn't anything new or secret to anyone who reads a newspaper on a regular basis.
@John B: Helping to establish governance structures in a countryt does not amount to secret rendition - which I find problematic. Helping US is not the problem.Helping ?US to do illegal things is the problem. In any case Afghanistan was not an example of pre-emptive strike since Osama had struck USA while living in Afghanistan.
Why are Indians getting mad at an article about the US nobody cares what you think. India is the most ignored country when it comes to foreign policy. Go have your pole waving contest elsewhere.
Why is it that some people do not read the full article and instead jump to conclusions and make comments based on their own prejudices. The Ambassador is neither anti-American, nor is this an anti-American article. In fact, it is an objective and balanced piece. Incidentally this is what the Senior Counsel of the American Civil Rights Union had to say a day ago: "These last few days, it was like being back in the Bush days. It is causing a lot of cognitive dissonance for a lot of people. It is not the President Obama they thought they knew". Is this American also anti-American?
@cautious: Dear cautious, I would be pleased if you would advise me which numerous cyber attacks Iran has made on US installations other than American spy drones and associated equipment?
@gp65: "Unclear about Australia, Canada etc". Dear gp65, As usual, I agree with most of what you have said, but there is no uncertainty about the foreign policy of Australia and Canada. During WWII they transferred their allegiance from Britain to America, and are basically US lap dogs . However, the uncertainty to my mind comes from the original source of the instructions they follow. Does the US get its instructions from the State Department via Tel Aviv, and then pass them on to its Australian/Canadian minions or alternatively do the US President and Congress/Senate muddle their own way through, get approval from their Zionist masters and then allow the ex-colony minions to play catch-up the way Pakistan does. I will not unduly waste too many words on 9/11, except to say that America has not yet given a believable explanation of what happened. However, President George Bush junior, English Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Australian Prime Minister John Howard of Australia used 9/11 as an excuse to bomb two countries into the stone age and were responsible for the deaths and severe injuries of a few million people with infrastructure damage amounting to many billions of dollars.
I actually think this is a great piece that points out the double standards of international system, and the lack of justice that so-called unbiased institutions are promoting, protecting, or even propagating. Find it so amusing that the first comment goes on to label this as 'just another anti-American' piece, clearly you aren't suggesting preemptive strikes are justified? or that ignorance, indifference, as a consequence of the immunity that an American citizen is born with makes debate on misuse of their vote futile? If anything it makes more sense to discuss these matters.. What is the point? Except raising awareness i guess... And then who knows; one photograph, one piece, one tragic death may just go viral to snowball into something more concrete.
@gp65: India supplied the entire intelligence on these outfits post 9/11 and no one was more familiar with them than India. Why do you think Northern alliance was chosen to head Afghan government instead of a coalition as proposed by others.
India supplies the backbone of Afghan government today, and the US supplies the security.
9/11 started when India released the Terrorist in exchange for the hijacked passengers. The ball started to roll beginning that period and the world was ignoring India's cry. And PAK was caught with hand in the cookie jar.
As if all this was not enough to send a shudder down the spine of those who believed that the US was not only a democracy
Wrong! this will send a shudder down the spine of those countries/establishments that are in bed with terrorists and so called 'non-state actors'.
This new definition of "threat" is as fantastic development and a great news for anti-terrorist countries.
@John B: USually agree with most things you say but surely you cannot be supporting the concept of pre-emptive strike? This is what every bully would then claim as an excuse for beating up the weaker guy - oh he would have hit me if I did not hit him first. This notion was discredited with IRaq and now needs tobe buried for good.
Today India is not a target but tomorrow it could be as well. We cannot support such policies.
" was also revealed that the US had used its enormous powers to not only browbeat such dictatorial regimes as those of Pervez Musharraf and Hosni Mubarak, but even such icons of democracy as Canada, Australia and Denmark, to offer their services and facilities to run secret detention, rendition and interrogation programmes. "
It is unclear if Canada, Australia etc. were 'browbeaten' as you say or simply collaborated with US because they too were shaken by the audacity of 9/11 and wanted to fight Al Qaeda terror?
One thing you have failed to mention is the one country that did not participate in this program is India.
Politics, especially of the international kind is Machiavellian in spirit and in deed; ethics and morality do not extend beyond lip service. The stronger nations always have and always will violate international law with impunity.
If one is at the receiving end of the US policy, it will sound terrible. When a state harbors the universally accepted terrorists and aid in the terrorists camp against the a nation, neither the terrorists nor the harboring state can claim the protection of laws.
The policy of appeasing and due process of the law were tried with Nazi regime and we all know what happened to the Chamberlin's treaty with Hitler.
What next, the problems of N. Korea is due to international sanctions ?
Yawn - another anti American article from an anti American author. For the record - Senate grilling of cabinet level candidates is a good thing - part of the checks and balances that keep the executive branch in check - even if that grilling happens to be on Israel. Also - the American public isn't concerned about drone attacks - whether those are against the Taliban in Pakistan or American traitors who work for Al Qaeda in Sudan - for the most part it's a non issue since neither Taliban nor American traitors are going to make themselves available for an appearance in court. The fact that these drone attacks are specifically authorized by the President who is elected by the American public seems appropriate. Further - Iran is the last country in the World to complain about cyber warfare issues - they have been caught numerous times invading American and other countries cyber networks. Lastly - sabotaging Iran's nuclear program via software beats bombs everyday and the lack of outrage by the rest of the World is anecdotal evidence that this is a non issue.