I just finished reading the Ben Emmerson attachment…and it is a bit too righteous for my taste. First: Thanks to JMM99 for the two above posts. Second; a disclaimer; I am a retired military guy and ain’t no lawyer (no offense there JMM99). Like JMM99 I have some issues with that word “mandate” that Mr Emmerson seems to quick draw from his two holster gun belt.

As a military guy, Mr Emmerson also annoys me greatly because he quick draws another term…i.e “rule of law”. It annoys me because I see and hear our own (US) general officers draw, fire and then aim that term whenever they want to invoke an “all bark and no bite” conversation about war, COIN and strategy. Having said that indulge me, as I ask some questions.

Mr E. speaks of the “Rule of Law”… whose’s? US ROL? UK’s? Pakistan? international human rights ROL. And which one of these sets of ROL applies to non-state terrorist operating outside each jurisdiction?? On 9/11 the US had to make a decision between the ROL or the LOW. LOW always seemed the right choice to me.

Is international human rights that Mr E represents a ROL? Or “The drafters almost certainly believed that they were stating general principles, not laws that would be enforced by national courts...I can affirm that the administration I represented considered it primarily a diplomatic weapon”. IRL is the embodiment of “War is simply the continuation of political intercourse with the addition of other means”. In other words it is not law; it’s politics.

He mentioned the 474 civilians killed in Pakistan by drone strikes (including 176 children) but make no mention of the Afghanistan civilian casualties due to enemy (Taliban) activity?... it is in the thousands and been rising 30% per year since 2006. Why start with drone strikes Mr E. when so many more are the victims of enemy activity?

Mr E mentions a Pakistan citizen from Northern Waziristan receiving a judicial review from the High Court in London. How does a Pakistani from North Waziristan get a judicial claim for a drone attack through the ROL process all the way to London? Who is helping him?

Where is the argument for “self-defense Mr E? Not only is self-defense a universal principle but also it goes back as far as St Thomas Aquinas. As a county and as an individual we have a right to self-defense especially when a set of non-state extremists opening declare total war on all US citizens and prove it by collapsing two skyscrapers and killing nearly 3000 innocent civilians.

Why introduce the torture issue as an absolute when it is actually a debate because no one seems to have the political courage to define it? You know better…my opinion is here.

I suspect that Mr E. is more politics and less counter terrorism LOW for a number of reasons. He is trying to gather political support at the US expense and he is playing into the lawfare campaign of terrorist.

I have to think that Mr E. has it all wrong.