Rightwords... Prudent Conservatism

Bad Actors


When we discover a known criminal in the act, or even if he merely possesses the tools of the trade, such as a lockpick kit or an unregistered weapon, we arrest him, search him, try him, and most likely convict him and send him off to jail. Even if he only attempts to buy a gun, he is arrested for violating parole. If the criminal has two major prior crime convictions, in some states he is sent to jail for life as a “three-time loser”. If the criminal commits a heinous crime, such as kidnapping, rape or murder, he can be either jailed for life or executed.

We have police forces everywhere that are empowered to seek out, arrest, and jail suspected criminals, and to use whatever force necessary to quell any resistance. They can obtain the right to enter homes, offices and automobiles to search for and collect evidence against the criminal.

Nations can adopt criminal behavior too. Once they have radically violated the norms of behavior of nations, they are defacto ”on parole” as bad actors, till punishment can be arranged. Their list of criminal acts can include, but are not limited to: hostile acts against other nations, such as firing on people, ships or aircraft; invasion and takeover of another nation; genocide; inhuman treatment of its citizens by torture and starvation; support to terrorists in other nations; development, stockpiling and use of chemical or biological agents on people, or suspected development and possession of nuclear weapons.

In most cases of bad-acting nations, the indictments for their crimes are supported by direct evidence of wrongdoing, which makes their condemnation virtually automatic. The problem is to bring them to justice, since there are no international police forces standing up to the possible “arrest, conviction, and punishment” of the offending nation. The United Nations has attempted such police actions in the past, but the only really successful interventions have been led by the United States, which has provided the bulk of the troops, tanks, artillery, trucks, supplies, and financial support to carry the interventions to a conclusion.

Support by other nations has been reasonable in the past, but relatively limited, to the point where that support has been more symbolic than real. There has grown up a seemingly accepted policy by the UN member nations that the only legitimate intervention is one where the UN has “authorized” it. In fact, many people have the notion that this has become international law, which is not the case at all.

Then too, considering the nature of the UN Security Council, with veto power spread among the five original powers, many rogue nations that are “clients” of one or more of the superpowers can continue their criminal actions because sanctions may never be passed, or even if passed, they are easily circumvented with help from other interested power nations.

The current case in point is obviously Iraq, which had developed a 21-count indictment from the UN and the US/UK, 18 different sanctions over 10 or so years, for their behaviors over time. These indictments included serious commitments of every one of the possible criminal actions discussed above, and more. The UN, however, with three nations heavily influenced by having Iraq as a Client, and with lucrative contracts with Iraq for oil in process, would not vote in favor of a police action to rein in Iraq, but merely “serious consequences” (S-1441).

One has to wonder what was meant by “serious consequences” to a nation and its leader that had already had significant sanctions placed on them for more than a decade. We now know, of course, that the three powers had also benefited by under-the-table financial arrangements with Iraq through the oil for food program all along during this time.

So the US Administration and the Congress acted preemptively, together in a consortium with now over 60 other nations, using its self-defense clause in the UN treaty to justify the invasion of Iraq, defeat of its armed forces and to effect the deposition of its leader – Saddam Hussein.

The self-defense aspect was based on intelligence estimates at that time that Iraq had significant stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological, and nuclear), and had used them more than once in the past. That this proved to be flawed intelligence in no way indicts the US for acting under false pretenses. The other 20 counts against Iraq were more than sufficient to justify taking down the Iraqi government of Saddam by force.


(Part VI to be continued)

# posted by Mannning @ 3:29 PM