There is an interesting (and tragic) case out of France where Andre Bamberski, 76, was convicted for organizing the kidnapping five years ago of retired doctor Dieter Krombach. Krombach was accused at the time of raping and murdering Kalinka Bamberski, 15: the daughter of Bamberski and the step daughter of Krombach. When a German court refused to extradite Krombach for the 1982 murder, Bamberski had him kidnapped and dumped (tied up) in front of a French courthouse in 2009. Bamberski was found guilty and was looking at ten years but was given a one-year suspended sentence.
Krombach was convicted in absentia of “intentional violence that led to unintentional death” in 1995. He give Kalinka a dangerous injection in order to rape her. She died. As another contrast to sentencing in the United States, he was given only 15 years for the crime. However, he fled to Germany and a court ruled that the evidence was insufficient to prove guilt and barred deportations. In 2009, Bamberski decided to take action. He insisted that he was only acting as a father and as a citizen in bringing a fugitive to justice. However, prosecutors insisted that in Germany Krombach was viewed as innocent.
Notably, Krombach was suspended from practicing medicine after a 1997 conviction for drugging and raping a 16-year-old girl in his office. Again the sentence was quite light. He pleaded guilty and got only a two-year suspended sentence.
It is very hard to prevail on such a defense in taking self-help measures if it involves violating the laws of another nation. The irony of course is that the United States regularly kills people in other nations who have not been charged let alone convicted — including its own citizens. Such targeted killings are done when the President concludes that an actual charge and trial is not feasible or would not protect the security of the country. President Obama has a formal policy allowing him to order such killings based on his inherent authority. In Bamberski’s case, he did not kill the man and had a conviction to show the court. The Obama Administration would simply say he is not a government and vive la différence.
This does not sound like a Jonathan Turley blog.
The one year suspended sentence (slap on the wrist) for the father was the only justice in the matter.
Dr. Charlton Stanley,
The connection between our government, or any government, killing combatants (or would be combatants) offshore, and kidnapping the individual who killed/raped his daughter is a fallacy of false equivalence, apparently to make a political point.
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There is some falsity in every epitome, metaphor, simile, or the like.
It is utterly improper, however, to reject such literary techniques because they are not proper within the myth of logic harbored so erroneously (“logic is pure and perfect”).
The government kidnaps then tortures and sometimes kills as part of the war on terror, or the oil wars now going on in the Ukraine.
Major cases taking place in Europe find fault with governments there who co-operate with our government (Here Come The Torture Investigations).
This case JT points out has aspects of epitome, metaphor, simile, and the like whether you like it or don’t …
It is like comparing indoctrination to coma trance in the same light.
My complaint is that we ought to focus on the millions of civilians killed by our military in ways other than statistics when we shed crocodile tears for one innocent civilian killed.
Eric, I look @ Obama’s obsessive love of drones as horribly cynical. He promised to close Gitmo. He took office and saw that was simply not possible. So, instead of capturing and interrogating terrorists he just kills them. He’ll close Gitmo by attrition and horrible swaps ala Bergdahl. The capture and interrogation of terrorists is critical in gathering intelligence. Like so many very intelligent people, Obama has fallen in love w/ technology. He loves drones, NSA, etc. I was a PI for decades. You must keep up technologically in gathering intelligence. But, until there is a technology that reads minds[that will come sometime], NOTHING beats human intelligence, but it’s messy. Our fastidious prez likes things tidy.
The War on Terror
Thirteen years after September 11, 2001 I’m not sure which is more troubling: That some people still buy into “The War on Terror” nonsense or that some people think that merely invoking “The War on Terror” still has some logical persuasive value.
Thirteen years.
We took down Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the Empire of Japan in less than five years total. But “Terror” can never, ever,be overthrown. It’s whatever they can make us afraid of – and that’s limitless, by design.
A more accurate term might be Endless War, but that’s much more difficult to sell – even to the easily frightened.
Add:
I see a root cause of Obama’s problem as his fundamentally flawed premise that “As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. … we will not give [our ideals] up for expedience sake.” (January 2009 Inaugural Address)
In fact, a traditional strength of the American system has been our ability to balance “our safety” and “expedience sake” with our “our ideals”. The very formation of the United States Constitution was derived from that balancing act.
The American tradition is both pragmatic and idealist, not one or the other, as Obama implied. As I said, Bush at least attempted to follow the American tradition of that balancing act for the War on Terror, whereas Obama has seemed to jump from one (disingenuous?) pole as a presidential candidate clear to the opposite pole as President.
Nick Spinelli: “The killing of US Citizens w/o a trial is against EVERYTHING people who believe in the Constitution.”
That’s not true. We can do that in a war when a US citizen is fighting for the enemy.
The controversy is how the War on Terror is seated in the norms of traditional state-v-state war since it combines war features and criminal law enforcement features. Some people pull it to the side of war. Other people, like jonathanturley, pull it to the other side of LE.
A propagandized misconception is that Bush eschewed law enforcement. The truth is Bush officials used either or both for the War on Terror, as fit the situation.
It’s a complicated balancing act.
The Bush administration tried to accommodate the complexity by maintaining distinct lines, if not always bright lines, for the War on Terror in its aspect as war and in its aspect as law enforcement, together with the individual rights of law enforcement. Bush’s distinct lines were meant to protect the integrity of law enforcement even when the practical needs of combating terrorists crossed into the territory normally reserved for law enforcement.
Bush’s approach was modular so that when the day came it was no longer needed, we could simply uncouple the extra-ordinary martial law of the War on Terror and file it away, thus leaving our ordinary legal norms intact.
The problem with the Obama administration is it smudged, even erased, Bush’s distinct lines between war and LE (and the individual rights of LE) for the War on Terror. Obama’s choice was perhaps a pragmatic response to the practical needs of the War on Terror, but Obama’s deviation from Bush has endangered the integrity of law enforcement with permanent feature changes unlike Bush’s distinct lines via extra-ordinary, modular, (designed) removable martial law.
That’s convenient.
Fifty thousand dead U.S. troops in Korea in the fifties and another fifty thousand in Viet Nam and that’s not war? in my opinion Bamberski should just have made Krombach dissappear
The killing of US Citizens w/o a trial is against EVERYTHING people who believe in the Constitution. If a Republican President did it you cultists would be calling for impeachment. JT calls out both Dem and Rep Presidents on their lawlessness. That is intellectual honesty. And it is in short supply nowadays.
If people can’t see the symmetry between this post and the immigration one preceding it, well then you’re not looking. This President is out of control. JT is one of the few pundits who supported this President w/ the courage to call him on his lawlessness. He has done it consistently and w/o pleasure. He has done it even though ridiculed by people who were his friends. It’s difficult to admit you made a mistake in electing someone not worthy. it’s easy to “go along to get along.” The right path is almost always the more difficult one.
Add:
Congress established this: “[The] President has authority under the Constitution to take action to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States”.
Public Law 107-40, Authorization for Use of Military Force, 18SEP01.
This paper shows how the preemption doctrine with terrorism pre-dates 9/11 and the Bush administration.
http://www.e-ir.info/2012/12/02/the-myth-of-george-w-bushs-foreign-policy-revolution-reagan-clinton-and-the-continuity-of-the-war-on-terror/
Paul,
You pretty much made T. Andrew Perkins’ point. War insofar its distinctive legal environment is not brought about only via Congressional declaration of war, which as you point out, has not been used since WW2.
Yet the US certainly has been to war since WW2. Does that mean every US military action been illegal since WW2? Or alternatively, have they all been super-sized criminal law enforcements? Well, no. Rather than a Congressional declaration of war, we have instead used other legislative means to set the formal condition for war, namely specific statutory authorizations, which is legally equivalent to a Congressional declaration of war, and/or (more controversially) treaties.
The connection between our government, or any government, killing combatants (or would be combatants) offshore, and kidnapping the individual who killed/raped his daughter is a fallacy of false equivalence, apparently to make a political point. Unfortunately, this straw man argument fails because there is a heck of a difference between a rocket assault in a combat zone and hogtying a criminal and bringing him to the court of competent jurisdiction…literally.
There is precedent for this parent’s actions in other countries around the world. Adolph Eichmann was kidnapped and brought to trial in Israel. The US kidnapped Manual Noriega and brought him to trial in the US, just to name two high profile cases.
Keeping in mind that tying two wildly different types of actions together is a bogus argument that would never be allowed in most courts on the basis of being irrelevant, I wanted to follow up with a comment about targeted killing during military hostilities.
Jim Wright has strict rules about copying and pasting his material, so here is the link to the brilliant essay by CWO Jim Wright at Stonekettle Station on the morality of killing combatants or would-be combatants in a war zone, even if they are US citizens. Jim wrote this almost three years ago, but applies directly to the assumptions made by the diarist in the article above.
http://www.stonekettle.com/2011/10/consequences.html
T. Andrew Perkins, “That’s war”? Really? And what war would that be? WWII was the last declared war and I am pretty sure it ended with the surrender of both Germany and Japan which the declaration of war was directed against.
If you want war, have Congress declare war.
I was thinking the same thing Beldar was thinking. Where did this come from? I can go to the Drudge Report to get this kind of logical obfuscation. The difference being that here at least there is no mention of the Obama administration all having bad BO. I’m confused….
A 3-D saga and a tale of three nations. All with nuclear weapons and a plan to use them in the new first strike delusion.
“One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic”. – Stalin
“The irony of course is that the United States regularly kills people in other nations who have not been charged let alone convicted — including its own citizens.” That’s not irony. That’s war.
Another way of looking at the case is that Bamberski failed to get the justice he craved precisely because he dumped the monster that he had drugged and bound in front of a French courthouse, rather than dropping Krombach into the Seine.
Uhhhhh. Is someone here standing in for JT today? This is beyond the Paletinate.