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.
Fiver had it right. Eric is totally taken in by this War on Terror nonsense where the forces ‘fighting’ it are creating it. Did you see that Utube video on GW Jr repeatedly saying he has to keep repeating stuff ‘to project the propaganda’ until y’all get it!
TL – first, as a teacher, I can tell you in a captive classroom you usually have to repeat something at least three times for the majority of students to get it. With an audience that is living on soundbites, the message has to be repeated and repeated and repeated ad naseaum. Even people who are high information voters miss stuff because there is so much stuff out there coming in so many different directions. And then some people only rely on certain sites for their information (and I use the term in its loosest form).
I have no problem with any President and his minions repeating the message de jour 200 or so times, because that is what it takes to get it through to the public. Of course, when blowback time comes each of those times is counted as a individual story rather than telling the same story over and over and over. Who can forget “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.”
Eric, I know a lotta NYCers. People throughout this country, except for a few, don’t realize 9/11 to you good folks is PERSONAL. You folks know people who died. You had to deal w/ the fear and anxiety exponentially more than the rest of the country, except for the DC area.
fiver,
““Terror” can never, ever,be overthrown.” sure sounds like you ascribe a mythopoetic invincibility to the terrorists.
I’m a New Yorker who was home on 9/11. In fact, I was a few blocks away from the World Trade Center on February 26, 1993. I know the terrorists are real and they’re competitors.
fiver,
Dredd,
[W]e also know that we are far more likely to be struck by lightning than by Icky Bin Laudenhimlerschwarts.
To quote Samantha Bee: “Does that mean we need a War on Lightning?”
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Yep.
Some need.
Some want.
Same difference in this case probably.
That last paragraph of the OP must be the weirdest non sequitur I have seen recently.
Methinks the Good Professor, with whom I occasionally agree, is suffering from a severe case of Obama Derangement Syndrome. Along with maybe a third of his regular commenters.
[P.s., if a comment is objectively true, does it violate the civility rule?]
Eric,
I really don’t ascribe to a “mythopoetic” view of “terrorists” at all.
I just believe your views on “Terror!” have much in common with those of others who expound on extra-terrestrials
(aargh. i hate when i mess up html)
Eric,
I really don’t ascribe to a “mythopoetic” view of “terrorists” at all.
I just believe your views on “Terror!” have much in common with those of others who expound on <a href=”http://www.atarimania.com/2600/boxes/hi_res/estra_terrestrials_cart.jpg”>extra-terrestrials
fiver: “Are you sure those terrorists aren’t extra-terrestrial? Because that would explain a lot.”
You seem to ascribe a mythopoetic invincibility to the terrorists. They’re just people who’ve joined together to reify their shared vision for the world. Their preferred world order happens to be incompatible with our preferred world order. Thus the competition.
We’ve competed before, defeated, and marginalized other daunting opponents that held incompatible worldviews. That’s not to say we are ever guaranteed victory, but we can certainly win the War on Terror and “shape a future more peaceful than the past — but only if we stand strong against the enemies of peace” (President Clinton, re the Iraq ceasefire enforcement).
Operation Iraqi Freedom was right on the law and justified on the policy, but distorted in the politics. To cut through the prevalent false narrative and get to the truth of the matter, I recommend this:
http://learning-curve.blogspot.com/2014/05/operation-iraqi-freedom-faq.html
As far as Saddam and Osama’s relationship, bin Laden did offer to help Saudi Arabia against Saddam in 1990-1991. But the situation changed entirely when Saudi Arabia rejected bin Laden’s offer and made the worst possible choice in his opinion by turning to the US for help with Saddam, instead. While Saddam and bin Laden’s ideological differences retained, the Iraq – al Qaeda relationship switched thereafter from opposition to neutrality in the shared light of the common primary enemy, ie, the US and the US-led enforcement of the UNSC resolutions.
The intelligence that Iraq and al Qaeda had progressed to a working relationship was circumstantial. However, it is known that the Iraq – al Qaeda diplomatic outreach was on-going, which was compelling in its own right. The controversy is over whether Iraq and al Qaeda had taken, or were taking, the next step in their relationship of switching from neutrality to cooperation against their common foe, us.
The Iraq – al Qaeda question is interesting but not pivotal. While their 9/11 attacks placed them firmly out front in their industry, al Qaeda never owned a monopoly on terrorism. Saddam had other terrorist ties as well as his own covert means. In fact, from the outset of the Gulf War ceasefire, renouncing terrorism was a mandate for Iraq to prove its compliance and disarmament. It’s also conceivable that Saddam’s weapons could have reached al Qaeda through a 3rd party in the terrorist underground.
This Iraq Survey Group finding illustrated the danger of the broken ‘containment’ with Iraq:
Each of those violations by itself justified OIF, and the Iraqi intelligence services were, of course, Saddam’s regime arm notorious for working with terrorists and carrying out Saddam’s own covert actions. It seems Saddam was ready to secretly produce weapon for covert precision attacks, whether in league with terrorists like (but not limited to) al Qaeda or by his own means.
We do need a War on Lightning. Which is another reason to call Congress back into Special Session for the month of August.
Dredd,
To quote Samantha Bee: “Does that mean we need a War on Lightning?”
I am not sure if the guy drugged and bound and left on the courthouse steps was dead or alive.
President Ike warned us about the Military Industrial Complex on the day that he left office. We have not had a declaration of war since December 8, 1941. Yet we have been at war nearly every year since then. If you call war a “police action” then guess what the police will be doing in a few short years–waging war and committing war crimes. Americans do not commit war crimes. America does not subscribe to the International Court in Den Haag. We are immune from trial, error, suit and go about the world in our Zuet suits. But all of this does not equate the case of the guy being drugged and tied up on the courthouse with a drone killing in Afghanistan or Detroit.
It should not take someone from outter space to bring the disparity in the two situations to our attention.
Eric,
Congratulations on taking out Saddam. Which are you more proud of: eliminating his Terrifying Weapons of Mass Destruction or taking out a man responsible for September 11 (despite the fact that Hussein himself was a secular leader on Al Qaeda’s s*** list)?
I also really do have to commend you on your bravery in so extensively quoting George W. Bush and elaborating on his “logic.” Most people would simply be too ashamed at this point in time after his lies and idiocy have been so thoroughly exposed.
Although, perhaps that’s not surprising given statements like this:
Really?
Are you sure those terrorists aren’t extra-terrestrial?
Because that would explain a lot.
Eric
Add: I don’t believe we can “eliminate and destroy” terrorism as President Bush prognosticated. However, we should be able to systematically marginalize the threat in the same way there are still British royalists, KKK, neo-Nazis, native American nationalists, Communists, etc, but at this point of the game, we don’t view them as significant threats.
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That is cause some of us don’t have to use both hands to find our arse, and we also know that we are far more likely to be struck by lightning than by Icky Bin Laudenhimlerschwarts.
Nick Spinelli
Pat, This is not an echo chamber. But, there are many out there.
Paul C. Schulte
There is some precedent for what this father did. The Israelis did it with Eichmann.
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Yep.
Murder and kidnapping have happened before.
I am surprised that more people don’t know that.
This is an echo chamber for them … culture just keeps echoing what the murderers and kidnappers of yore did.
Repetition is the best way to do precedent all over again.
Like deja vu doo.
Precedent, it is not just for presidents anymore.
Add: I don’t believe we can “eliminate and destroy” terrorism as President Bush prognosticated. However, we should be able to systematically marginalize the threat in the same way there are still British royalists, KKK, neo-Nazis, native American nationalists, Communists, etc, but at this point of the game, we don’t view them as significant threats.
To be honest, I admire the father for bringing that monster in.
fiver,
You’re talking about regime change. From that standpoint, we took down the Taliban and Saddam’s regime in weeks, not years.
However, note that our military didn’t leave Europe and Asia after the regime changes of WW2. In fact, we’re still over there. By modern American precedent, the post-war stage of securing the peace normally is a much longer and many ways broader process than fighting the war itself.
We don’t win a war until we’ve secured the peace following the war.
Terrorists are a different kind of enemy, though. As such, the emphasis in the War on Terror is less on the regime change of traditional state-v-state war, eg, WW2, than on the longer, broader process of securing the peace, eg, the Cold War.
As President Bush forewarned us on Sept 20, 2001, the War on Terror is a different kind of war:
The War on Terror is asymmetric in several ways.
One way it’s asymmetric is that terrorists are not restricted as state actors by the bordered nation-state system as we are. For example, when we took down their Taliban hosts in Afghanistan, the terrorists simply migrated, in contrast to the Taliban who fully intend to retake their erstwhile domain, which would in turn benefit their fellow-traveling terrorist guests. As much as the terrorist goal is a concretely specific regime, ie, the reification of the mythic Caliphate, their borderless lack of regime at this stage of the competition is a practical advantage.
The flip side of our nation-state bordered disadvantage versus the terrorists’ roaming advantage, however, is that our nation-state dominance is our relative advantage.
Terrorists are not extra-terrestrials. While they maneuver well extra-nationally in the underground and black-market spaces, the terrorists still must exist within the geography that’s dominated by the nation-state system. While we don’t have the wherewithal to compete on the terrorists’ extra-national level, the nation-state system offers a mastery over the geography that houses the social, political, cultural, and economic institutions that terrorists still must plug into in different ways. Therein lies our means to compete with the terrorists using our strengths to “stop it, eliminate it, and destroy it where it grows“.
Our Afghanistan intervention is instructive. While the terrorists were able to pull stakes while their Taliban hosts stayed home to fight us, the terrorists were hounded and hurt elsewhere. The terrorists were decimated by US-Iraqi forces when they tried to make a stand in Iraq. With our mastery over geography, we were winning the War on Terror … until the terrorists were able to resurge in the gaps opened by the degeneration of the Arab Spring, which was enabled by Obama’s feckless ‘lead from behind’ approach to the Arab Spring.
The state vs non-state asymmetry of the war on Terror is why Operation Iraqi Freedom was more important to get right than Operation Enduring Freedom.
Afghanistan merely offers a piece of geography with a specially suited host for al Qaeda. The terrorists, distinct from their Taliban hosts, don’t need Afghanistan. But Iraq is different. Iraq is geopolitically critical and culturally central in the region and Arab and Muslim communities. Iraq is influential in multiple ways that the US could never hope to be within the geography that’s essential to the terrorists. When Saddam held Iraq – particularly during our indefinitely stalemated, toxic and broken ‘containment’ – the festering Saddam problem was a big negative factor for us.
In the context of the War on Terror, the Iraqi regime change was necessary both to proximately solve the festering Saddam problem and, in the big picture, bring about “a strategic partner in a tumultuous region … that can act as a force for moderation … in the national security interests of the United States” (State Dept) on the critical geography that we need to defeat the terrorists.
But then, incredibly, we prematurely left an emerging but still vulnerable post-Saddam Iraq at the same time the terrorists were resurging in the degenerating Arab Spring around Iraq.
To sum, again, the terrorists are extra-national, so the regime changes of war by themselves cannot win the War on Terror. However, the terrorists are not extra-terrestrial. Therefore, leveraging the geography that the terrorists need by winning the longer, broader process of securing the peace can win the War on Terror.
At the outset, Bush explained to us that the War on Terror would be a different kind of war. Although different from state-v-state war, it’s not difficult to understand the premise. I recommend that you go back and reread Bush’s baseline policy speeches on the War on Terror.
So sad. Is it legal for American bounty hunters to “extradite” someone who has fled to another country without going through channels? Didn’t Dog the Bounty Hunter spend some time in a Mexican jail for doing something similar?
Would an American father be as helpless? I’m not a lawyer.
It’s shocking that France would have such a light sentence for a rapist and murderer. His first rape of a child also had a light sentence. Is that common in France? Are women and children valued so little there?
There is some precedent for what this father did. The Israelis did it with Eichmann.
Pat, This is not an echo chamber. But, there are many out there.