Pakistan's Abbotabad Report

[anil]

@Doktor

Had the UN charter clearly legalised pre emption then half the world would be attacking the other half. It doesn't allow that because the human race are not prophets(able to see the future). In the kurukshetra war, krishna could see the future and so he actively engaged in pre-emptive strategies. He did that because he could(because he was a god).

The true nuclear states follow an active pre-emption policy because they can(they have proclaimed themselves as gods just like hiranyakashipu did. The rest are supposed to follow the UN charter.

[Minskaya]

@Doktor

Had the UN charter clearly legalised pre emption then half the world would be attacking the other half.

They didn't have non-state actors flying jet airliners into city skyscrapers when the Charter was penned. Like the telegraph, the Charter is a lingering vestige from a bygone era.

[pChan]

Sorry in advance for digressing from the main topic of this thread.

If you are not looking for internet brownie points doled out by the god of Armchair Generals then I believe it makes sense to just glean info from certain posters & not get into verbal games. For some their online avatar is like the game second life - they have a self-anointed role to play & any of those inconvenient points that would require them to question their positions, which a reasoned debater would accept & address will be brushed off.

I visit this forum occasionally & I find it frustrating that so many good posters & military men running around in circles with such posters. Wise up people...

[Doktor]

They didn't have non-state actors flying jet airliners into city skyscrapers when the Charter was penned. Like the telegraph, the Charter is a lingering vestige from a bygone era.

Until it is changed or abolished it is valid.

[anil]

Q: What is legal?
A: Anything that has consensus

If they took a vote whether or not to conduct drone strikes in the afpak landscape, what would you think the world would vote for?

Someone of this forum said that if a state cannot prevent its non-state actors from launching attacks on other states then it has no right to be sovereign. This is the situation, this is the bottom line. The UN charter has already been thrown out the window.

Some are giving too much importance to the charter. The actual security apparatus is not so rigid as you think.

[Doktor]

Q: What is legal?
A: Anything that has consensus

There is one step in between - passing a veto.

If they took a vote whether or not to conduct drone strikes in the afpak landscape, what would you think the world would vote for?

If vote ever gets to the table... can you predict the outcome?

Someone of this forum said that if a state cannot prevent its non-state actors from launching attacks on other states then it has no right to be sovereign. This is the situation, this is the bottom line. The UN charter has already been thrown out the window.

So UK is not a sovereign country? Mind you there are UK-grown terrorist around the world and on home turf.

Some are giving too much importance to the charter. The actual security apparatus is not so rigid as you think.

Until some new world order comes to play Charter it is.

[anil]

I wasn't talking about "approval from the UN" but a consensus in general.

Whether the UK deserves sovereignty is for anyone to decide. However, my opinion is that if a nation cannot prevent its citizens from launching overseas attacks then it has no business running a sovereign state in the first place. Let others jump in and adsorb its territories.

[lemontree]

Please see my exchange with TripleC starting with post 141. I don't believe the argument of 'joint US-Pakistan drone strikes would compromise US operations in Afghanistan' has any merit.

The joint drone strikes were with reference to operations within Pakistan and not Afghanistan.

[Agnostic Muslim]

They didn't have non-state actors flying jet airliners into city skyscrapers when the Charter was penned.

Flying 'jet airliners into city skyscrapers' is just an evolution of the means with which violence can be perpetrated - the attacks do not themselves justify 'preemptive use of force' without the presence of an imminent threat.

[Agnostic Muslim]

The joint drone strikes were with reference to operations within Pakistan and not Afghanistan.

Operations within Pakistan are conducted with the intent of improving the situation inside Afghanistan - the overall US goal is combating the insurgency in Afghanistan, and the handful of drone strikes here and there in Pakistan do so little to support that goal that there is little that could be compromised, in even the worse case scenario, were the drone strikes joint US-Pakistan operations.

[Officer of Engineers]

Immeniant threat? Are you freaking serious? It's a damned war. We're the immeniant threats! We find them. We kill them. We don't wait for them to try to kill us.

[Agnostic Muslim]

No they are not, the part you underlined territorial integrity and/or political independence was a reaction to the wars of agression in WWII. The US drone strikes do neither.

US drone strikes are a military act of aggression - acts that are opposed and condemned by the government of Pakistan. As I pointed out to you before:

"Aggression is the use of force by a State or Government against another State or Government, in any manner, whatever the weapons used and whether openly or otherwise, for any reason or for any purpose other than individual or collective self-defence or in pursuance of a decision or recommendation by a competent organ of the United Nations"

Yes it does, it is called precedent. The only limits on a states rights must come via treaty.

The only 'precedent' established by those States is a 'precedent' of co-belligerents consenting to military operations by other co-belligerents on their soil in pursuit of a common goal of combating common enemies/belligerents. Pakistan's official position makes it clear that there is no consent for US military operations on Pakistani soil, which makes those military operations acts of aggression, which in turn then need to be justified under (1) Self-Defence (2) UNSC Authorization under Chapter VII. Your ludicrous argument is that a State can do anything it wants to any other State in the world because the 1907 hague Conventions did not contain language covering XYZ'. The phrase 'limits on States rights via treaty' only applies in the case of a State choosing to limit its own rights (for example by allowing another State to conduct military operations on its soil without any additional prior authorization). The UN Charter further codifies limits States face when conducting military operations against/on other States.

Pakistan's complaints and attempts to forge new CIL DO NOT matter. CIL/LOAC are clear- there is NO LAW limiting the right of belligerents to conduct military operations in the territory of a belligerent. You have been asked repeatedly to provide any citation to your claim. You have failed to do so. Not only that but you deliberately misrepresented the idea and definition of sovereignty.

There is no need to forge any new CIL/LOAC - your perverted interpretation of the 1907 Hague Conventions (as in your concoction of an LIC/LOAC out of thin air given the complete lack of any language supporting your position) has no traction given that the UN Charter clearly lays out the circumstances under which force can be exercised and those circumstances are (1) Self-defence (2) UNSC Authorization (3) Consent.

It wa snot consent, no consent was asked for or given because it WAS NOT NEEDED. Neither was it needed in WWI, Korea or Kuwait. The UN charter does not deal with CIL/LOAC.

If none of the co-belligerents opposed Allied military operations on their soil in pursuit of a common goal of defeating a common enemy, then that constitutes consent. Pakistan however has officially, formally and repeatedly opposed and condemned unilateral and unauthorized US military operations on her soil as being violations of international law, and after having your distorted interpretation of UNSC Resolution 1368 debunked, you have descended into arguing that the lack of any language whatsoever governing military operations on allied States somehow suggests a legal precedent/principle of 'anything goes unless the States enter into a treaty'.

No it does not. Sovereign states do not need permission to pursue legitimate war aims. In an otherwise legal war, the territory of a belligerent friend or enemy is a valid battlezone unless otherwise noted by treaty (ie undefended towns).

Good, you are implicitly accepting my point - 'legitimate war' - 'legitimate war aims' would have to be justified under (1) Self defence (2) UNSC Authorization. Without either of those two justifications your arguments about the 'rights of co-belligerents' are nothing more than gobbledygook.

You will find no evidence of #3- it is a deliberat lie created from whole cloth by YOU to support your idea of jihad against the west. You will also find that the definition of self defense under the LOAC include offensive operations designed to impair and disrupt enemy attacks.

Nonsense - consent by a State to military operations by another State on her territory is by definition an 'agreement between States', which means the armed action is not an act of 'aggression and/or hostility'.

You have been asked repeatedly to provide any proof of your claim that a belligerent needs permission to conduct otherwise legal military operations and have failed to do so. You even tried to slide in a false definition not found in the UN charter and to redefine sovereignty. You FAILED.

Make up your mind first whether you are talking about 'belligerents' or 'co-belligerents' - the two terms are not necessarily interchangeable. That said, regardless of which term you wish to use, there is absolutely NO language in the 1907 Hague Conventions that assigns co-belligerent States the right to carry out military operations on the territory of other co-belligerents without authorization/consent. Your examples from WWII only illustrate the absence of any opposition/condemnation of military operations by one co-belligerent on another co-belligerent State's territory, which would be construed as consent.

Massive disruption of the Al Queda and Taliban command networks, massive attrition of bomb makers and insurgent leaders... Ad din commando raids and the policy has inflicted the biggest loses on the leadership of any insurgency ever. The number of attacks in the rest of the world is down- way down. No more Mumbais or daily attacks in J/K. Instead the dogs you infected with rabies are now biting their handlers. For the rest of the world that is a GOOD result.

Yet insurgent attacks in Afghanistan continue apace and leaked US documents themselves illustrate that the CIA has no idea who it is killing in a vast majority of her drone strikes. A large number of the Al Qaeda command core was in fact neutralized by Pakistani or joint US-Pakistani intelligence operations, and not drone strikes. The Mumbai attacks happened despite the US campaign of drone strikes, not to mention that the LeT had little to no presence in the tribal areas where the US conducts drone strikes at that time. The violence in JK was down long before the drone strikes picked up - in addition there is no evidence of any Kashmir focused insurgent group being the target of sustained drone strikes. As with the rubbish about the 'missing language in the 1907 Hague Conventions' you have offered little other than a litany of distorted and unsubstantiated claims to try and justify your argument.

This is a policy you support and defend which makes you a supporter of terrorism and complicit in all of the dead Paksitanis killed by your talibunny homies.

You could have great career in standup comedy as a side-show to Jeff Dunham's 'Achmed the dead terrorist' act.

[Agnostic Muslim]

Immeniant threat? Are you freaking serious? It's a damned war. We're the immeniant threats! We find them. We kill them. We don't wait for them to try to kill us.

Yes I am 'freaking serious' - the UNSC Resolutions do not authorize ISAF military operations inside Pakistan and (thank you for making my point again) when you state 'we don't wait for them to try and kill us' you are indicating that those you are 'killing' intend on 'trying to kill you' which means that the people being targeted by the US pose an 'imminent threat' to the US, which would justify self-defence. The problem is that the self-defence argument in the case of US military operations in Pakistan just doesn't fly given that the US has not established 'imminent threat' in those cases. Heck, the CIA's own documents reveal that the US doesn't even know who it is killing in the vast majority of its strikes, operating merely on 'patterns'.

[Agnostic Muslim]

It is not use of force against Pakistan's assets. Is it?

It is a use of force against Pakistani civilians and their assets. Unless the US can establish that all her targets are/were 'imminent threats' those military operations are in violation of the UN Charter.

[Doktor]

AM, you might want to look @ Belgium in WW2 for precedent.