No Need to Rise to A Hitler

Posted on October 2, 2006 in Justice War

The news that Bosnian Serb warlord Momcilo Krajisnik was sentenced to 27 years in prison for various war crimes but acquitted of genocide actually made me thankful. The verdict makes it clear that you don’t have to emulate Hitler to be found wanting in the way you prosecute your military campaigns, a favorite beg-off of supporters of the U.S. Occupation of Iraq.

The International Court could find no evidence that Krajisnik wanted to obliterate the presence of ethnic Bosnian Muslims — he only sought to use state-terrorist tactics to kill enough to frighten the others away. His was not a “Final Solution” but a brutal, pragmatic program of frightful extermination of those who remained behind in certain communities. The end of Islam in Bosnia was not Krajnik’s aim.

Extrapolating from this decision, we might ask “What about the USA’s involvement in Iraq?” Clearly — despite the posturings of some Republican supporters — there is no ambition on the part of American forces or their leadership to annihilate the Iraqi people or the Muslim religion. Yet despite the lack of a grand overarching scheme (other than a blatant grab for oil) US forces have committed enough in the way of assaults on civilians to justify prosecution of our leaders a la Krajisnik.

I do not agree with those who see this as a judicial setback. On the contrary, it has opened the eyes of international law to the so-called “smaller crimes” that take place in war. Recent United States history is rife with incidents which do not merit a Hitlerian cast but nonetheless demand the intervention of higher tribunals. “It’s not the Holocaust” has been a continual defense of atrocity since the beginning of the Iraqi and Afghani occupations.

By not being the Holocaust, two things are meant. First, there is the implication that the aim of the actions is not extermination but a means justified by the end of democracy for the Iraqis. So it is OK to whisk children off to Guantamano Bay and hold them without recourse to counsel because it is for the right cause. Right cause or wrong cause, a beating still feels like a beating.

Second, as was used as a defense during the former Yugoslav civil wars, there was never an intention to eradicate. The logic of post-World War II military policing has been that if you do not commit genocide, you can do whatever you please. The Krajisnik decision eliminates this defense. Krajsinik is not guilty of genocide. The intention cannot be identified. Several acts ordered by him were identified as inhumane, unjust, and outrageous nonetheless. In other words, you don’t need genocidal ambitions for an incident to qualify as a war crime. The smug rebuffs against critics of U.S. policies no longer apply: it is the action not just the intent which marks the war crime. If you order it — for whatever reasons — you are liable for your commands.

I don’t know if the court had this in mind when it delivered its judgement, but for the reasons I have outlined, I take heart. Again, there need not be a genocidal intention to qualify as a war crime. The bar of culpability has been lowered. We don’t require the extermination camps and their showers to cinch a verdict: just evidence of systematic cruelty and depraved indifference.