On Selective Pacifism & other Oddities

[Bradford DeLong]

>Brad DeLond wrote:
>
>>  Perhaps the thing "wrong" with traditional just war theory in this
>>  context is that it points the other way: After 9/11 the Taliban
>>  government had an obligation to reveal everything it knew about the
>>  perpetrators, and to turn over all the perpetrators and all the
>>  material witnesses it could find to the United States government as
>>  the U.S. government undertook its own investigation.
>>
>>  The failure of the Taliban government to fulfill its obligation was a
>>  casus belli.
>.
>I don't disagree with the thrust of this, but I'm curious: In your view,
>does this obligation-to-extradite principle of just-war theory apply to
>every state, or just to Afghanistan? For example, the US has repeatedly
>refused to hand over to Haiti the ex-paramilitary leader Emmanuel Constant,
>who was responsible for the deaths of maybe 5000-10,000 people....
>Seth

As you know, the analogy is a lousy and tendentious one: Emmanuel 
Constant is not planning further large-scale atrocities. He is not 
being provided with weapons and ammunition by the U.S. government. He 
is not being provided with land and buildings for training camps. The 
primary interest of the United States is in preventing further 
atrocities by the insane fucks of Al-Qaeda; bringing the perpetrators 
of 9/11 and their accomplices to book is only a secondary interest. 
Thus--as you know--the offense committed by the U.S. in retaining 
Emmanuel Constant is at least an order of magnitude less than the 
offense committed by the Taliban. And the case for a "just war" to 
correct the offense is at least an order of magnitude weaker.

Nevertheless, the answer is "yes": the U.S. has an obligation under 
international law to hand him over; a Haitian war against the U.S. in 
response to the U.S. failure to live up to its obligations would be 
"just", according to standard just-war theory.


>That's totally contrary to anything I have ever thought of as just 
>war theory. A causus belli is first of all an affirmative act, not 
>an omission. Omissions may be culpable, but they are not acts of 
>war, which is what a causus belli requyires, an act. Besides, you 
>can't even say the T regime had any special relation or 
>responsibility to the US, which refused to recognize it, put it 
>under sanctions, and generally treated it like an enemy.
>
>jks

And where were you on 9/11? If that is not an "affirmative act," I 
don't know what is.

Brad DeLong

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