Iraq & USA: Juridisprudence: US Attorney General surrepts into Baghdad, Egypt's Iraq diplomat grabbed nite before, terrorists

Rookmaker Club geostrategic analysis

The US's chief Justice officer, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, flew surrepetitiously flew into Baghdad with no public advance notice and a news blackout of his arrival, lasting until he was situated within the hi-est safety area of the city, the area famous now as "the Green Zone." The US cabinet member and head of the govt Department of Justice made the first such trip ever made by someone holding that office, and he had his work cut out for him. Gonzales first went to the front of war to cheer the US troops on the Fourth of July weekend, which means at least a meeting with a large assemblage of military personnel from the ranks and non-coms. He also had to consult with those of hi-er rank, and particularly with specialists in military law (judges, lawyers, and support staff). Then there was the matter of meeting directly and conferring with members of the Iraqi Justice Ministry, judges, lawyers, researchers and other related personnel - and speaking to their wish-list regarding how they can bring up their procedural standards to the level of the US and EU countries in order meet the hi-est standard of excellence, especially when about to launch on the prosecution of genocidist tyrant Saddam Hussein and those who were most directly party to his consummate evil against all law and norms of justice.

Then there was the further matter of the US's intention to build more prisons, prisons that would be state of the art, and meet again the Iraqi's desire for the best in the face of the prison system left them by the genocidist tyrant, and the situation of too many terrorists to accomodate.

Then, not least of all, there hovers in the background the allegations against Alberto Gonzales regarding his memos while serving as WhiteHouse legal counsel, to the effect apparently that irregulars committing acts of terror and part of the army of no state whatsoever, have no standing under the Geneva Conventions, and therefore their disposition is entirely at the hands of those who took them captive according to its rules of military justice and propriety for such criminal outlaws with no military standing. Gonzales apparently drew a fine line in regard to the amount and kind of torture to which such persons could be subjected given the emergency situation which, less the apparent Gonzales memos, meant the nicer we were to them the more deaths, beheandings, suicide bombings etc they would be able to carry out against civilians, allied military, and our own soldiers. The US use of mild torture - milder forms of torture relative to those used by the terrorists in Iraq - to expedite, not punish (the US military cannot be bothered with punishment of these Islamofascists captured with the loss of our blood), but rather of securing information thru effective interrogation. The norm for this is : expedite securing information thru interrogation, as fast as possble, in order to forestall planned acts of further mayhem by the terrorists. The need for effective interrogation of these mass murdering criminals when cawt requires policy and practice in the field that draws a fine line with great care. Sadly but truly, it cannot be done without imperfactions. Sometimes serious imperfections that must be dealth with subsequently by mililtary justice.

The fine law can and was broken at Abu Graib, by military personnel who were really neither interrogating nor punishing, but only amusing themselves, subjecting their victims to the individual Yanks' sexual pathologies and pranks in an environment of extreme boredom and a job of stifling routine both in the prison and in the barracks when not on duty. The US Military has proceeded to trial with these cases, and to punish according to individual differences in their offending behaviours. The leftwing engines and a good number of their dupes in the USA instantly had sprung into tirades against both military law, claiming that civilian law was all that mattered (whereas in refWrite's and the Rookmaker Club's views, civilian law is notoriously incompetent to do justice to American soldiers in extremely difficult battlefield conditions and split-second situations, but also in routine situations where several lapses may occur,requiring appropriate military-jural investigation and adjudication); leftist attacks against both military law and the formation of policy in regard to the use of milder forms of torture by military interrogators dealing with terrorists who targetted innocents and had been trained in techniques of disinformation and falsification when captured, poured forth especially after the Abu Graib lapses of US military personnel, targetting Gonzales.

In this, Alberto Gonzales had the most undesirable task in the American nation. The task required a fine conscience, a fine lawerly mind, and a great heart informed by an active conscience to draw the line of balance as closely as humanly possible. This takes courage. This takes competence. And this takes willingness to suffer the political consequences, whatever they be, whenever they come. Gonzales performed his task with apparent excellence, no matter what personal feelings he had that were irrelevant to his duties. He did not authorize barbarism; but I for one would not want to be subjected to the methods of those authorized to extract vital information about the terrorists from terrorists captured, apparently by way of Gonzales' top legal advice for a military justice system of interrogation in a situation of rampant criminal murdering terrorism.

One leftist wag even went so far as to call him "Alberto Abu Graib Guantanomo Gonzales."

On this day of yesterday's secret arrival, Gonzales entered a situation with many tasks and many problems to discuss with democratic Iraqi officials and US miitary and civiliian project specialists. And he had to do so under the concern of all those with whom he had contact in regard to another most recent terrorist gambit in Iraq.

The nite before his secret arrival, the head of Egypt's diplomatic mission to democratic Iraq, present in the country for only some weeks, for the purpose of preparing the way for Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak to appoint and post a fulltime Ambassodor to Iraq, was a blatant and desperate attempt to thwart representatives of any Arab nation to accredit ambassadors and thereby end Iraq's isolation at the top level from other Arab states. The presence of such ambassadors from Arab countries would not only end the isolation, further delegitimize the terrorists, split the Sunnis participant in the terror from those who no longer countenance it and welcome especially other Sunnis as ambassadors to Iraq from other Arab lands. All of this is what the latest move of the terrorists aimed to wreck in grabbing the diplomat Ihab al-Sharif, who just may have been in line for the upcoming appointment to a full Ambassador to Iraq from Egypt.

That latter information makes for an interesting point: democratic Iraq, with its elections of a parliament that is right now writing a Draft Constitution to be voted upon in mid-August in a referendum, that in turn upon a favourable Yes vote will establish the procedures for another all-Iraq vote for candidates to a new and permanent institution of the Iraq Parliament. Whereas in contrast to that, Mubarak rules by coercion and has relative peace in Egypt, as the US more and more urges him to open up and create real conditions of democracy in his own country. The terrorists intevene in Iraq to seize and torture (we may assume, in a manner not in accord with Gonzales' "torture lite") a man equipped to watch, monitor, and report back to Mubarak how a nation moves from total state control to one where a real democracy emerges step by step, such as many people in Egypt, many in many Arab lands, in America and around the world still remain prayerfully in hope.

Ihab al-Sherif, 51, chief of the Egyptian diplomatic mission in Baghdad, was kidnapped Saturday night by about eight gunmen after he stopped to buy a newspaper in western Baghdad, witnesses said.

Al-Sherif, who had been in the country since June 1, was pistol-whipped and forced into the trunk of a car as the assailants shouted that he was an "American spy," the witnesses said on condition of anonymity.

In Cairo, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry confirmed the diplomat was missing and said contacts were underway with the Iraqi government "and all other sides" to win his release.

One of Iraq's most prominent Sunni Arab political organizations, the Iraqi Islamic Party, quickly condemned the kidnapping and demanded al-Sherif's "immediate release."

Al-Sherif was the highest-ranking foreign official to be kidnapped in Iraq, although a lower-ranking Egyptian diplomat was held briefly by insurgents last year. He was freed after Egypt reaffirmed that it would not send troops to Iraq.

Washington has been urging Arab nations to resume full diplomatic relations with the sovereign, elected Iraqi government, and al-Sherif's abduction appeared to serve as a warning against responding favorably to such overtures. Fox News Channel online, "Iraq Ambassador Kidnapped"

I don't think we do justice to the head of the American govt's Department of Justice for offering advice regarding the limits of torture for a very special classification of terrorists who must be effectively interrogated. When that caveat against Gonzales is understood for its lack of thawtfulness and discrimination of different classifcations relevant to military justice and its jurisprudence, then I think the naysayers may be dismissed.

Iraq is ready to accept U.S. help in investigating the killing and kidnapping of government officials, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Sunday after a surprise visit amid tight security.

The informal agreement covering the criminal investigations came after Gonzales met with Iraq's prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, as well as police and judicial officials during a six-hour visit to the Iraqi capital. Word of the arrangement followed the abduction on Saturday night of Egypt's top envoy to Iraq.

"There are still some high-level crimes, murders and kidnappings that are not being prosecuted. One reason is that the evidence is not available," Gonzales said in an interview on his return trip to Washington. - Fox News Channel online, "Attorney General Makes Surprise Visit to Iraq"

And, once again, be thankful that swiftly after the seizing and presumed torture of Ihab al-Sharif late Saturday, the chief Justice officer of America arrived in Baghdad for a very busy 6 hours of work before he returned home to muse upon and eventually act upon the insites and wisdom he gained in Baghdad's painful place of unjustice by reason of terrorism. - Politicarp

PS Because of Template problems, Politicarp's Political Events RSS Calendar does not appear in today's refWrite right-hand column.

Egypt's diplomat to Iraq captured by terrorist Islamofascists