A Journalist and the Principle of Distinction

A Marine-turned-journalist was suspended by the Blaze for taking some shots at ISIS while on assignment for them:

Jason Buttrill, a former Marine and a foreign affairs correspondent for the Glenn Beck-owned Blaze ... fired six times at ISIS fighters with a rifle while on the Mosul front.

 

"Exclusive: TheBlaze’s Jason Buttrill shoots at ISIS members and shares footage from the Mosul front," reads the headline. The story is still live on the site despite The Blaze's recalling Buttrill from Mosul and suspending him from the publication. 

 

The reprimand by The Blaze comes after Jason Stern of the Committee to Protect Journalists warned Buttrill that his actions could be deadly for other journalists in or near war zones. 

 

“Jason, journalists are detained and killed all over the world over false accusations of being combatants,” Stern tweeted on Friday. “This doesn't help.” 

I don't care much for the argument Stern is making. America's enemies haven't respected non-combatant roles like that of the journalist for at least half a century, so the idea that some journalist's misconduct will lead to more problems is a bit blind, I think.*

 

No, my question is about the ethics and legality of it. Mr. Buttrill was there as a journalist; should he be taking part in combat? I don't know the details, but for the sake of argument, let's assume that this was not self-defense. If someone isn't officially part of one of the combatant groups, and it is not self-defense, should that person engage in the fighting?

There is part of me that wonders what right-minded person would not shoot at members of ISIS, given the opportunity. But another part of me is bothered by this. Doesn't it violate the principle of distinction between civilians and combatants? If that's right, then Buttrill might have been an unlawful combatant.

Or, maybe I don't really understand this. I am not any kind of lawyer, so this is quite likely. Or, maybe in a war like this where the enemy doesn't make even a pretense of following the law it just doesn't matter. And, of course, whether it's lawful or not doesn't necessarily answer the ethical question.

 

Any thoughts?

 

###

 

*I have the same problem with arguments against torture that go "if we do it, they'll do it." I am not supporting torture, but that particular argument against it doesn't make sense since pretty much every enemy we've faced for the last century has used torture against captured American soldiers. Maybe the Nazi's were an exception, but the Japanese certainly did, and every enemy since.

My Theme Song for the Last Several Months

Just a bit further, then time to catch up. Think I might head out to the woods for a while.

However, I'm a bit afraid I'll go away for a week and come back to find Hillary's taken over in a CIA-led coup. :-(

Bad Advice From The Boss

Headline: "Obama Urges Troops To “Criticize Our President” & “Protest Against Authority” In Final Address."

Servicemembers wanting to take the President's advice here might want to brush up on a couple of articles of the UCMJ, just to be safe. A servicemember can criticize the President, and it sometimes may even be that one should, but some of the things that President Obama has said about his successor could merit significant punishment.

Don't worry, though: I'm sure there will be plenty of criticism of the President to go around.

Not Exactly a Russia Hawk

On the other hand, our apparent next Secretary of State does have extensive experience working closely with Russia on oil and gas contracts. He has shown himself capable of getting things done with Putin's government, in other words.

In the wake of yesterday's revelations that Russian hacking was aimed at benefiting the Trump campaign, I suppose the appointment of someone with close business ties to Russia must be troubling to Trump's critics. On the other hand, it nicely explains why Russia would have supported him against Clinton. Clinton's stated intent was to throw up a No Fly Zone in Syria that would have had American warplanes flying against Russian ones, the very next step away from war. Trump, like this new Secretary of State nominee, thinks of Russia first and foremost as a business partner.

Why would Russia try to put its finger on the scale of America's election? This is why. It is, from the perspective of statecraft, quite a sharp set of moves: for the cheap price of some influence operations, they avoided the immediate risk of a hot war with the United States, and gained an opportunity to advance their business interests in a more favorable environment.

I do not take seriously the suggestion that Trump or his new nominee are Russian pawns -- but they don't have to be. It was a good move for Russia if they are just not quite so eager to start a new war, and interested instead in economic development. The fact that both men have extensive business interests in Russia also gives the Russians levers to work against them (which is one reason Trump really should put his stuff in a blind trust, though I doubt that he will -- I expect him to pass the business to his children, where it will still serve Russia' interests). You don't need to bribe them or suborn them. You just give them reasons not to want to fight, because there's so much to gain by not fighting.

Putin is a vicious man, but he's also a very smart one. Russia has a weak position but he has played it excellently. Without in any sense excusing his acts of tyranny, it is easy to admire his skill. I wonder if anyone on our team is going to be as good at this game, or if we even have anyone who sees it as a game of strategy in the same way.

"Combatting Political Islam"

A piece by two experts on the subject, David Reaboi and Kyle Shideler.

For decades, a bipartisan American foreign policy consensus has endorsed engagement with and promotion of Islamists in an attempt to use them as a counterweight, to either other Islamic terror groups or larger geopolitical adversaries.

Seeking to engage Muslim Brotherhood officials or franchises has a long historical pedigree within our foreign policy establishment. As Ian Johnson documented in his outstanding history, A Mosque in Munich, America first turned to Islamists in the early days of the Cold War in order to nurture alternatives to the Soviets. During that time, however, many in the U.S. foreign policy establishment seemed to recognize that, ultimately, the long-term objectives of the Islamists were both anti-democratic and harmful to American national interests. An internal analysis from the period noted that leading Muslim Brotherhood figure Said Ramadan—then a guest in the Eisenhower White House who was backed by the CIA—was “a fascist” and obsessed with seizing power.

Unfortunately, such a blunt assessment of the U.S. government’s Islamist interlocutors seems as quaint today as a 1950s TV commercial. By 2009 skepticism of Islamists’ long-term goals had been thoroughly abandoned, as President Obama formally announced the full-throated promotion of political Islam as the legitimate expression of democratic will throughout the Middle East.

In addition to the piece, you should really read that Mosque in Munich book. It goes sadly well with the immediately previous post. It's a great story of an early CIA mission with all the swagger they used to have in the postwar period, and it provides a helpful introduction to the deep history of some of the current conflicts involving political Islam. If you know someone who likes such stories, it might make a good Christmas gift.

At Least Someone Has A Sense of Humor About It

Courts to "Install" Clinton?

As far as I know, nobody is even thinking about filing a suit along these lines -- but the thought has crossed the mind of a writer at the Huff Po. This approach would not end well.

...at least one court decision suggests there is some federal authority to invalidate the election outcome after the fact.

In 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand the ruling of a federal district judge in Pennsylvania that invalidated a state senate election and ordered the vacancy be filled by the losing opponent.

The Pennsylvania state senate held a special election in November 1993 to fill a seat that had been left vacant by the death of the previous democratic senator, and pitted Republican Bruce Marks against Democrat William G. Stinson for the spot. Stinson was named the winner, but massive fraud was later uncovered that resulted in litigation.

Two of the elected officials who testified in the Pennsylvania case said under oath that they were aware of the fraud, had intentionally failed to enforce laws, and hurried to certify Stinson the winner in order to bury the story. The narrative recalls the Washington Post’s revelation that Republican Mitch McConnell was aware of the CIA’s conclusion that Russians had intervened and opted to do nothing.

In February 1994, after Stinson had already taken office, a federal judge ordered he “be removed from his State Senate office and that [his opponent, Bruce Marks] be certified the winner within 72 hours.”

Stinson appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, but ultimately, this was the first known case in which a federal judge reversed an election outcome. In January 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the ruling to stand.

On what basis could a Federal court claim the power to decide who would run a co-equal branch of government? Or do we not recognize any limits on Federal courts now?

We're getting into dangerous waters.

Obama on the South

"I think there's a reason why attitudes about my presidency among whites in Northern states are very different from whites in Southern states," Obama told Zakaria.

I assume there's some polling to back that up, but I notice that Northern states voted against his chosen successor in spite of his personal endorsement of her. States that have voted Democratic every election for decades went against him. Maybe race was the reason; certainly the demographics suggest it was a factor. But why beat up on the South when you lost Ohio and Michigan and Pennsylvania?

Stop parodying yourself

That was Morgan Freeberg's response to the "snowflake" microaggression meltdown, but it applies equally to this self-knowledge-free-zone WaPo article about how Big Brother is not the real problem; the real problem is the overwhelming noise of thousands of angry children:

This is Little Brother — millions of irrational people spreading lies, sowing doubt and fomenting violence. Thanks to Little Brother, the government — Trump and his incoming administration, in this case — doesn’t have to directly threaten the political opposition or spread propaganda on its own. Leaders only need to find indirect ways to validate supporters’ most vile emotions and make lying acceptable, as House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) did recently when he said it was all right for Trump to spread falsehoods. Little Brother and his NRA-protected guns can take it from there.

So what is Little Brother?

Like the pack of wild children in “Lord of the Flies,” Little Brother is unsupervised, isolated from civilization and potentially murderous. And thanks to the Internet, the vicious, dog-eat-dog world of Little Brother is impossible to escape.

Little Brother screams so loud, no one can think. When human beings experience anger and fear — the dominant emotions of Little Brother and his Internet clickbait — their IQs drop. People cannot use their rational minds when thousands of angry children are shouting at them online. That’s Little Brother.

I guess we need some of that anti-dog-eat-dog legislation.

I'm melting

Stop calling me a snowflake you big meanie.

In related news, how much fun is it when your hyperliberal cousin posts her Facebook outrage over a November Congressional vote to steal $150 million from the Social Security fund by linking to an impassioned speech by an unnamed person identified as one of the 35 brave Senators who cast "nay" votes, all while expressing outrage that the media buried the story, hmmm, very suspicious . . . .

. . . And it turns out the vote was in November 2015, the outraged speaker was Mike Lee (R-Utah), the President signed the bill, and all 35 "nay" votes were from Republicans.

The fact that Lee credited Rand Paul with a principled opposition to the bill might have been a tip-off.

So What Happens Now?

Headline: "Bombshell Secret CIA Report Says Russia Aimed to Steal White House for Trump."

We've gone the full distance, now, from 'It's irresponsible and dangerous to try to discredit election results' to 'this rigged election was stolen by a conspiracy led by a hostile foreign power.'

The Electoral College hasn't voted yet. The President of the United States has ordered the results of the election to be reviewed in full, with the results of the review kept secret from the American people. That link, by the way, is to Russia Today -- a site the President's team would tell you was part of the very conspiracy he is citing. So the emphasis on his refusal to come clean with the American people is Russian propaganda designed to undermine our faith in the government.

It's also the truth.

I have no idea what's going to happen next.

Trump Airline

My wife ran across this.

Eric Hines

Nailed it

They might be describing me personally.  Lately I've been loving his cabinet picks, but before the election I didn't dare hope for so much in that area, or any other.  Nevertheless, at my nadir of enthusiasm for the Republican candidate, I loved that for once we had a guy who didn't whimper in the face of a partisan and close-minded press:

The public took the media's vitriol and hate directed at Trump as the highest recommendations he could possibly get. That's why the media, the pundits, the celebrities and even the polls were all in mass denial about Trump's chances until the very night of the election.

"For many Republicans who weren't enthusiastic Trump supporters but wanted something to like about him, his refusal to give the media a free pass on their combative bias was a big thing," wrote Stephen Kruiser at the PJMedia website. That, by the way, is why Trump spent so much less than Hillary Clinton on his campaign. The media covered him heavy and hard, thinking it would take him down. The over-the-top, saturation coverage did just the opposite.

Sports humor, from me, yet

I'm still so happy about the EPA pick I could bust.  Today is a lighter-hearted choice, the Ambassador to the Court of St. James.  Jim Geraghty muses that Woody Johnson may change the names of the N.Y. Jets to the "Concordes," but otherwise hopes that this new appointment will lead to benign neglect on the home front:

Keep in mind, under Woody Johnson, it is entirely possible that the U.S. Embassy in London will sign a lot of really expensive free-agent diplomatic staff who will perform well for a year and then decline in production rapidly.

Dontcha just hate those white guys

This sour and humorless GQ piece can't hide the fascinating quality of an eccentric group's spoofy effort to create a non-PC libertarian utopia on the Croatian border.  When the journalist can't think of any cogent criticism, she drips with contempt over the white-male aspect and whines about the boredom and discomfort of her trip.  Throwing in a bit of Trump snark is obligatory, of course.

This attempt to create a modern Galt's Gulch doubtless is pretty nuts; its flaky youngsters, like residents of George Washington University and Burning Man East in South Dakota, will have a lot to learn about defensive borders for their little piece of paradise.  Unlike the author, though, I find the underlying impulse refreshing.

Who Knows Who John Glenn Is?

Language warning: this Gunny talks like a Marine.

Greatest Success

Well, that's not how he put it, but it's the biggest single thing we've accomplished during his governance.

If you ask me where has been the one area where I feel that I’ve been most frustrated and most stymied, it is the fact that the United States of America is the one advanced nation on earth in which we do not have sufficient common sense gun safety laws.

You're too modest, sir. You've seen us flourish, under your leadership. Respect for the Second Amendment has come to be taken seriously by the Supreme Court, during your tenure, and you've helped to ensure a similar court will endure for decades to come. We're on the cusp of seeing gun permits treated like, dare I say it, marriage licenses. All 50 states will now respect one issued by any of the 50 states.

And, of course, we've seen record levels of gun purchases during your tenure as well. You're passing on to the future an America that is not only more respectful of the civil right to keep and bear arms, but far better armed as well.

To think that's happened maugre your head, as Malory would put it. And you the President, and everything.

Damn Few, and They're All Dead

John Glenn is now among the heroes. He was a man.

This Is What They Think Trump's Going To Do

...and in fairness, it is something that was done even here in America. It was done by a Democrat, Franklin D. Roosevelt, otherwise considered the greatest president of the modern age by the same people afraid that we'll start doing this sometime next month.

We Should Be Protected from Outsiders

I lost control of my laughter at about 45 seconds in.