These acts must be war crimes. There was no military objective, as there is no army. We hit civilians to send a message and that is always a war crime. No?

Intent is required to establish criminality. If the missle were intended for a legitimate military target and hit a hospital due to error or something similar, then technically speaking, it isn't a war crime.

You missed one of the biggest flaws in Hiatt's argument...he doesn't tell us what he thinks we ought to be doing in Somalia.

I didn't really miss this point as much as leave it out of what I wrote, but you're right. The logical conclusion of his argument is that we should do to Somalia what we did to Iraq -- namely, invade it, occupy it and "nation-build." But he lacks the courage of his convictions to say that.

You really think your Government and country are so Good and Trustworthy and noble that it has the right to invade other countries at will at will -- maintain what you euphemistically call "a robust presence" -- whenever it decides that doing so will help "good guys?"

-- GlennGreenwald

If they wear black they ust be bad guys. If it wasn't for the clothes, you could never tell.

Intent can be a very hard thing to prove, no?

Is there no punishment for negligence? How many civilians can you accidentally kill before it reaches the level of "crime"??!?

...it's got to be some good shit. He'd better start sharing or the DEA will be tipped off to Hiatt's eternal regret.

Perhaps a thorough investigation of the Hospital and Somalia incidents would be relevant in a re-evaluation of the current strategies and effects of US military efforts overseas.

You think?

Indeed, Glenn. The comfortable in D.C. certainly exhibit a remarkable ability, with easy and insulated indifference, to avert their gaze and to segregate their thoughts and words from the horrors and random brutality of the destruction and death they continue to help perpetrate in Iraq.

From a new article, noted by Kagro X at DailyKos, describing funding for the continued use of armed force in Iraq:

By ANDREW TAYLOR

The Associated Press

President Bush sent lawmakers a $70 billion request Friday to fund U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan into next spring, which would give the next president breathing room to make his or her own war policy.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=4773315

Interesting description of our system of government's war powers there from the First Amendment-protected press. Perhaps the Associated Press ought to check which nation it is purportedly covering for its readers, or, at any rate, for its stockholding vested interests:

The British model gave the king the absolute power to make war. The American framers repudiated that form of government because their study of history convinced them that executives go to war not for the national interest but to satisfy personal desires of glory, ambition, and fame. The resulting military adventures were disastrous to their countries, both in lives lost and treasures squandered. I have submitted to your subcommittee a number of my recent articles that elaborate on the lessons drawn from that history.

[snip]

Military commitments are not in the hands of admirals and generals but are placed in civilian leaders, including members of Congress. Lawmakers can at any time limit and terminate military commitments. The framers vested the decisive and ultimate powers of war and spending in the legislative branch. American democracy places the sovereign power in the people and entrusts to them the temporary delegation of that power to elected Senators and Representatives.

[snip]

Instead of acting directly to defend legislative powers, it will be tempting for lawmakers to believe that judicial relief is available and to count on successful litigation. Only one branch was meant to protect congressional power: Congress.

[snip]

The framers put their faith not in an all-wise, all-knowing Executive but in a republican form of government where sovereign power remains with the people and their interests are [only...] protected by the structure of separated powers and the operation of checks and balances.

- Louis Fisher, Library of Congress, 4/10/08

http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/110/fis041008.htm

The Article I congressional power to declare war is not limited to the formal power of issuing a declaration, nor to authorizing full-scale wars, but was intended to give Congress the power to decide whether the United States should initiate any offensive military hostilities, however big or little, or for whatever purposes. - Law Professor Jules Lobel, 4/10/08

http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/110/lob041008.htm

The starting point must be the Constitution. In its earliest cases, the Supreme Court recognized a president's obligation to respect congressional restrictions when Congress has authorized "imperfect war" - a war fought for limited purposes. In an imperfect war, Justice Bushrod Washington said in Bas v. Tingy, 4 U.S. 37, 41 (1800), those "who are authorized to commit hostilities . . . can go no farther than to the extent of their commission." The following year, in Talbot v. Seeman, 5 U.S. 1, 27 (1801), Chief Justice John Marshall wrote that "[t]he whole powers of war being, by the Constitution of the United States, vested in Congress, the acts of that body can alone be resorted to as our guides in this enquiry." In the 2001 AUMF and in the 2002 Joint Resolution on Iraq, Congress in effect authorized limited or "imperfect" war. The President is therefore constitutionally required to respect the limits imposed in those two laws; Congress has implicitly prohibited any use of force not authorized therein, and the President's authority is at its "lowest ebb" - lower than it might have been had Congress been silent. This is the critical lesson imparted by Justice Jackson's famous concurring opinion in the Steel Seizure Case, 343 U.S. 579 (1952), which has since been adopted by the Supreme Court as the governing analytic framework.

[snip]

Because serious ambiguities are present in both the 2002 Joint Resolution and the AUMF if they are construed as authorizing the use of force in Iraq [today], it cannot be said that either statute "specifically" does so.

This section also undercuts Ambassador Satterfield's claim that authority may be inferred from the fact that "Congress has repeatedly provided funding for the Iraq war, both in regular appropriations cycles and in supplemental appropriations." The [WPR] section explicitly provides that authority to introduce the armed forces into hostilities "shall not be inferred…from any provision of law…, including any provision contained in any appropriation Act," unless those two conditions are met. No appropriations act meets either condition.

Accordingly, the War Powers Resolution precludes inferring authority to [continue to] use force in Iraq from the 2002 Joint Resolution, from the AUMF, or from any appropriations legislation.

- International Law Professor Michael Glennon, 4/10/08

http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/110/gle041008.htm

Read Professor Glennon's full statement to learn of just one straightforward approach to ending our amoral occupation of Iraq, which requires unilateral authority from only one branch of government; authority not from the Executive Branch, but from the Legislative Branch, which alone holds the power, and whose members have all taken an honor-bound oath - in accorance with their Constitutional duties - to 'make war policy' for our nation.

http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/sub_oversight.asp

All that thinking is so pre-9/11 it would make poor Fred's head spin off like a top.

With what or whose army (troops) does he propose we occupy Somalia?

At a population of roughly 11 million, about a third of the population of Iraq, at least a quarter of a million troops would be needed.

Is he advocating for the return of conscription?

GG,

There are no words in English--or any other language for that matter--that could be used when talking about all of these evil people.

Hannah Arendt said it a long time ago: The banality of evil.

That says it all!

It appears as though the editorial board religiously took Ambien for years and only now is emerging from a Rumplestilskin-like coma. It opines that it is shocked, SHOCKED! that the FAA covered up errors at DFW and possibly (?) other sites. Link to the offending editorial at my name. My comment there is reprised here:

The reason that this comes as a shock to the Washington Post is that your paper has studiously failed to investigate what the air traffic controllers are virtually screaming on their blogs, which includes enough sourced evidence and detail to remove the scales from your eyes. Blogs of note:

The Main Bang by John Carr, former NATCA President and recently retired controller

http://themainbang.typepad.com/blog/

Get The Flick by Don Brown, Air Traffic Controller at the Atlanta Air Route Traffic Control Center for 25 years. He served as a Safety Representative for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) during the last nine years, until he retired from the FAA in 2006.

http://gettheflick.blogspot.com/

The FAA Follies by Paul Cox, a Seattle Center controller, and others - all of whom are controllers or who work in the field.

http://www.faafollies.com/

There are your primary sources and experts. Now get to work, Washington Post.

@ GG: Has NBC or Brian Williams responded yet to your request for an interview relative to General NBC Pentagon WH Propaganda-Gate?