It’s the great riddle of the times — the good guys are fighting non-states trying to create states. But you can’t create a state that’s going to step on the good guys toes. But once the foreign guys (us) get the state going, the domestic guys (them) won’t bite if the foreign guys just ignore it anyway.
U.S. worried about need for warrants in Iraq
By Kim Gamel - The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Dec 16, 2008 16:49:27 ESTMAHMOUDIYA, Iraq — U.S. soldiers preparing for raids study maps, examine photos of wanted men and check their weapons. Starting next month, they’ll have to go see a judge.
For nearly six years, American troops have been free under a U.N. mandate to search any home and detain anyone deemed a security risk.
All that changes next month, when the mandate expires and a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement takes effect. From then on, troops must obtain Iraqi warrants for searches and arrests — and U.S. officers say the requirement is one of the biggest headaches in complying with the new rules.
“It takes away the option of saying, ‘Hey, this guy just came into town and we want him and we want him now,”‘ said Capt. Tom Smith, a company commander on his second tour in Iraq. “For some of us who were here before, it feels a bit slow.”
U.S. troops are scrambling to learn the ins and outs of an Iraqi legal system with unfamiliar rules and procedures, a cumbersome bureaucracy and a shortage of judges after years of violence.
“Unfamiliar rules and procedures” just sounds like a less-awesome way of saying compromised and corrupt. Iraqi justice, like Saudi justice, Kuwaiti justice, et al is a lot more about who you know and who you’re paying versus what can be shown. All that bunk about justice being blind, a big freaking ball of trust to put in any system, has more holes in it than Saddam Hussein’s kids.
Iraq’s courts are just lousy, with the all makings of any court in a half-baked state, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, take your pick of lousy court having countries. That article may be two years old, but the pie-in-the-sky expansionist dream that we’ll be able to graft western legal systems into non-western societies is about to be put through the wringer-on-the-ground of practicality.
Bear in mind, this is the same courts that summarily booted out 20,000 random convicts, detainees awaiting trial and just plain old folks thrown in jail to rot because… well, just because. See, Sunnis and Shias can agree on some things - like undoing a few years of legal work in a flash. POOF!
My advice for commander’s on the ground is to familiarize yourself with the old fashioned world of greased-palms. Bribery in the third-world is a subtle affair. Show up with piles of cash and you’re going to get hurriedly shoved out the door. There is finesse to the art.
But back when the Ball Gunner was but a lad he traveled to South America with Ball Gunner Sr., who was the ship captain for a merchant line. The custom’s officials came and left shortly thereafter, their wealth increased by a few cartons of cigarettes and perhaps some mid-grade scotch or bourbon. The trade off being that the customs papers were cleared with little hassle. The alternative, high-and-mighty approach, is to send the customs officials packing and prepare for your ship to sit idle, while paying buckets in port fees, for a thorough customs inspection. This is what those with good sense refer to as “the cost of doing business.”
Well, my guess is that commanders are about to learn all about “the cost of doing business” in the Iraqi courts. Paltry offerings, smokes and cheap booze, keep a lid on rampant corruption that gets greasy and entangling real quick.
Of course, if we’re going to have success, the coalition will have to show Joe Iraqi that Al-Scalia and Bin-Ginsburg are in charge of Iraqi justice. Iraqi courts have to dispense Iraqi justice, at least on the surface. Of course, if Iraqi justice steps on the coalition mission, the strategic poo will hit the legitimacy fan.
