On Staff Sergeant Bales

         The connection might seem like a slightly obscure one at first, but without too much effort and a very minimal history lesson it becomes quite apparent. It should be mentioned that the Universal Declaration on Human Rights was, and is, considered a binding agreement – that is, all the nations of the United Nations are expected to uphold the UD to the utmost of their abilities. That being said, you can point to almost every country and find – especially if you’re looking for it – examples of the UD being ignored completely in the treatment of the given country’s own citizens. We could go down the list of how the 48 signing members of the General Assembly have violated each article, but that’s not what this is about.



         Article 9, for example, is quite blatantly violated by the fiscal year 2012’s National Defense Authorization Act, which provides for the indefinite military detention of individuals without charge. A statement from President Obama insures that the administration "will interpret section 1021 in a manner that ensures that any detention it authorizes complies with the Constitution, the laws of war, and all other applicable law", clearly implying that the UD is not applicable law in matters of the United States’ security. In full, NDAA2012 violates multiple UD articles dealing with the treatment of criminals and suspects but none of this is reported as a violation of international law.



         Moving only to the next article, we can find a statement relevant to Staff Sergeant Bales’ situation. The article in full reads: “Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.” Since this is an international document, we can pretty safely assume the intentions of the statement apply to independent criminal acts during war times (which are different than war crimes), to protect the charged party from being tried, as the Afghanistan citizenry are requesting, in a surely partial tribunal. Suddenly the UD is being applied – although no one in the US military has named that as a (completely valid) reason to hold the trial outside Afghanistan.

         However a little bit of duality comes out of that, because an American military tribunal (most likely how he will be tried, now that official charges have been placed) would, in an international scope, not be considered an impartial tribunal. I’m not saying I believe an American tribunal – or even a standard public trial – would proclaim him innocent if significant evidence arose to the contrary, but trial before a multinational body or uninvolved nation (say, Sweden or Japan, just as random examples) would be beholden to the contextual application of the article.



         Do I believe the Afghan government is wrong in requesting to hold the trail of Bales in their own nation? No, I do not. I believe it to be a reasonable request and understandable given the United States’ history of glossing over, forgiving, or downright ignoring independent crimes committed in war zones and, more often, war crimes themselves when carried out by American soldiers. It has been suggested by Afghan officials that the crimes resulting in those 16 deaths could not have been committed by one man acting alone, if that is the case, which I have no reason to doubt its possibility, then charging Bales with a criminal act would be much preferable to the military than facing potential allegations of a war crime. Simply believing these allegations are possible does not mean I think they are likely or will get much notice. The US’ hesitancy, as of yet, to actively participate in the collection of evidence in the villages is somewhat suspect, however.



         However, the spirit of innocent until proven otherwise lives on, even if more in theory than in practice. We will simply have to wait and see how the case moves forward, and how our military relationship with Afghanistan’s population reacts to the information as it comes into the open.



If you would like a link to the full text of NDAA2012, please send me a message.