The Iranian government's response to US District Judge Royce Lamberth's ruling last week that Iran must pay US$2.65 billion to the families of the 241 US Marines killed in the 1983 bombing of the US barracks in Beirut came in the expected form: No way.
Despite the regime's less-than-stellar record on peace, its reaction to the court decision (which comes at a time when the US is seeking to further isolate Tehran) is not only understandable, but the correct one, as abiding by it would only exacerbate a system by which the US reigns primus inter pares, exempt from the laws that apply to the rest of humanity.
Had it chosen to do so, Tehran could easily have countered by arguing that by extension of Lamberth's logic, many Lebanese, who during the 1975 to 1990 Civil War were at the receiving end of hundreds of barrel-sized, 16-inch shells fired by US navy vessels, could also seek reparations for the numberless killed, a great many of whom were civilians.
Furthermore, it defies the imagination that a country could seek compensation for soldiers killed in the line of duty -- as peacekeepers or belligerents in an armed conflict -- as this is part of the risks a career in the military entails. It would be risible for Canada, for example, or Germany, to sue the Afghan government, or Pakistan, a supporter of Afghan militias, for the deaths of their soldiers participating in the stabilization mission in Afghanistan, or for African Union forces to do so when their soldiers begin to fall in Darfur next year. (Belgium reached the epitome of hypocrisy following the 1994 genocide in Rwanda by accusing the head of the UN mission there, General Romeo Dallaire of Canada, for failing to prevent the death of 10 of its paratroopers at the hands of Rwandan militias. A court martial later absolved Dallaire of any responsibility.)
By virtue of their presence in Lebanon, and as a result of Washington having taken sides in the Lebanese civil war, US soldiers, irrespective of how their mission was defined or construed by the families back in the US, became fair game. One organization, the nascent Lebanese Hezbollah, acted as it saw fit and targeted the army barracks, using means that sadly have become commonplace today -- a car bomb.
The attack itself, however horrific, was legitimate, for unlike the US embassy bombing earlier that same year, the victims in the Marines barracks were not civilian but military, a distinction that under international law means that, short of the use of proscribed weapons (chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear), it was not "illegal" to target them for attack, however unorthodox the means. In other words, despite arguments to the contrary, the attack did not constitute "terrorism."
In Hezbollah's view -- a view shared by many to this day -- the US soldiers were occupying their land, had chosen sides, were killing Lebanese and therefore needed to be ousted.
Sad as it is for the families of the victims, compensation through the seizure of Iranian assets worldwide would be wrong. The US has already attracted enough international opprobrium by refusing to become party to the International Criminal Court for fear that its soldiers would be unjustly tried in foreign courts for crimes committed in the line of duty. If, as US soldiers participate in armed conflicts (not an infrequent venture), foreign governments, groups or individuals were expected to pay for killing (or harming, if we push that concept to an extreme) them, it would only but fuel the resentment of which US soldiers are already a target.
Moreover, if such a precedent were set, nothing would prevent other equally venturesome nations (not to name any) from following suit. And just as the US (rightly) accused Iran of sponsoring Hezbollah, future prosecutors could in turn seek reparation from Washington for supporting and arming its own murderous proxies, such as Israel, for example, or the Iraqi military it is currently training.
Rather than seek reparation after soldiers are killed in a foreign land, the US should instead consider whether it was right to send them in the first place. Or, to be fair, it should pay compensation to the families of all the enemies it has killed in its countless wars.
Now, of course, that would be unreasonable.
J. Michael Cole is a writer based in Taipei.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not
RSS