DOCSLIB.ORG

PDF, 17 Pages, 91.8 KB

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
PDF, 17 Pages, 91.8 KB THE AL-QA'IDA NETWORK AND WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION By Jonathan Spyer* The use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by Middle Eastern terrorist groups is one of the world's worst nightmares, albeit a more credible one in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. Finding evidence, however, of such groups' plans or efforts in this direction is difficult. This article assesses the available information on the motives and capabilities of these organizations, and especially the al-Qa'ida network, to carry out such attacks. (This article was originally written for a project and conference on "Countering Threats in the Era of Mass Destruction: Accounts from the Middle East and Europe," co-sponsored by the GLORIA Center and The Military Centre for Strategic Studies (CeMiSS) of Italy.) The use of weapons of mass destruction groups are considered to have developed (WMD) by a terrorist organization is one some non-conventional capability, albeit of the central threat scenarios currently of a limited and primitive nature. These facing democracies around the world. include: the Kurdish PKK, which experts The seriousness of the danger posed by consider to have weaponized Sarin nerve militant Islamist terror groups has been gas;(3) Hamas, which has coated apparent since the attacks of September fragments placed in bombs with 11, 2001. While evidence has been pesticides and poisons; and a number of unearthed of attempts by a number of U.S. "Patriot" groups, who have Islamist groups to acquire a non- experimented with various rudimentary conventional capability,(1) it is generally biological devices.(4) accepted that the al-Qa'ida network poses A number of key questions arise in the principle threat regarding the considering the issue of al-Qa'ida and employment of weapons of mass WMD: To what extent has it succeeded destruction by Islamist terrorists. In order in gaining access to the materials to understand the nature and dimensions necessary for the preparation of weapons of the threat, arriving at a correct of mass destruction? To what extent does understanding of the nature of al-Qa'ida-- it possess the necessary technical both in terms of its structure and in terms expertise required in the preparation of of the ideas driving and underlying its such weapons? Which state actors might activity--is therefore crucial. Equally be identified as potential or actual sources important is the sober analysis of the of support and assistance in its efforts to available evidence detailing attempts by acquire such weapons? How does the use the network to obtain a non-conventional of such weapons fit in with the strategy weapons capability, and observation of of al-Qa'ida? Finally, why, given the the more general patterns of use of WMD clear evidence that the network has by insurgent and terrorist groups. invested with some success in efforts to To date, the sole clearly documented obtain, for example, a rudimentary example of a terrorist use of WMD biological capability, have there as yet resulting in fatalities was that of the Sarin been no examples of successful terror gas attack in the Tokyo subway, attacks carried out by al-Qa'ida operatives perpetrated by the Aum Shinrikyo group using WMD? in Japan in 1995.(2) A number of terrorist Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 8, No. 3 (September 2004) 29 Jonathan Spyer Is it indeed, as Eliza Manningham- name of the new network was taken from Buller, director of Britain's MI5 put it, the writings of Azzam (who was killed by only a "matter of time" before such an a car bomb in 1989).(9) But the driving attack takes place?(5) Have measures force behind its foundation was bin taken by Western law enforcement and Ladin. intelligence agencies proven sufficient to For bin Ladin and his closest cohorts, foil al-Qa'ida's ambitions in this area? Or, the Afghan experience is a "founding conversely, has al-Qa'ida deliberately myth" whose intensity and central lesson held back from the employment of such is best captured in his own words: "Those means of destruction for reasons relating who carried out the jihad in Afghanistan to the role of terrorist violence in the did more than was expected of them network's overall strategy? because with very meager capacities they destroyed the largest military force (the AL-QA'IDA: IDEA AND Soviet Army) and in so doing removed ORGANIZATION from our minds this notion of stronger The origins of al-Qa'ida as both idea nations. We believe that America is and organization are to be found in the weaker than Russia."(10) units of Arab volunteers that took part in The Arab fighters thus drew from their the war against the USSR in Afghanistan Afghan experience the conviction that in the 1980s. Usama bin Ladin, founder through strength of will and dedication along with the Palestinian Muslim their success could be replicated Brotherhood activist Abdallah Azzam of elsewhere. When bin Ladin returned to the Maktab al-Khalimat (the Afghan Saudi Arabia in 1989, it was to a hero's Service Bureau or MAK), was a prime welcome. As a son of one of the mover in recruiting and organizing these kingdom's wealthiest families, who had fighters.(6) Utilizing his family's wealth, nevertheless freely embraced the role of bin Ladin established training camps for mujahid, he was widely seen as Arab volunteers, constructed essential embodying those qualities of militant roads and tunnels, contributed large sums piety and incorruptibility which the of money, compensated the families of kingdom professed itself to uphold. wounded fighters, and apparently also Bin Ladin rapidly became a key personally participated in important Islamist opponent to the regime, military engagements.(7) however, criticizing its venality and MAK was one of seven recognized alleged subordination to the West. His principal mujahideen organizations criticisms notwithstanding, he offered the involved in the fight against the Soviets. support of his fighters to the kingdom As such, bin Ladin may have benefited when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in from aid afforded the mujahedeen by the 1990. His offer was rebuffed, and instead, CIA at this time.(8) As victory drew near bin Ladin witnessed the inflow of a large in the late 1980s, however, bin Ladin and U.S. force to Saudi Arabia, tasked to Azzam parted ways. While Azzam protect the kingdom from invasion. More wished to continue the focus on than any other, it was this issue of the Afghanistan, bin Ladin now wanted to American military presence in the Gulf use the Afghan experience and that formed the focus of bin Ladin's rage infrastructure to continue the jihad in at the West, and set him on the road that other countries. In 1988, al-Qa'ida al- would lead to his later notoriety. As bin sulbah (the solid base) was founded, as an Ladin wrote, "Since God laid down the organizational structure intended to Arabian peninsula, created its desert and maintain the links between the "Afghan surrounded it with its seas, no calamity Arabs" for further jihad operations after has ever befallen it like these Crusader the conclusion of the Afghan war. The hosts that have spread in it like locusts, 30 Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 8, No. 3 (September 2004) The Al-Qa'ida Network and Weapons of Mass Destruction crowing its soil, eating its fruits and regime requested in May 1996 that bin destroying its verdure."(11) Ladin leave Sudanese soil. The latter Bin Ladin's resentment of the Western complied with the request, and was able military presence in the Hijaz has deep to set up his base once more in roots in Islam and Islamic history. An Afghanistan.(14) infidel military presence in the heartland of Islam--the attacks by Reynold of CHANGE AND EVOLUTION IN AL- Chatillon on Muslim convoys in the QA'IDA Hijaz--was the precipitating factor in In the course of the 1990s, both al- Salah al-Din's declaration of jihad against Qa'ida's organizational base and the idea the Crusaders.(12) Bin Ladin sought to that drove it underwent considerable emulate historical precedent by change and development. From an mobilizing his network of Afghan Arabs. organization whose primary concern had Increasingly, the focus of his attacks been the presence of infidel forces in would be less on the Saudi regime, which Saudi Arabia, al-Qa'ida from the mid- had supposedly failed in its duty by 1990s onward began to stress much allowing the infidels into the "land of the broader themes and grievances. Also two holy places." Rather, as the 1990s from an organization that had been built progressed, bin Ladin's target became the around the core of Arab veterans of the United States itself, as well as the broader Afghan war, al-Qa'ida began to expand to Western world. form a linking network, bringing together As a result of his declarations and radical Islamist organizations in many activities against the Saudi regime, bin different parts of the world.(15) Ladin's Saudi citizenship was revoked in By metamorphosing into a network, April 1994 and he was forced to leave the al-Qa'ida became a facilitating element country. He found a willing host in the for carrying out attacks that were planned Islamist regime of Umar al-Bashir in and perpetrated by militants who were Sudan, to where he repaired with his not organizationally connected to bin family and a large group of followers. In Ladin in any permanent, hierarchical Sudan, he set about creating an economic structure. To this effect, the network infrastructure which would provide developed a flexible, multi-faceted employment and activity for large modus operandi, establishing safehouses, numbers of his Afghan Arabs, many of places of residence and training camps in whom preferred to continue their lives Afghanistan, Sudan, Pakistan and Yemen within the framework of jihad rather than in the course of the 1990s.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Iraq Index Tracking Variables of Reconstruction & Security in Post-Saddam Iraq
    THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION 1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20036-2188 Tel: 202-797-6000 Fax: 202-797-6004 www.brooking s.edu Iraq Index Tracking Variables of Reconstruction & Security in Post-Saddam Iraq www.brookings.edu/iraqindex Updated October 31, 2005 For full source information for entries other than the current month, please see the Iraq Index archives at www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/indexarchive.htm Michael E. O’Hanlon Nina Kamp For more information please contact Nina Kamp at [email protected] TABLE OF CONTENTS Security Indicators Page U.S. Troop Fatalities since March 2003…….……………………………………………………………....…………………………………………………4 Cause of Death for US Troops…………………………………………………………...…………………………………………………………………….5 American Military Fatalities by Category……………………………………………………………………….….……………………………….……….6 Geographic Distribution of Military Fatalities……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….6 U.S. Troops Wounded in Action since March 2003……………………………..…………….…………………………………….………………………..7 British Military Fatalities since March 2003………………………………….……………….…………………….............................................................7 Non-U.S. & U.K. Coalition Military Fatalities since March, 2003……………..….…………………….…………………………….…………...………..8 Non-U.S. & U.K. Coalition Military Fatalities by Country since March 2003…….…………………………………………………………...…………..8 Iraqi Military and Police Killed since January 2005…………………………………………………………………………………………………..……..9 Estimates of Iraqi Civilians Killed Since the Start of the War …………………………………………………………….…………………………….…9
    [Show full text]
  • Mohamed Salah Harzallah the Great Irish Famine Is a Watershed Event In
    Brolly. Journal of Social Sciences 3 (3) 2020 SITES OF CINEMATOGRAPHIC MEMORY: “BLACK’47” AS A CONSTRUCTION OF THE IRISH PAST Mohamed Salah Harzallah Associate Professor of Irish and British Studies, University of Sousse, Tunisia [email protected] Abstract. This article deals with how the history of the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s is reconstructed and presented to the global viewers of the film Black’47 (2018). It shows that the film’s narrative reflected a Nationalist perception of the Irish past which condemns the role of the British politicians of the time. It also concludes that the film provides an opportunity for the Irish in Ireland and abroad with a site of cinematographic memory that transcends the national borders of Ireland and engages the public in the process of remembering and reconstructing the history of this calamity. Keywords: Irish film, Great Irish Famine, memory, public history, Black 47, Irish history The Great Irish Famine is a watershed event in Ireland, the memory of which has survived in the Irish collective memory until the present day. In the last two decades, a plethora of publications dealt with the Famine events from different perspectives while dividing scholars into three major groups. Nationalist, Revisionist and Post- Revisionist historians provided divergent views about what happened in Ireland in the 1840s. Apart from professional historians, the filmmaker Lance Daly contributed to the construction of the Famine events in his film Black’47 (2018). He attempted to show how the Irish lived under British rule in the year 1847 - the peak of Famine. Traditional historians, who show commitment to method and training, have shown a rejection of films as a source of information 73 Mohamed Salah Harzallah – Sites of Cinematographic Memory as filmmakers often sacrifice truth to an emotional and subjective construction of the events.
    [Show full text]
  • Dysfunctional? Dissonant? Démodé? America's
    DYSFUNCTIONAL? DISSONANT? DÉMODÉ? AMERICA’S CONSTITUTIONAL WOES IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE RAN HIRSCHL* INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................... 939 I. THE “FUNDAMENTAL CONSTITUTIONAL DISHARMONY” SCENARIO ... 941 II. THE “SYNTHETIC CONSTITUTION” SCENARIO ..................................... 948 III. THE “OPPORTUNISTIC CONSTITUTIONAL WARS” SCENARIO............... 953 IV. THE “INADEQUATE/DATED CONSTITUTION” SCENARIO ..................... 956 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................... 959 INTRODUCTION Many signs indicate that systemic political malaise and government dysfunction have taken hold in America. Sarcasm is prevalent in discussions of politicians and government institutions. Talk in the media is characterized by nonstop self-lamentation and doomsaying. International observers are becoming more and more concerned. All of this creates an impression of a fatally gridlocked, if not an altogether lost, political and constitutional system. Certainly, government shutdown is not a sign of good political health in any polity, let alone in a major economic and military powerhouse that professes to be the motherland of modern democracy. That certain “hard-wired” structural elements of America’s constitutional order are to blame for some of the country’s political woes seems indisputable.1 The challenge of constitutional obsoleteness and the distorted policy outcomes it yields seems particularly pressing.
    [Show full text]
  • Fascist Legacies: the Controversy Over Mussolini’S Monuments in South Tyrol
    University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Faculty Publications, Department of History History, Department of 2013 Fascist Legacies: The Controversy over Mussolini’s Monuments in South Tyrol Gerald Steinacher University of Nebraska-Lincoln, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/historyfacpub Steinacher, Gerald, "Fascist Legacies: The Controversy over Mussolini’s Monuments in South Tyrol" (2013). Faculty Publications, Department of History. 144. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/historyfacpub/144 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the History, Department of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications, Department of History by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Gerald Steinacher* Fascist Legacies:1 Th e Controversy over Mussolini’s Monuments in South Tyrol2 Th e northern Italian town of Bolzano (Bozen in German) in the western Dolomites is known for breathtaking natural landscapes as well as for its medieval city centre, gothic cathedral, and world-famous mummy, Ötzi the Iceman, which is on dis- play at the local archaeological museum. At the same time, Bolzano’s more recent history casts a shadow over the town. Th e legacy of fascism looms large in the form of Ventennio fascista-era monuments such as the Victory Monument, a mas- sive triumphal arch commissioned by the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and located in Bolzano’s Victory Square, and the Mussolini relief on the façade of the former Fascist Party headquarters (now a tax offi ce) at Courthouse Square, which depicts il duce riding a horse with his arm raised high in the Fascist salute.
    [Show full text]
  • Interdisciplinary Journal of the William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric
    Interdisciplinary Journal of the William J. Perry Volume 14 2013 Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies ISSN: 1533-2535 Special Issue: The Drug Policy Debate FOREIGN POLICY AND SECURITY ISSUES THE DRUG POLICY DEBATE Michael Kryzanek, China, United States, and Latin A Selection of Brief Essays Representing America: Challenges and Opportunities the Diversity of Opinion, Contributors: Marilyn Quagliotti, Timothy Lynch, Hilton McDavid and Noel M. Cowell, A Peter Hakim (with Kimberly Covington), Perspective on Cutting Edge Research for Crime and Craig Deare, AMB Adam Blackwell, and Security Policies and Programs in the Caribbean General (ret.) Barry McCaffrey Tyrone James, The Growth of the Private Security Industry in Barbados: A Case Study BOOK REVIEWS Phil Kelly, A Geopolitical Interpretation of Security Joseph Barron: Review of Max Boot, Concerns within United States–Latin American Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Relations Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present Emily Bushman: Review of Mark FOCUS ON BRAZIL Schuller, Killing With Kindness: Haiti, Myles Frechette and Frank Samolis, A Tentative International Aid, and NGOs Embrace: Brazil’s Foreign and Trade Relations with Philip Cofone: Review of Gastón Fornés the United States and Alan Butt Philip, The China–Latin Salvador Raza, Brazil’s Border Security Systems America Axis: Emerging Markets and the Initiative: A Transformative Endeavor in Force Future of Globalisation Design Cole Gibson: Review of Rory Carroll, Shênia K. de Lima, Estratégia Nacional de Defesa Comandante:
    [Show full text]
  • Iran in Latin America Threat Or ‘Axis of Annoyance’?
    IRAN Wilson Center Reports on the Americas • # 23 Woodrow I N LA TI N A IRAN IN LATIN AMERICA M E R Threat or ‘Axis of Annoyance’? I C A Threat or ‘ A xis of A nnoyance’? EDITED BY Cynthia Arnson Haleh Esfandiari and Adam Stubits Latin American Program Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20004 Tel. (202) 691-4030 Fax (202) 691-4076 www.wilsoncenter.org/lap Latin American Program Middle East Program IRAN IN LATIN AMERICA: THREAt or ‘AXIS OF ANNOYance’? Latin American Program Middle East Program IRAN IN LATIN AMERICA: THREAt or ‘AXIS OF ANNOYance’? Edited by Cynthia Arnson, Haleh Esfandiari and Adam Stubits Woodrow Wilson Center Reports on the Americas # 23 The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars is the national, living memorial honoring President Woodrow Wilson. In providing an essential link between the worlds of ideas and public policy, the Center addresses current and emerging challenges confront- ing the United States and the world. The Center promotes policy-rele- vant research and dialogue to increase understanding and enhance the capabilities and knowledge of leaders, citizens, and institutions world- wide. Created by an Act of Congress in 1968, the Center is a nonpartisan institution headquartered in Washington, D.C., and supported by both public and private funds. Lee H. Hamilton, President and Director Available from the Latin American Program Board of Trustees Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Joseph B. Gildenhorn, Chair One Woodrow Wilson Plaza Sander R. Gerber, Vice Chair 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20004-3027 Public members: James H.
    [Show full text]
  • Brexit: Overview, Trade, and Northern Ireland
    Brexit: Overview, Trade, and Northern Ireland March 24, 2021 Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov R46730 SUMMARY R46730 Brexit: Overview, Trade, and Northern Ireland March 24, 2021 The United Kingdom (UK) withdrew from the European Union (EU) on January 31, 2020. Under the withdrawal agreement negotiated by the two sides, the UK continued to apply EU rules Derek E. Mix, Coordinator during a transition period lasting to the end of 2020. In December 2020, UK and EU negotiators Specialist in European concluded a Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) that sets out terms of the future Affairs relationship, including on trade, economic relations, and cooperation on a range of other issues. The agreement left numerous questions and issues unresolved, however, meaning many aspects of the UK-EU relationship may evolve over time and through subsequent negotiations. Shayerah I. Akhtar Specialist in International Trade and Finance Trade and Economic Impacts After the transition period, the UK left the EU customs union and regained the ability to pursue Kristin Archick an independent national trade policy. The TCA avoids the severe disruption to UK-EU trade that Specialist in European many feared with a hard Brexit on World Trade Organization (WTO) terms but does not replicate Affairs the far more frictionless trading that occurs in the EU single market. Analysts predict the disruption resulting from Brexit and the adjustment to the new UK-EU trading relationship under the TCA may have a negative economic impact on the UK, at least in the near term; many businesses in the UK have been taking steps to mitigate potential economic losses.
    [Show full text]
  • Russell, James A. : Innovation in the Crucible of War: the United States
    INNOVATION IN THE CRUCIBLE OF WAR: THE UNITED STATES COUNTERINSURGENCY CAMPAIGN IN IRAQ, 2005-2007 By James A. Russell War Studies Department King’s College, University of London Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of PhD, July 2009 ABSTRACT This dissertation critically examines the conduct of counterinsurgency operations in Iraq by a series of U.S. Army and Marine Corps units operating in Anbar and Ninewa provinces in Iraq from late 2005 through early 2007. The popular narrative of the American counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq is that military success followed the ‘surge’ of American troops in the spring 2007 and the appointment of General David Petraeus as the ground commander committed to counterinsurgency operations. While both factors were undoubtedly important in America’s counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq, the research in this book demonstrates that this narrative is somewhat misleading. I argue that by the time Petraeus took over command to “rescue” the counterinsurgency campaign in early 2007, American military units had already built successful counterinsurgency competencies and were experiencing battlefield success – most dramatically in the battle for Ramadi in the fall of 2006. The process of successful adaptation in the field began in late 2005 in Anbar and Ninewa provinces and did so with little direction from higher military and civilian authorities. I argue that that the collective momentum of tactical adaptation within the units studied here can be characterized as organizational innovation. I define innovation as the widespread development of new organizational capacities not initially present in these units when they arrived in Iraq and which had only tangential grounding in previous military doctrine.
    [Show full text]
  • The Rise of the Islamic State: How the Nouri Al-Maliki Government Set the Conditions for the Resurgence of Islamic Extremism in Iraq
    The Rise of the Islamic State: How the Nouri al-Maliki government set the conditions for the resurgence of Islamic extremism in Iraq Arthur Vance Morgan, V Charlottesville, Virginia A.A. Arabic, Defense Language Institute, 2013 M.A. Business and Organizational Security Management, Webster University, 2012 B.S. Wildlife Science, Virginia Tech, 2004 A Thesis presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of Master of Arts in Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures University of Virginia December, 2016 In 2014 much of the world was taken aback by the seemingly over-night appearance of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which captured vast swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq within a few short months. The chaos created by the American withdrawal from Iraq and the Syrian civil war provided a small group of radical Sunni Islamists with poorly defended territory and fertile recruiting grounds. When the group came out of the shadows and captured city after city in northern and western Iraq, it displayed remarkable strength and speed, and a surprising ability to capture and hold territory. Their unprecedented battlefield successes proved that Iraq was still far from being the united and democratic country that the US government hoped to build in the Middle East. Despite international shock at the group’s success, its occupation of portions of northern and western Iraq should have hardly been a surprise. The Iraqi government’s pro-Shia policies left the nation’s Sunni leaders in a precarious position in which they were forced to choose between an untrustworthy government and Islamic extremists.
    [Show full text]
  • Irish Newsletter for Development Education Exchange
    INDEX INDEX Issue 26 / April 2010 Irish Newsletter for Development Education Exchange INDEX Editorial Contents At a recent conference organised by the Centre for Global Education David Selby argued that Natural disasters? 3 development education needs to draw on by Patsy Toland emergency education, ‘as the world moves into multiple crisis syndrome, emergency will I see black people: coverage of 4 no longer be out there, but here, there and the Haiti earthquake by Gavan Titley everywhere.’ While the recent extreme weather conditions in Ireland, involving both flooding and Haiti: a tragedy or a brilliant 6 snow, cannot be compared to the scale of the business opportunity? devastation wrought by the earthquake in Haiti, by José Antonio Gutiérrez D they did highlight our lack of ability to deal with ‘natural’ disasters. INDEX Links: 8 Senan Gardiner’s report from the UN climate Dev Ed courses and events summit in Copenhagen tells us that not only did the global summit end without an international EU News & International Dates 10 agreement, but also that talks during the summit focused on the impact of emissions, rather than IDEA Corner 11 acknowledging that the world urgently needs to transition to a low carbon economy and to start Dev Ed news, funding, 12 talking at an international level about how we’re and resources going to do that. In this issue of Index Patsy Toland questions Climate Justice when? 13 whether disasters can in fact be considered by Senan Gardiner ‘natural’, or whether the devastation wrought is in fact exacerbated by human actions. Gavin Resource Review: Tales of Disaster 15 Titley deconstructs the media coverage of the by Mary O’Reilly Haiti earthquake, and provides ideas for how it could be used to educate about critical media literacy, to analyse the assumptions and uncover bias.
    [Show full text]
  • Regarding Dujail
    [Vol. 11 2008] TOURO INTERNATIONAL LAW REVIEW 119 REGARDING DUJAIL : WAS SADDAM ’S TYRANNICAL RULE BROUGHT TO AN UNJUST END ? Katherine A. Breazier * INTRODUCTION : Saddam Hussein (hereinafter “Hussein”), the feared former leader of Iraq, has been branded by some as the “Arab Stalin” 1 for the scale of his alleged crimes throughout his reign. Hussein’s criminal acts include the 1987-88 Anfal campaign, where hundreds of thousands of Kurds were displaced and killed, the gassing of the village of Halabja, where an estimated 5,000 people died, and strings of mass executions, including the massacre of 8,000 people from the Barzani tribe. 2 Despite Hussein’s list of numerous crimes against humanity, Hussein was tried in 2005 by a Coalitional Provisional Authority 3-created court, the Iraqi High Tribunal (hereinafter “IHT”), only for ordering the arrest, displacement, detention, torture and execution of nearly one hundred-fifty people in the village of Dujail, a village thirty-five miles north of Baghdad in Iraq’s central Salahaddin governorate. 4 Hussein, along with three senior former Iraqi officials and four lower-level Ba’ath party members, was charged with crimes against humanity for the massacre on Dujail. 5 Hussein, who was subsequently convicted on nearly all counts, was sentenced to death by hanging and was executed in December 2006. 6 *Katherine A. Breazier, 2009 J.D. Candidate, Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center 1 Rory Carroll, Saddam Trial to Open with Village Massacre , GLOBAL POLICY FORUM , June 7, 2005, available at http://globalpolicy.igc.org/intljustice/tribunals/iraq/2005/0607massacre.htm.
    [Show full text]
  • Draft Not for Circulation
    DRAFT NOT FOR CIRCULATION <Page i – Author biog.> Imogen Tyler is a Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University, and a Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Science. Her first book, Revolting Subjects (2013), was shortlisted for the Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing. Stigma: the Machinery of Inequality was supported by the Leverhulme Trust through a Philip Leverhulme Prize. 1 <Page ii – also by> By the same author: Revolting Subjects: social abjection and resistance in neoliberal Britain The Sociology of Stigma (edited with Tom Slater) From Stigma Power to Black Power (a graphic essay produced with the artist Charlotte Bailey) Immigrant protest: politics, aesthetics, and everyday dissent (edited with Katarzyna Marciniak) Protesting citizenship: migrant activisms (edited with Katarzyna Marciniak) 2 <Page iii – title page> Stigma The Machinery of Inequality Imogen Tyler <Zed Books logo> 3 <Page iv – copyright page to follow> An earlier version of Chapter Two was published in the Sociological Review, and an earlier version of Chapter Three was published in Ethnic and Racial Studies. Some names and details have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved. The author and publisher are grateful to the Elizabeth Roberts Working Class Oral History Archive at the Regional History Centre, Lancaster University for permission to quote from interview data from the archive. 4 <Page v – Dedication> This book is dedicated to the Morecambe Bay Poverty Truth Commission whose humanity and practices of social solidarity fill me with hope for the future 5 <Page vi – blank> 6 <pp.vii> Contents List of Illustrations 00 Introduction: Stigma, the Machinery of Inequality 00 1.
    [Show full text]