Jeh
Johnson Speech at the Oxford Union
By
Benjamin Wittes Friday, November 30,
2012 at 12:01 PM
At
this hour, Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson is giving the following speech
at the Oxford Union in England:
“The
Conflict Against Al Qaeda and its Affiliates: How Will It End?”
Jeh
Charles Johnson
General
Counsel of the U.S. Department of Defense at the Oxford Union, Oxford
University[1]
November
30, 2012
Thank
you for inviting me. It is a privilege for me to stand here, in the same
place, before the same Union, as the Prime Ministers, Presidents, and other
world notables who have preceded me.
I
am the General Counsel of the U.S. Defense Department. If I had to
summarize my job in one sentence: it is to
ensure that everything our military and our Defense Department do is consistent
with U.S. and international law. This includes the prior legal review
of every military operation that the Secretary of Defense and the President
must approve.
My
counterpart here in the United Kingdom is Ms. Frances Nash, the legal adviser
to the U.K. Ministry of Defence. Like Ms. Nash, I am a civilian, not a
member of the military, consistent with the principle in both our countries of
civilian oversight of the military. Unlike Ms. Nash, who is a civil
servant and a long-time official of the Ministry of Defence, I am a political
appointee. This means I serve at the pleasure of the current
President, and have no expectation of serving for any other.
Here
in the United Kingdom, you refer to July 7, 2005, the day of the terrorist
suicide bombings of the London subway, as “7/7.” I am a New Yorker and a
personal witness to the events of “9/11.” I was a private citizen then,
and like many others that day, wandered the streets of Manhattan asking: “what
can I do to help?”
Over
the last 46 months as a public official, I have tried to answer that question.
There
is a quote from the Brookings Institution in Washington, which motivates my own
public service:
American
government was designed to be led by citizens who would step out of private
life for a term of office, then return to their communities enriched by service
and ready to recruit the next generation of citizen servants. The
Founding Fathers believed in a democracy led by individuals who would not
become so enamored of power and addicted to perquisites that they use
government as an instrument of self-aggrandizement.
Indeed,
it was the British poet Lord Byron who called our First President, George
Washington, the “Cincinnatus of the West” for his decision to surrender his
personal power after the American Revolution and retire to his farm on Mount
Vernon.[2]
As
a member of the Obama Administration for the last four years, I have been
privileged to witness many transformational and historic events in the national
security of the United States.
We
ended the combat mission in Iraq.
We
increased the number of combat forces in Afghanistan and have reversed much of
the Taliban’s momentum in the country. Challenges remain, but violence is
down across the country. We have a timetable for transitioning our efforts in
Afghanistan to the Afghans’ own security forces, and we are adhering to
it. And though we have disagreed with our Afghan partners from time to
time, as of this date we have negotiated and signed understandings with the
Afghan government on detention operations,[3] special operations[4] and an overall strategic partnership,[5] representing major milestones toward the day when the
peace and security of that country is fully in the hands of the Afghan people
and their government.
I
was in Afghanistan last week, to spend Thanksgiving with the troops.
While there I encountered a number of Her Majesty’s armed forces.
The British subjects here should be proud of them all. The British
hospital I visited at Camp Bastion was first-rate and amazing. And the
very good news on that particular day was, at three separate hospitals, I saw
not a single U.S. or UK casualty, except for a U.S. soldier in need of an
appendectomy, a British soldier with a bad knee, and many bored and happy
trauma teams standing around with nothing to do.
We
banned “enhanced interrogation techniques,” consistent with the calls of many
in our country, including our own military, that great nations simply do not
treat other human beings that way. These controversial practices have
been banned, yet we continue to gather valuable intelligence in a manner
consistent with our Army Field Manual, the Detainee Treatment Act, and
international law.
We
worked with our Congress to enact the Military Commissions Act of 2009, which
reformed our system of military commissions to ensure due process and fairness
for the accused. Today, our system of military commissions prosecutions of
Khalid Sheik Mohammed and the other alleged organizers of the September 11
attacks is more credible, sustainable and transparent. One of our
nation’s finest military lawyers, and a Rhodes Scholar, Brigadier General Mark
Martins, is now the chief prosecutor in that system.
We
worked with our Congress to pass the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010,
such that gay and lesbian members of the U.S. military can now be open and
honest about their sexual orientation without fear of being separated for that
reason. In the words of one gay servicemember: “you took a knife out of
my back; you have no idea what it is like to serve in silence.”
And,
finally, we have, in a manner consistent with our laws and values, taken the
fight directly to the terrorist organization al Qaeda, the result of which is
that the core of al Qaeda is today degraded, disorganized and on the run.
Osama bin Laden is dead. Many other leaders and terrorist operatives of
al Qaeda are dead or captured; those left in al Qaeda’s core struggle to
communicate, issue orders, and recruit.
But,
there is still danger and there is still much to do. Al Qaeda’s core has
been degraded, leaving al Qaeda more decentralized, and most terrorist activity
now conducted by local franchises, such as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
(based in Yemen) and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (operating in north and
west Africa). So, therefore, in places like Yemen, and in partnership
with that government, we are taking the fight directly to AQAP, and continually
disrupting its plans to conduct terrorist attacks against U.S. and Yemeni
interests.
Al
Qaeda has sought to attack the UK on a number of occasions. Two years
ago, Her Majesty’s government assessed:
“We
face a real and pressing
threat
from international terrorism, particularly that inspired by Al Qaeda and its
affiliates . . . Al Qaeda remains the most potent terrorist threat to the UK.”[6]
Our
efforts against al Qaeda have involved multiple instruments of the U.S.
government, including the military, civilian law enforcement, and intelligence
services, in partnership with the United Kingdom and other nations.
It
is the U.S. military’s efforts against al Qaeda and associated forces that has
demanded most of my time, generated much public legal commentary, and presented
for us what are perhaps the weightiest legal issues in national security.
It is the topic I will spend the balance of my remarks on tonight.
The
United States government is in an armed conflict against al Qaeda and
associated forces, to which the laws of armed conflict apply. One week
after 9/11, our Congress authorized our President to “to use all necessary and
appropriate force” against those nations, organizations and individuals
responsible for 9/11. President Obama, like President Bush before him, as
Commander-in-Chief of our Armed Forces, has acted militarily based on that
authorization. In 2006, our Supreme Court also endorsed the view that the
United States is in an armed conflict with al Qaeda.[7] Therefore, all three branches of the United States
government – including the two political branches elected by the people and the
judicial branch appointed for life (and therefore not subject to the whims and
political pressures of the voters) – have endorsed the view that our efforts
against al Qaeda may properly be viewed as an armed conflict.
But,
for the United States, this is a new kind of war. It is an unconventional war against an
unconventional enemy. And, given its unconventional nature, President
Obama – himself a lawyer and a good one – has insisted that our efforts in
pursuit of this enemy stay firmly rooted in conventional legal
principles. For, in our efforts to destroy and dismantle al Qaeda, we
cannot dismantle our laws and our values, too.
The
danger of al Qaeda is well known. It is a terrorist organization
determined to commit acts of violence against innocent civilians. The
danger of the conflict against al Qaeda is that it lacks
conventional boundaries, against an enemy that does not observe the rules of
armed conflict, does not wear a uniform, and can resemble a civilian.
But
we refuse to allow this enemy, with its contemptible tactics, to define the way
in which we wage war. Our efforts remain grounded in the rule of
law. In this unconventional conflict, therefore, we apply conventional legal
principles – conventional legal principles found in treaties and customary
international law.
As
in armed conflict, we have been clear in defining the enemy and defining our
objective against that enemy.
We
have made clear that we are not at war with an idea, a religion, or a
tactic. We are at war with an organized, armed group — a group determined
to kill innocent civilians.
We
have publicly stated that our enemy consists of those persons who are part of
the Taliban, al-Qaeda or associated forces,[8] a declaration that has been embraced by two U.S.
Presidents, accepted by our courts, [9] and affirmed by our Congress.[10]
We
have publicly defined an “associated force” as having two characteristics: (1)
an organized, armed group that has entered the fight alongside al Qaeda, and
(2) is a co-belligerent with al Qaeda in hostilities against the United States
or its coalition partners.[11]
Our
enemy does not include anyone solely in the category of activist, journalist,
or propagandist.
Nor
does our enemy in this armed conflict include a “lone wolf” who, inspired by al
Qaeda’s ideology, self-radicalizes in the basement of his own
home, without ever actually becoming part of al Qaeda. Such persons are
dangerous, but are a matter for civilian law enforcement, not the military,
because they are not part of the enemy force.
And,
we have publicly stated that our goal in this conflict is to “disrupt,
dismantle, and ensure a lasting defeat of al Qaeda and violent extremist
affiliates.”[12]
Some
legal scholars and commentators in our country brand the detention by the
military of members of al Qaeda as “indefinite detention without charges.”
Some refer to targeted lethal force against known, identified individual
members of al Qaeda as “extrajudicial killing.”
Viewed
within the context of law enforcement or criminal justice, where no person is
sentenced to death or prison without an indictment, an arraignment, and a trial
before an impartial judge or jury, these characterizations might be
understandable.
Viewed
within the context of conventional armed conflict — as they should be —
capture, detention and lethal force are traditional practices as old as
armies. Capture and detention by the military are part and parcel of
armed conflict.[13] We employ weapons of war against al Qaeda, but in a
manner consistent with the law of war. We employ lethal force, but in a
manner consistent with the law of war principles of proportionality, necessity
and distinction. We detain those who are part of al Qaeda, but in a
manner consistent with Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions and all other
applicable law.[14]
But,
now that efforts by the U.S. military against al Qaeda are in their 12th year,
we must also ask ourselves: how
will this conflict end? It is an unconventional conflict, against
an unconventional enemy, and will not
end in conventional terms.
Conventional
conflicts in history tend to have had conventional endings.
Two
hundred years ago, our two Nations fought the War of 1812. The United
States lost many battles, Washington, DC was captured, and the White House was
set ablaze. By the winter of 1814 British and American forces had
strengthened their forts and fleets, and assumed that fighting would resume
between them in the spring. But, the war ended when British and American
diplomats in Belgium came to a peace agreement on December 24, 1814.
Diplomats from both sides then joined together in a Christmas celebration at
Ghent cathedral. Less than eight weeks later, the U.S. Senate provided advice
and consent to that peace treaty, which for the United States legally and
formally terminated the conflict.[15]
In
the American Civil War, the Battle of Appomattox was the final engagement of
Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s great Army of Northern Virginia, and one of
the last battles of that war. After four years of war, General Lee
recognized that “[i]t would be useless and therefore cruel to provoke the
further effusion of blood.” Three days later the Army of Northern Virginia
surrendered.[16] Lee’s army then marched to the field in
front of Appomattox Court House, and, division by division, deployed into line,
stacked their arms, folded their colors, and walked home empty-handed.[17]
The
last day of the First World War was November 11, 1918, when an armistice was
signed at 5:00 a.m. in a railroad carriage in France, and a ceasefire took
effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918.
The
Second World War concluded in the Pacific theater in August 1945, with a
ceremony that took place on the deck of the USS Missouri.
During
the Gulf War of 1991, one week after Saddam Hussein’s forces set fire to oil
wells as they were driven out of Kuwait, U.S. General Schwarzkopf sat down with
Iraqi military leaders under a tent in a stretch of the occupied Iraqi desert a
few miles from the Kuwaiti border. General Schwarzkopf wanted to keep
discussions simple; he told his advisors: “I just want to get my soldiers home
as fast as possible . . . I want no ceremonies, no handshakes.”[18] In the space of two hours they had
negotiated the terms of a permanent cease-fire to end the First Gulf War.[19]
We
cannot and should not expect al Qaeda and its associated forces to all
surrender, all lay down their weapons in an open field, or to sign a peace
treaty with us. They are terrorist organizations. Nor can we
capture or kill every last terrorist who claims an affiliation with al Qaeda.
I
am aware of studies that suggest that many “terrorist” organizations eventually
denounce terrorism and violence, and seek to address their grievances through
some form of reconciliation or participation in a political process.[20]
Al Qaeda is not in
that category.
Al
Qaeda’s radical and absurd goals have included global domination through a
violent Islamic caliphate, terrorizing the United States and other western
nations from retreating from the world stage,[21] and the destruction of Israel. There is no
compromise or political bargain that can be struck with those who pursue such
aims.
In
the current conflict with al Qaeda, I can offer no prediction about when
this conflict will end, or whether we are, as Winston Churchill described it,
near the “beginning of the end.”
I
do believe that on the present course, there will come a tipping point – a tipping
point at which so many of the leaders and operatives of al Qaeda and its
affiliates have been killed or captured, and the group is no longer able
to attempt or launch a strategic attack against the United States, such
that al Qaeda as we know it, the organization that our Congress authorized
the military to pursue in 2001, has been effectively destroyed.
At
that point, we must be able to say to ourselves that our efforts should no
longer be considered an “armed conflict” against al Qaeda and its associated
forces; rather, a counterterrorism effort against individuals
who are the scattered remnants of al Qaeda, or are parts of groups unaffiliated
with al Qaeda, for which the law enforcement and intelligence resources of our
government are principally responsible, in cooperation with the international
community – with our military assets available in reserve to address continuing
and imminent terrorist threats.
At
that point we will also need to face the question of what to do with any
members of al Qaeda who still remain in U.S. military detention without a
criminal conviction and sentence. In general, the military’s
authority to detain ends with the “cessation of active hostilities.”[22] For this particular conflict, all I can say today is
that we should look to conventional legal principles to supply the answer, and
that both our Nations faced similar challenging questions after the cessation
of hostilities in World War II, and our governments delayed the release of some
Nazi German prisoners of war.[23]
For
now, we must continue our efforts to disrupt, dismantle and ensure a lasting
defeat of al Qaeda. Though severely degraded, al Qaeda remains a threat
to the citizens of the United States, the United Kingdom and other
nations. We must disrupt al Qaeda’s terrorist attack planning
before it gets anywhere near our homeland or our citizens. We must counter
al Qaeda in the places where it seeks to establish safe haven, and prevent it
from reconstituting in others. To do this we must utilize every national
security element of our government, and work closely with our friends and
allies like the United Kingdom and others.
Finally,
it was a warfighting four-star general who reminded me, as I previewed these
remarks for him, that none of this will ever be possible if we fail to
understand and address what attracts a young man to an organization like al
Qaeda in the first place. Al Qaeda claims to represent the interests of
all Muslims. By word and deed, we must stand with the millions of
people within the Muslim world who reject Al Qaeda as a marginalized,
extreme and violent organization that does not represent
the Muslim values of peace and brotherhood. For, if al Qaeda can recruit
new terrorists to its cause faster than we can kill or capture them, we fight
an endless, hopeless battle that only perpetuates a downward spiral of hate,
recrimination, violence and fear.
“War”
must be regarded as a finite, extraordinary and unnatural state of
affairs. War permits one man – if he is a “privileged belligerent,”
consistent with the laws of war — to kill another. War violates the
natural order of things, in which children bury their parents; in war parents
bury their children. In its 12th year, we must not accept
the current conflict, and all that it entails, as the “new normal.”
Peace must be regarded as the norm toward which the human race continually
strives.
Right
here at Oxford you have the excellent work of the Changing Character of War
program: leading scholars committed to the study of war, who have observed that
analyzing war in terms of a continuum of armed conflict — where military force
is used at various points without a distinct break between war and peace — is
counterproductive. Such an approach, they argue, results in an erosion of
“any demarcation between war and peace,” the very effect of which is to create
uncertainty about how to define war itself.[24]
I
did not go to Oxford. I am a graduate of a small, all-male historically
black college in the southern part of the United States, Morehouse
College. The guiding light for every Morehouse man is our most famous
alumnus, Martin Luther King, who preached the inherent insanity of all
wars. I am therefore a student and disciple of Dr. King – though I became
an imperfect one the first time I gave legal approval for the use of military
force. I accepted this conundrum when I took this job. But, I still
carry with me the words from Dr. King: “Returning hate for hate multiples hate,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars … violence multiplies
violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of
destruction … The chain reaction of evil—hate begetting hate, wars producing
more wars—must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of
annihilation.”[25]
Thank
you again for the honor and the opportunity to be in this special place, and
thank you for listening to me.
[1] With the valuable research assistance of David A. Simon,
Special Counsel to the General Counsel (J.D., Harvard Law School; M.Phil.,
International Relations, Oxford University).
[2] George Gordon, Lord Byron, “Ode to Napoleon
Buonaparte.” Available at:
http://theotherpages.org/poems/2001/byron0101.html
[3] Memorandum of Understanding between The Islamic Republic
of Afghanistan and the United States of America On Transfer of U.S. Detention
Facilities in Afghan Territory to Afghanistan, March 9, 2012.
[4] Memorandum of Understanding between The Islamic Republic
of Afghanistan and the United States of America on Afghanization of Special
Operations on Afghan Soil, April 8, 2012.
[5] Enduring Strategic Partnership Agreement between the
Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the United States of America, May 1, 2012.
[6] “A Strong Britain in an Age of Uncertainty: The National
Security Strategy,” presented to Parliament by the Prime Minister by Command of
Her Majesty, October 2010, available on http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/
[7] Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557,
630-31 (2006) (holding that the United States is in a non-international armed
conflict with al Qaeda).
[8] See Respondent’s Memorandum Regarding the
Government’s Detention Authority Relative to Detainees Held at Guantanamo Bay, In
re: Guantanamo Bay Detainee Litig., Misc. No. 08-0442, at 1 (D.D.C. March
13, 2009).
[9] See e.g., Al-Adahi v. Obama,
613 F.3d 1102, 1103 (D.C. Cir. 2010), cert. denied, 131 S. Ct. 1001
(2011); Awad v. Obama, 608 F.3d 1, 11-12 (D.C.
Cir. 2010), cert. denied, 131 S. Ct. 1814 (2011).
[10] See Section 1021 of the National Defense
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, Pub. L. 112-81, 125 Stat. 1298
(December 31, 2011).
[11] Remarks by Jeh Charles Johnson, Dean’s Lecture at Yale
Law School, “National Security Law, Lawyers and Lawyering in the Obama
Administration,” (February 22, 2012).
[13] Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507,
519 (2004) (“detention to prevent a combatant’s return to the battlefield is a
fundamental incident of waging war”).
[14] Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners
of War, art. 3, Aug. 12, 1949, 6 U.S.T. 3316, 75 U.N.T.S. 135.
[15] Treaty of Peace and Amity (Treaty of Ghent), U.S.-Gr.
Brit., art. IX, Dec. 24, 1814, 8 Stat. 218. The treaty entered into force
for the United States on February 17, 1815. The parties to the Treaty were
Britain and the United States.
[16] U.S. Library of Congress, Today in History:
April 9, available athttp://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/apr09.html.
[18] Shyam Bhatia, Daniel McGrory, Brighter Than the Baghdad Sun:
Saddam Hussein’s Nuclear Threat to the United States, available at: http://tinyurl.com/8rttl4v.
[19] Encyclopedia Britannica, Persian Gulf War, available
at:http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/452778/Persian-Gulf-War;
History.Com, Topic: Persian Gulf War, available at: http://www.history.com/topics/persian-gulf-war. Gulf
War: Background Briefing, CBS News, available at: http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500164_162-2524.html.
Philip Shenon, After The War: Cease-Fire Meeting; A Hard-Faced Schwarzkopf Sets
Terms at Desert Meeting, New York Times, March 4, 1991, available at:http://www.nytimes.com/1991/03/04/world/after-war-cease-fire-meeting-hard-faced-schwarzkopf-sets-terms-desert-meeting.html
[20] Seth G. Jones & Martin C. Libicki, How Terrorist
Groups End: Lessons for Countering al Qa’ida 13 (2d ed. 2008) (RAND Corp.).
[22] See Geneva Convention Relative to the
Treatment of Prisoners of War, art. 118, Aug. 12, 1949, 6 U.S.T. 3316, 75
U.N.T.S. 135 (“Prisoners of War shall be released and repatriated without delay
after the cessation of active hostilities.”).
[23] Regarding post-hostilities detention during the
conclusion of World War II, see Ludecke v. Watkins 335 U.S.
160 (1948) (holding that the President’s authority to detain German nationals
continued for over six years after the fighting with Germany had ended); See
alsoAlien Enemy Act of 1798 50 U.S.C. §§21-24 (2000). See James
Richards, British Broadcasting Corporation, Life in Britain for German
Prisoners of War, (noting that by the end of 1947, 250,000 of the prisoners of
war were repatriated, and the last repatriation took place in November 1948);
available at:http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/britain_wwtwo/german_pows_01.shtml.
[24] The Changing Character of War 10-11 (Hew Strachan &
Sibylle Scheipers eds., Oxford University Press 2011).
[25] Martin Luther King, Jr., Loving Your Enemies 53 (1981).
