City College Downtown: Global Narratives of Crime, War and Justice.

Day 2: The second class discusses how US Congressional authorization to use military force against those involved in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks provided a justification for different US administrations to kill abroad those considered enemy combatants. The suspects were not charged with criminal responsibility; instead the consistent US position is that the government “is not required to provide targets with legal process before the state may use lethal force.” What about civilians who are killed in the process of pursing enemy combatants?

We will discuss the classified US military video released by WikiLeaks titled “Collateral Murder,” which captured a US helicopter shooting civilians in a Baghdad square. The US soldiers confused their victims with enemy combatant terrorists. However, they were not investigated. Instead soldier Chelsea Manning, who leaked the video, and Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, were prosecuted. The US Constitution, as most domestic legal systems, does not protect aliens living in foreign countries. Legal designs define who can be killed, and who should go to prison.