ABSTRACT
Consistent with the general political mythologies that shroud American foreign and military policies, namely that the U.S. has historically been a force behind human rights, democracy, and lawful behavior in global affairs, any serious public discourse around U.S. culpability for terrible abuses of democratic practice and international law—much less for war crimes or crimes against humanity—has always been taboo, outside legitimate debate. As far as the established media, political system, and academic world are concerned, the nation's international presence has been a taken-for-granted benevolent one, motivated by good intentions and dedicated to human progress despite occasional flaws or mistakes in carrying out its policies. War crimes are demonic, barbaric actions carried out by others—Nazis, Serbs, Iraqis, Rwandans, Chinese, Japanese, and of course terrorists. Even where the U.S. and its allies or surrogates have been clearly shown to commit atrocities of one sort or another, these are justified within the larger humanitarian design of Western values and interests, or they simply wind up obscured to the point of vanishing from public view. This phenomenon has been deeply reinforced in the post-9/11 atmosphere in which Hobbesian chaos produced by the terrorist menace requires ever-harsher police, intelligence, and military responses in defense of an embattled society. Yet, if the war on terrorism has exacerbated already strong trends toward expansion of the security state and war machine, it has also pointed toward a different set of concerns: the need for universal laws and principles to restrain military forces in their violent pursuit of political ends.
