BLACKFIVE: Bloggers Roundtables: Col. Mark S. Martins

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Bloggers Roundtables: Col. Mark S. Martins

Posted By Grim

Army Col. Mark S. Martins, staff judge advocate with Multinational Force Iraq, spoke with us about the recent death sentences passed by an Iraqi court on captured snipers (transcript here).

Col. Martins described the Iraqi sniper case in this way:

The answer is interesting.

One recent case concerned three men who were detained in October of last year. On 22 July, the Iraqi Central Criminal Court found Jassim Hussein Nabir (sp) and Mohammed Sabay Latas (sp) guilty of violating Article 4 -- correction -- Article 4, subparagraph one of the anti-terrorism law in Iraq. And then on 25 July, Mustafa Hussein (sp) was also found guilty of violating the same provision. This is Article 4, subparagraph one of the anti-terrorism law. And all three received capital punishment.

The three were self-proclaimed members of Jaish al-Islami and were recruited to be snipers. This sniper cell was captured by the 6th Iraqi Army Division on 19 October when they were seen driving in a suspicious manner.

The colonel also described the equipment and weapons captured by the Iraqi Army. Among these items was video equipment. As you know, the insurgent sniper videos are an important tool in their propaganda strategy. And, as Dr. David Kilcullen described:

An information strategy seems to be driving the agenda of every radical Islamist movement. Kilcullen noted that when insurgents ambush an American convoy in Iraq, “they’re not doing that because they want to reduce the number of Humvees we have in Iraq by one. They’re doing it because they want spectacular media footage of a burning Humvee.”

So, I asked, does the law treat carrying video equipment to film terrorist attacks as what it is -- the principle operation, the actual operation? Does it treat creating insurgent propaganda, which is their real weapon, with the same severity as it treats carrying a sniper rifle or a bomb?

Well, the -- not videos specifically that I'm familiar with, sir. The -- terrorism as a crime is -- has special penalties associated with it, both under the Iraqi Criminal Code and then under the antiterrorism law, which was passed in 2005; the -- terrorism of course being an individual or an armed group targeting entities, official or unofficial, seeking to damage public or private property, create horror amongst people to achieve political ends. I mean, that's the essence of a terror offense. And the use of video equipment found in this manner is indicative of that kind of intent, so it can result in a charge and a conviction under either Paragraph 194 of the Iraqi Criminal Code or one of the provisions of the antiterrorism law.

So it's a -- I have not seen anywhere in the code specifically the use of video being an aggravated circumstance or an element of an offense, but it is indicative, in this case, of a political motive, of an attempt to use armed force to achieve political ends, strike terror into people and create a political effect.

That suggests that the Iraqi government has partially but not fully learned the lesson here; which is no special fault of theirs, as I think our own government has not learned the lesson either. They have understood that the production of the videos might be used to indicate a terrorist intent, and therefore it is something that can be brought out as evidence to show that someone deserves the capital penalties associated with terrorism. That's good.

What they have not yet understood is that the creator of the terrorist propaganda is not just tagging along with a sniper (like our embedded media might). He is the more important member of the team. The sniper attack is a means to the end of creating a media event that can move his agenda forward. It is not about "reducing the number of soldiers by one," as Kilcullen said. It is about a media event that can move whole populations and create political effects.

This case camoflauges the importance of the distinction, because all three members of the team were sentenced to death. Consider a case, however, in which Iraqi Security Forces might capture an insurgent video production cell -- a house in which insurgent media workers are editing these videos and getting them out onto Youtube and so forth. There is no evidence at hand that the people working there have killed anyone. You can only tie them, for the purposes of the trial, to video production work.

My argument is that they need to be punished every bit as harshly as the sniper you catch with his rifle. The message the law should send is that we recognize that these are information wars first and foremost: and therefore, that participating in that war on the wrong side is literally taking up arms. The video camera is more of a weapon than the sniper rifle, and as much of a weapon as the VBIED. It is a principle, strategic weapon of the enemy. It is what allows tactical victories to become strategic victories.

In addition to that matter, Col. Martins fielded questions about how to determine insurgent status under the law, on the usefulness of Iraqi security forces v. Coalition forces, and several others. As always, I hope those of you who are interested in these matters will read the entire transcript.