“His anger and frustration was never directed at the United States — at U.S. agents, perhaps, but never the government itself. That was very impressive to me.”
That’s a quote from a former attorney for Hmong leader General Vang Pao, against whom the federal government has finally dropped its charges for allegedly plotting the violent overthrow of the communist regime in Laos. (H/T Ann Althouse.)
I’m sorry, but as much as I approve of the dismissal of these charges against General Pao, I think his patriotism (if reported accurately by his former attorney) is misplaced. The U.S. “government itself” does not exist apart from U.S. agents. The government is what the government does. U.S. “agents” have no “principals.”
In this earlier post, Ann Althouse linked to background on the case which quoted Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Twiss as saying in federal court: “We’re looking at conspiracy to murder thousands and thousands of people at one time.” I commented:
The U.S. tolerates no competition with its monopoly on the power to conspire to commit mass murder.
I don’t know much about the Laotian communist government, but I assume it oppresses the Laotian people and violates their rights, along the same lines as the regime of Saddam Hussein from which the U.S. has endeavored to liberate the Iraqi people. I assume the thousands of people that the U.S. attorney was speaking of as the target of General Vang are the communist government oppressors, not ordinary citizens.
If for pragmatic foreign relation reasons the U.S. can’t allow someone from within our borders without U.S. government approval to exercise the natural right recognized in our Declaration of Independence to revolt against oppressive regimes, then maybe the appropriate “punishment” is exile. It’s certainly hypocritical for the U.S. to portray General Vang as a would-be “murderer.”
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. . . [P]lotting the violent overthrow of a foreign regime that may or may not be evil and oppressive is fundamentally different than plotting the violent overthrow of one’s own government, and merits a different response from one’s own government. It’s certainly not the same as attempted mass murder. Plenty of U.S. citizens have gone abroad throughout our history to fight in foreign civil wars (e.g. the French Revolution, the Spanish Civil War) without legal repurcussions. The fact that in General Vang’s case certain preparations happened to be made on our soil doesn’t seem like a major distinction (though I could well be wrong as a matter of current law). I’m sure that those who went to fight in the Spanish Civil War made preparations and associated and “conspired” here as well.
This is one area where the traditional conception of “trial by jury,” where juries judge not only the facts but the justice of the law as applied to the defendant before it, makes even more sense than it already does. Obviously, some attempted violent overthrows of foreigh regimes are morally reprehensible, and a jury could treat them as such on a case by case basis. Apart from that, the government may have national security or foreign relations reasons for taking action to prevent such plots (e.g. exile), but apart from what a jury determines would have no inherent interest in “punishing” such behavior.
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Come to think of it, what would be our criminal liability if we just sent money (i.e. a “charitable contribution”) to an organization plotting or engaging in a civil war against an oppressive foreign government (assuming we were well aware it was thus plotting or engaging)? Where would you (or where does the U.S. currently) draw the line between that kind of support and what General Vang was engaged in?
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It seems to me that the US government, or any national government in the same situation, is constrained by international law.
There are precedents going back centuries, maybe millennia, that if a private (or rebel) army which intends to attack country A receives either support (money, arms, or food) or sanctuary from country B, that support or sanctuary is an act of war by B against A, and A may retaliate. This means that when (for example) Lebanon permits Hezbollah to arm and plan an eventual war with Israel from within Lebanon’s borders, then as soon as Hezbollah attacks, Lebanon and Israel are at war.
Allowing this situation to exist is a bad idea for the country in Lebanon’s position, because it effectively means Lebanon’s government has delegated to Hezbollah its right to declare war, and thus may be forced into a war at a time when its national army is not prepared for one.
I’m not saying that I agree with the prosecution in the case at hand. I would like to see the Hmong liberate their homeland, and if I had Hillary Clinton’s job I would lobby the president to permit it. But there is a good reason for the Neutrality Act, which prohibits the organizing or training of private armies in the US without permission from the State Department — without it, we could never count on staying at peace.
1I agree. I’m not familiar with the ins and outs of the Neutrality Act, but can definitely see the serious pragmatic concerns involved, as indicated in the post. For the AUSA to characterize the plot as a conspiracy to commit mass murder, however, was completely disingenuous.
2