To paraphrase a famous line from Tolstoy, those loyal to their country are faithful in the same way. They fight in armies, pay their taxes, and vote in elections. Among the disloyal, however, each becomes a traitor in his own way.
Take the American and German postwar experiences. The US has not seen a treason prosecution since World War II, and Germany has, arguably, abolished treason in the traditional sense, retaining only a general crime of sedition designed to protect the government from overthrow by anti-democratic forces.
Now focus on the postcommunist states, where a new wave of treason trials seems about in the offing. The prosecution in the Czech Republic of two 78 year old men (Milos Jakes, and Jozef Lenart), both veterans of the Soviet invasion of 1968, and the four-year-long trial in Vladivostok of Grigory Pasko, a Russian naval officer, suggest the earliest stages of a cycle where injured states respond to perceptions of betrayal with charges of treason.
Why does treason appear to be dying in some countries and coming alive in others? Some history may help here. As originally defined by Parliament in 14 th century England, the Anglo-American version of treason includes a whole range of acts that threatened the Crown. To even think of murdering the King (then quaintly called ``compassing'') was punishable by death. Counterfeiting and rape of the Queen (contaminating the blood line) were thrown into the statute to assure that the King's currency and his House were safe.
Levying war against the King was a primary charge of treason, but a catch limits the crime's scope. To be a traitor you must first have a duty to be loyal. The French have no such duty toward the English Crown. Only the English do. So, one requirement of treason, virtually everywhere, is that only citizens and permanent residents of a country can commit treason. If you intentionally kill a foreigner, then you are guilty of murder. But as a matter of definition, if you have no duty of loyalty to a foreign country, then you cannot commit treason against it.
The Americans who signed the Declaration of Independence, as British citizens, were all guilty of treason for levying war against King George III. Understandably, when they won independence and escaped prosecution, they trimmed the 14 th century definition of treason. Their anxieties about treason are recorded in America's Constitution, which limits the offense to levying war and to a famous phrase originating in the 14 th century statute: ``adhering to the enemy, giving them aid and comfort.''
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Still, language of such breadth could accommodate virtually any action sympathetic to a foreign power, yet Americans are reluctant to invoke their catch-all criminal charge. Witness the debate about whether or not to prosecute John Walker, the Californian who fought for the Taliban in Afghanistan. He surely adhered to the enemy, giving much more than aid and comfort. Yet Americans seem reluctant to brand him a traitor. Perhaps he will be imprisoned for assisting terrorists, but his betrayal generates little resentment. Secure states tend to forget about treason.
Insecure states are quicker to sense acts of betrayal. The Soviets, with their fragile legitimacy, always feared betrayal. They called their crime izmena rodine - betrayal of the motherland - and they married this high moral language to minor transgressions, such as leaving the country illegally. Anyone who endangered the international security of the Soviet Union was deemed a traitor deserving death.
When a group of dissident Jews conspired in 1970 to highjack an airplane, they were charged with attempted treason. Two of the organizers were sentenced to death. (Worldwide protests induced the Soviets to modify the penalty). When Anatoly Shcharansky allegedly gave sensitive material to an American journalist, he was convicted of treason.
Shcharansky's case helps us understand the recent story of Grigory Pasko, convicted after a four-year trial for allegedly providing information for a Japanese television report on the Russian army dumping nuclear waste at sea. The Russians modified the Communist definition of treason, eliminating the death penalty and changing the name to ``governmental treason.'' But they retained the clause subjecting any Russian to charges of treason for creating risks to the international security of the state. Security, as the Russians understand it, seems to be endangered when foreign journalists write articles that bring Russia's state into disrepute.
The story in the Czech Republic differs. Jakes and Lenart may have sided with the Russian enemy in 1968, but it is not clear what the state gains by beating a dead regime with yet another trial.
Germany's experience with treason is rife with paradox but may point toward the future. If you examine the statute in force today you will be struck by the apparent absence of the citizenship requirement. Anyone - foreigners as well as Germans - can commit Hochverrat [high treason] by using force or the threat of force to undermine the Basic Law, the German constitution.
The temptation is to think that postwar Germans, sickened by the nationalism of the Nazi period, eliminated the duty of national allegiance. But things are more complicated than that. Hitler changed the law in 1934 in the megalomaniac belief that the whole world owed him a duty of loyalty. Still, by substituting the Basic Law for the Fuehrer in the postwar amendment of the crime, contemporary Germans have in effect nullified the crime of treason. Even though the label of treason is used, the offense now resembles the American concept of sedition and seeks to prevent a violent overthrow of the government.
From the English King, to the American republic, to the Russian motherland, to the German constitution, the object of required loyalty is constantly changing. Perhaps the German model will win out and we will become duty-bound to revere not a leader or a patria but a set of democratic principles. But fears of ``enemies within,'' such as Russia's Pasko, or the French, British, and other European Muslims who fought alongside the Taliban, are also gaining ground. Treason is dead, or it might be just aborning.
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The escalating war in the Middle East must be understood in a broader context. The fact that the Iranian regime felt emboldened to risk a direct strike on Israel attests to a changing world order in which Western power is increasingly open to challenge.
considers the implications of Iran’s unprecedented decision to launch a direct strike on Israeli territory.
To paraphrase a famous line from Tolstoy, those loyal to their country are faithful in the same way. They fight in armies, pay their taxes, and vote in elections. Among the disloyal, however, each becomes a traitor in his own way.
Take the American and German postwar experiences. The US has not seen a treason prosecution since World War II, and Germany has, arguably, abolished treason in the traditional sense, retaining only a general crime of sedition designed to protect the government from overthrow by anti-democratic forces.
Now focus on the postcommunist states, where a new wave of treason trials seems about in the offing. The prosecution in the Czech Republic of two 78 year old men (Milos Jakes, and Jozef Lenart), both veterans of the Soviet invasion of 1968, and the four-year-long trial in Vladivostok of Grigory Pasko, a Russian naval officer, suggest the earliest stages of a cycle where injured states respond to perceptions of betrayal with charges of treason.
Why does treason appear to be dying in some countries and coming alive in others? Some history may help here. As originally defined by Parliament in 14 th century England, the Anglo-American version of treason includes a whole range of acts that threatened the Crown. To even think of murdering the King (then quaintly called ``compassing'') was punishable by death. Counterfeiting and rape of the Queen (contaminating the blood line) were thrown into the statute to assure that the King's currency and his House were safe.
Levying war against the King was a primary charge of treason, but a catch limits the crime's scope. To be a traitor you must first have a duty to be loyal. The French have no such duty toward the English Crown. Only the English do. So, one requirement of treason, virtually everywhere, is that only citizens and permanent residents of a country can commit treason. If you intentionally kill a foreigner, then you are guilty of murder. But as a matter of definition, if you have no duty of loyalty to a foreign country, then you cannot commit treason against it.
The Americans who signed the Declaration of Independence, as British citizens, were all guilty of treason for levying war against King George III. Understandably, when they won independence and escaped prosecution, they trimmed the 14 th century definition of treason. Their anxieties about treason are recorded in America's Constitution, which limits the offense to levying war and to a famous phrase originating in the 14 th century statute: ``adhering to the enemy, giving them aid and comfort.''
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Still, language of such breadth could accommodate virtually any action sympathetic to a foreign power, yet Americans are reluctant to invoke their catch-all criminal charge. Witness the debate about whether or not to prosecute John Walker, the Californian who fought for the Taliban in Afghanistan. He surely adhered to the enemy, giving much more than aid and comfort. Yet Americans seem reluctant to brand him a traitor. Perhaps he will be imprisoned for assisting terrorists, but his betrayal generates little resentment. Secure states tend to forget about treason.
Insecure states are quicker to sense acts of betrayal. The Soviets, with their fragile legitimacy, always feared betrayal. They called their crime izmena rodine - betrayal of the motherland - and they married this high moral language to minor transgressions, such as leaving the country illegally. Anyone who endangered the international security of the Soviet Union was deemed a traitor deserving death.
When a group of dissident Jews conspired in 1970 to highjack an airplane, they were charged with attempted treason. Two of the organizers were sentenced to death. (Worldwide protests induced the Soviets to modify the penalty). When Anatoly Shcharansky allegedly gave sensitive material to an American journalist, he was convicted of treason.
Shcharansky's case helps us understand the recent story of Grigory Pasko, convicted after a four-year trial for allegedly providing information for a Japanese television report on the Russian army dumping nuclear waste at sea. The Russians modified the Communist definition of treason, eliminating the death penalty and changing the name to ``governmental treason.'' But they retained the clause subjecting any Russian to charges of treason for creating risks to the international security of the state. Security, as the Russians understand it, seems to be endangered when foreign journalists write articles that bring Russia's state into disrepute.
The story in the Czech Republic differs. Jakes and Lenart may have sided with the Russian enemy in 1968, but it is not clear what the state gains by beating a dead regime with yet another trial.
Germany's experience with treason is rife with paradox but may point toward the future. If you examine the statute in force today you will be struck by the apparent absence of the citizenship requirement. Anyone - foreigners as well as Germans - can commit Hochverrat [high treason] by using force or the threat of force to undermine the Basic Law, the German constitution.
The temptation is to think that postwar Germans, sickened by the nationalism of the Nazi period, eliminated the duty of national allegiance. But things are more complicated than that. Hitler changed the law in 1934 in the megalomaniac belief that the whole world owed him a duty of loyalty. Still, by substituting the Basic Law for the Fuehrer in the postwar amendment of the crime, contemporary Germans have in effect nullified the crime of treason. Even though the label of treason is used, the offense now resembles the American concept of sedition and seeks to prevent a violent overthrow of the government.
From the English King, to the American republic, to the Russian motherland, to the German constitution, the object of required loyalty is constantly changing. Perhaps the German model will win out and we will become duty-bound to revere not a leader or a patria but a set of democratic principles. But fears of ``enemies within,'' such as Russia's Pasko, or the French, British, and other European Muslims who fought alongside the Taliban, are also gaining ground. Treason is dead, or it might be just aborning.