Jeering and taunting at necessarily grisly proceedings like executions is not universal, however you pretend to believe it is. And it wasn't necessary and it wasn't wise.
I wrote, "The executions that followed the Nuremberg Trials were not grisly, jeering spectacles."
You wrote, "How would we know? Nobody had cell phone cameras back then."
In your determination to pretend that what we allowed to happen was quite ordinary, and not yet another Bush Administration mess-up, you create mystery where none exists.
There were many witnesses to the grisly hangings of the convicted Nazis. There were no reports of jeers. Here's one account of many.
law.umkc.edu
Note that at one point, there was a pause in the proceedings. Permission was asked to smoke: "An affirmative answer brought cigarettes into the hands of almost every one of the thirty-odd persons present. Officers and GIs walked around nervously or spoke a few words to one another in hushed voices while Allied correspondents scribbled furiously their notes on this historic though ghastly event."
Before the hangings resumed, "The directing colonel turned to the witnesses and said, 'Cigarettes out, please, gentlemen.'"
There was no jeering or taunting. The protocol strove for dignity.
You say, "What would it take? Velvet rope? White gloves? Wouldn't that just be sugar coating the inevitable?"
That's being intentionally dense.
The undignified, inflammatory spectacle of jeer, taunting and insult was not inevitable. It was a result of poor judgment by the Bush Administration. |
