Foreign Affairs Discussion Group Message Board

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group

Public Reply Prvt Reply Mark as Last Read File

Previous 10 Next 10 Previous Next

To: Ilaine who wrote (218797)	2/16/2007 9:19:57 PM
From: Win Smith	Read Replies (2) of 281500

Um. You state a lot of things baldly there. I will take issue with just a couple. I fear we took a wrong turn in the Nuremberg Trials by using a non-German court to try the Nazis for violations of hastily invented laws imposed after the fact -- our own constitution prohibits for ex post facto laws. Legal scholars have criticized these actions during the decades that followed. Which is why we turned Saddam over to the Iraqi government for trial of his crimes that violated Iraqi law, and punishment for violation of Iraqi law. Charitably speaking, I find it quite imaginative to say that "we" turned Saddam over to "the Iraqi government" because of legal scholars criticizing the Nuremberg trials. Given that W and company have never been shy about expressing their contempt for any and all international institutions that might get in the way of their grand schemes, I find it hard to believe that there was ever any thought of international oversight given to Saddam's fate. Plus, it would be an extremely hard sell to get any international forum with participation from first world countries to consider capital punishment, that by itself would no doubt kill any possibility, given the capital punishment bloodlust that American conservatives pride themselves on these days. Saddam never consented to the jurisdiction of a multinational, supranational court whether personally or on behalf of the nation of Iraq. Somehow, I doubt Saddam consented to the jurisdiction of the court he was tried under either, and any laws of the new Iraqi government were obviously created just as much after the fact wrt Saddam's rule as anything at the Nuremberg trials. There seems to have been a strange confluence of Shiite vengeance and American political death penalty fandom at work in the process. As near as I can tell, even the US military legal types were pretty disgusted by how it all turned out. You want to wrap it up in post-hoc legalisms and claim that the Europeans don't have the subtle and nuanced legal sophistication of W's flacks, that's your choice.

Report TOU Violation

Share This Post

Public Reply Prvt Reply Mark as Last Read File

Previous 10 Next 10 Previous Next