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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: greenspirit who wrote (13038)	12/6/2001 11:59:08 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 281500

I read it Michael, but I had the sense that while balanced overall, there was the attempt to point the aberrations in the Yamashita case as an example of what might occur in other tribunals. And I did note that he did discuss the controversial points of the case. From the facts I've read, I certainly would not have considered Yamashita a war criminal. But his execution was a personal grudge on MacArthur's part (and possibly revenge at Churchill's urging for embarrassing the British through his capture of Singapore?). Overall, I'm HIGHLY in favor of the use of military tribunals. But Yamashita's case has generally been considered the standard TO AVOID in such future cases, given how MacArthur placed considerable pressure on the court for a conviction. Though many may be hesitant to acknowledge it, the case was an incredible miscarriage of justice. And Davies properly noted My Lai, where Schwarzkopf could have been executed since he was the Battalion commander of those troops. In addition, there are documented incidents of US massacres of German prisoners during WWII under Bradley's command (as I recall), but he was never brought up on charges, nor were his soldiers who were guilty of committing the atrocity. But I'm, in no way, willing to see those individuals who have been responsible for being at war with us, provided the same legal rights and protections as what we enjoy as US citizens, by trying them in US civilian courts. Obviously, we have the obligations to treat them decently within the structure of the the Geneva convention. But since this is a military, and not civilian matter, military justice must hold primary jurisdiction, and not treat their actions as being comparable to domestic criminal violations. We don't initiate military retaliation in response to a criminal act. We take it as a response to an act of war. And there is nothing I've seen in the Constitution that declares that enemies of this nation have to be accorded the same protections. Were that the case, then it could be said that the use of deadly force against acessories to the crime (the WTC attack), is a violation of their civil rights. All kinds of nasty possibilities can result if we start trying to overlay the US judicial process on an international basis. Hawk

To: greenspirit who wrote (13038)	12/7/2001 8:12:17 AM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Al Hunt is one of the most partisan left wingers in the media today. And his article should be viewed for just what it was. Political propaganda and nothing more. We've come a very far piece in political discourse in this country when a moderate, middle of the roader political columnist such as Al Hunt, who publishes, in of all places, the Wall Street Journal, on the world's most rabidly conservative editorial page, that of The Wall Street Journal (well, with the exception of the Investors Business Daily) is accused of being, heavens forbid, one of those despicable creatures, a left winger, and capable of nothing more than, ugghh, political propaganda. But, and this is offered by Michael with a straight face, I gather, that Human Events, that great bastion of "fair and balanced" journalism, that until recent months admitted that it occupied the right wing of the right wing, that Michael offers it as an illustration of balanced journalism. Interesting times. John