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

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (115023)	9/16/2003 4:53:32 PM
From: kumar	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

He was following the orders of the officers appointed over to carry out the lawful conduct of war. Those officers were appointed by the government of the nation they represent. And the government was either elected by the people, or consisted of a power elite who dictated how the conduct of the war would be carried out. Help me understand a bit of history in this context : Why were the Nuremberg trials necessary ?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (115023)	9/16/2003 6:24:43 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Your definitions: <"serial killer", a term normally reserved for human predators who seek to slay innocent and defenseless civilians (usually women and children)> <A soldier is trained to hunt and kill specific personnel, enemy soldiers. He is not trained to kill, nor generally finds any "honor or glory" in killing, defenseless civilians.> Freeman Dyson killed: 1. innocents (total, for Bomber Command, in the millions), 2. defenseless (we had total control of the air, for most of the war), 3. civilians. 4. lots of women and children. 5. Did he kill "specific personnel"? 6. How "specific" was he, dropping dumb bombs from 10,000 feet on urban areas? 7. What ratio of "enemy soldiers" to "civilians" were killed by saturation bombing of cities? 100 to 1? 1000 to 1? Are you arguing that Japanese women and children civilians were legitimate military targets in their homes, because they aided the war effort by their house-work? If so, then don't most American civilian women support our current war effort, and help pay taxes that buy bombs, so they too are legitimate targets for Al Queda? What's the difference? Are you arguing that, because Freeman Dyson was in uniform and following orders, anything he did (anything at all?) was the act of a soldier, not a serial killer? If that is your (new) definition, then, clearly, the Al Queda who flew their plane into the Pentagon were following orders, were part of a chain of command. They represented their nation, with great bravery and self-discipline. Is there no Higher Standard, than Following Orders? So, for instance, the soldier at the My Lai massacre, who disobeyed Calley's orders to turn automatic weapons on lines of children standing in ditches, what is he? A traitor? A mutineer? I can't see any daylight, between what you think, and this: Answering a question about a poem he had written in praise of female suicide bomber Ayat Al-Akhras: "I wrote this poem for two reasons that affected me psychologically. First, I saw her talking in the video broadcast on television. It was obvious that she was a woman who wanted only to die as a martyr and defend her homeland. She was young, 17, and I imagined her to be my daughter. I felt that she was a girl whom despair, frustration, and rage had brought to a point where she was willing to kill herself for her homeland." "Second, some time after her martyrdom, the American president George Bush said that all Arabs should call the perpetrators of suicide operations - and I, by the way, object to this term because these are martyrdom operations - criminals and murderers. I said to myself: the humiliation in which we live is bad enough, but maybe the day has come when they impose on us not only what to do but also what to say. Will the man influenced by Israel [referring to President Bush] determine who is a Muslim martyr and who is a Muslim criminal? I had no choice but to take a stand on this issue. I could have written an article, but emotion has found expression in my poem. I knew that the poem would spark debate, but sometimes a man must take a stand." - Ghazi Al-Qusaibi, Saudi ambassador to London 216.239.57.104

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (115023)	9/17/2003 5:44:10 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hawk, following orders is no excuse for criminal behaviour. "Lawful" is also meaningless other than in "law of the jungle" in the examples you mentioned. With no international legal system, it's nothing more than Victor's Law, which is notoriously self-interested. Judges do not normally decide whether they themselves are guilty of something. They don't even judge associated people, as bias is notoriously present when people are not disinterested [which means something different from uninterested]. Also, the fact that some government passes laws doesn't make them ethical or worthy of obeying. Hitler had anti-Jew laws, which didn't make them laws to be obeyed. There were anti-negro laws in the USA, which ethical people should disobey. The essential ingredient which goes missing in all these situations is self-determination, free will and leaving other people and their property alone. As soon as freedom is suppressed, by "following orders", or by conscription, or by slavery, or obeying the law, or majority rule, or other means, then the slippery slide to hell is in action. It's law of the jungle time, again. <US targets were either "precision" oriented, with specific military targets in mind or, as in the case of our firebombing of Japan, aimed at the cottage manufacturing industry from which much of their war material was produced (people constructing war goods in their homes).> That might have been the aim and the theory, but I think the theory ended as the bomb doors opened and random bombing was the result, whether intended or not. "Cottage manufacturing"? Come on. Making what? Bombs, bullets, bayonets, boots, and jackets in their houses? I doubt it. Not to any extent that mattered. My father told me about Americans claiming they could drop a bomb in a barrel during WWII, but he said they didn't do that in practise. The B52s unloading over Vietnam weren't exactly dropping bombs in barrels either Hawk. It's a nice idea that the USA only got the bad guys, but that's not in the slightest true. Hiroshima included a lot more residential areas and children than the Twin Towers or Pentagon, so on that basis, Al Qaeda was a lot more civilized in their attacks than Americans. Holier than thou is nice to claim, but an unbiased view sees the Weapons of Mass Destruction used on the Kurds a couple of decades ago were supplied by the USA, Britain and France. The USA is the only user of Weapons of Mass Destruction on the planet so far. The killing of Kurds by Saddam was done with many many weapons and they only killed a few thousand. Hardly weapons of mass destruction. Heck, a single Daisy Cutter could have done about as much. Personally, I'm not against weapons of mass destruction including nukes. I'm with Norman Schwarzkopf who apparently said there's no nice way to kill people in a war. Whether it's a knife, burial in dirt, poison gas, bomb, mortar, gun, daisy cutter or nuke it's all the same. If it's total war, then I don't see why a nuke shouldn't be used to cut one's own losses. I'd prefer to nuke Hiroshima than have had my fathers and uncles invade and be killed. It's them or us in such circumstances. The Japanese had demonstrated their attitude to enemy civilians [and anyone else]. It was very ugly. They set the rules, which were total war. We are far from that situation at present. I hope. Mqurice