 |
| |
|
|
David Floyd
|
|
The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:20
|
|
quote:
So what if the actual treaty didn't set it up! The US Constitution never set up judicial review! |
Of course, but the vital difference there is the Constitution set up a judicial body to interpret the Constitution.
You also have to look at the intent, and there's absolutely no reason to think the treaty was meant to set up a judicial body, world court, or police enforcement, because if it had the nations who signed it probably wouldn't have.
quote:
The fairness of the application of international laws is the same as the fairness of application of domestic laws. The reason American weren't tried is because they set up that court. Would you rather have that? Ad hoc courts set up by members that won't be tried? Or would you rather have a permanent court that can try whoever does commit the war crimes (whatever side they are on). |
And I'm telling you that a permanent world court will be no more fair and consistent than Nuremburg or the post-WW2 Japanese trials were. Why? Obviously because the most powerful world nations will gladly try the Milosevic's of the world, but will not try their own murderers. Could you imagine China, for example, allowing Mao Tse-Tung to be tried(if this was 30 years ago), or the US allowing Truman or LeMay or Spaatz to be tried? Of course not! Will Israel let Sharon be tried? Of course not! But would Israel allow Arafat to be tried? Certainly they would.
What will happen is that the strong nations will say, "You can't try our people and you can't force us to give them up - but we can force you to give up whomever we want to try."
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Ned
|
 |
of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:20
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by David Floyd
Of course, but the vital difference there is the Constitution set up a judicial body to interpret the Constitution.
You also have to look at the intent, and there's absolutely no reason to think the treaty was meant to set up a judicial body, world court, or police enforcement, because if it had the nations who signed it probably wouldn't have.
And I'm telling you that a permanent world court will be no more fair and consistent than Nuremburg or the post-WW2 Japanese trials were. Why? Obviously because the most powerful world nations will gladly try the Milosevic's of the world, but will not try their own murderers. Could you imagine China, for example, allowing Mao Tse-Tung to be tried(if this was 30 years ago), or the US allowing Truman or LeMay or Spaatz to be tried? Of course not! Will Israel let Sharon be tried? Of course not! But would Israel allow Arafat to be tried? Certainly they would.
What will happen is that the strong nations will say, "You can't try our people and you can't force us to give them up - but we can force you to give up whomever we want to try." |
Ah, but David, there's the rub. There is nothig at all in the statute that gives Americans immunity from prosecution regardless of our consent. Unless we go back into our isolationistic shell, I suspect that we will constantly be harrassed by politically motivated complaints. The current attempt to arrest Kissinger by the Chileans illustrates that our leaders can be harrassed even if they only support a coup that ends up badly.
We have seen a great deal of discussion here about the US (and the UK) targeting German and Japanese cities in WWII. These acts seem to be unambiguously outlawed by the ICC. However, at the time, our administrations believed they were justified to shorten the war and save lives. At least with Japan, the bombing was clearly effective.
But the ICC does not permit, as far as I know, a justification defense. In other words, a US president in the future may be hamstrung by the ICC in prosecuting a war effectively - or for even conducting foreigh policy at all (Kissinger)!
There is little wonder why the United States is opposed to the ICC.
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
David Floyd
|
|
The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:20
|
|
Ned,
quote:
Ah, but David, there's the rub. There is nothig at all in the statute that gives Americans immunity from prosecution regardless of our consent. Unless we go back into our isolationistic shell, I suspect that we will constantly be harrassed by politically motivated complaints. The current attempt to arrest Kissinger by the Chileans illustrates that our leaders can be harrassed even if they only support a coup that ends up badly. |
Ah, but I support this ultimatum not because I think Americans should get special priviliges, but because I think we should withdraw from UN Peacekeeping.
quote:
We have seen a great deal of discussion here about the US (and the UK) targeting German and Japanese cities in WWII. These acts seem to be unambiguously outlawed by the ICC. However, at the time, our administrations believed they were justified to shorten the war and save lives. At least with Japan, the bombing was clearly effective. |
Very true. And the Germans felt justified in killing Soviet civilians, Jews, gypsies, etc., and the Japanese felt justified during the Rape of Nanking and the Death March. What you're really saying, it seems, is that the firebombing and atomic bombing of Japanese cities, and the murder (not killing, murder) of hundreds of thousands of civilians was OK because it shortened the war and saved American lives.
Well, fine. By that same argument any war crime, or whatever term you use, is justified because those who commit it feel justified - better enemy civilians die than their soldiers, or whatnot. Or how about this? The Holocaust was justified because the Germans felt Jews were inferior, and were holding them back, and it was vital to the survival of Germany as a superpower to eliminate them.
Imran,
quote:
And there is no reason to think the Constitution would have set up a judicial body that could strike down state laws. If it had, the states wouldn't have signed it . |
Again, the vital difference there is that the Constitution actually sets up a Supreme Court, while the Geneva Convention sets up no such court.
Further, your argument that the states wouldn't have signed it if there was a court that could overturn their laws ignores one basic fact - most states felt that they had the right to secede, a right implied in the Constitution. Witness, for example, New England's threats to secede during the War of 1812, the Nullification Crisis, and the Civil War. States thought, at the time of signing, they had a way out.
Now, admittedly, there is a way out of the Geneva Convention. But to apply the same argument I used to the signers of the GC ignores the fact that the GC was meant only as an international agreement, with no enforcement powers against sovereign states, or any sort of police force or standing army. This is quite different from the US Constitution, which was a union of sovereign, independent states. Apples and oranges.
quote:
And the Geneva Convention has an implied court. After all who would set up to judge who was in violation of it? Surely they learned from the Kellogg-Briand Pact |
You're saying there is an implied court there because the writers should have learned from history?
What makes you think politicians learn from history? Politicians do as they see fit, and any historical lessons take secondary importance.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
David Floyd
|
|
The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:20
|
|
quote:
But Europe doesn't force countries to adopt their norms... |
Then why is Milosevic on trial in the Hague?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
JohnIII
|
|
Because he is European?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Imran Siddiqui
|
 |
The Potterverse
Jan 1970
time: 00:20
|
|
quote:
Further, your argument that the states wouldn't have signed it if there was a court that could overturn their laws ignores one basic fact - most states felt that they had the right to secede, a right implied in the Constitution. Witness, for example, New England's threats to secede during the War of 1812, the Nullification Crisis, and the Civil War. States thought, at the time of signing, they had a way out. |
Yeah, but they don't. States signed with the original intention that they could leave if they wanted to. Therefore the US is every bit as bad as the UN is.
quote:
the GC was meant only as an international agreement, with no enforcement powers against sovereign states, or any sort of police force or standing army. |
Enforcement powers are implied. After all the treaty is meaningless without them. People have been tried for violation of the GC, in tribunals through the UN. This is a more permanent one.
quote:
You're saying there is an implied court there because the writers should have learned from history? |
Um... because they did imply a court? And they did learn from history. I'm sorry, but I don't remember a 'Treaty of Versaille' type peace after WW2... that is learning from history.
quote:
Then why is Milosevic on trial in the Hague? |
Because the UN decided to enforce the Geneva Convention, as the Convention does imply.
I'm sorry since when did the UN = Europe..  .
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Dr Strangelove
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by David Floyd
Good point, but again, the Geneva Convention has no enforcement mechanism, and no court set up by the treaty. If the treaty had done that, most nations probably wouldn't have signed it.
Further, the application of "crimes against humanity" is bullshit - how can Milosevic or Japanese General Yamashita be considered criminals but people like Truman and FDR and Curtis LeMay not be? They all ordered the murder of civilians, except the Americans did it in a far larger scale. |
For one reason the Nazis and Japanese began the bombing of civilian targets during that war first - in China, in Hawaii, in the Phillipines, in Malaysia, in Spain, in Poland, in the Netherlands, in France, and in Africa. For another reason both the Germans and the Japanese deliberately moved military production into small shops in their cities in order to make it more difficult to destroy. They deliberately put their own civilians in harms way in order to shield their war materials production.
Would it be illegal to target non-military targets, i.e., "infrastricture" potentially killing "X" number of enemy civilians, in order to prevent crimes against humanity leveled at 10X or 100X innocents? I don't think that to do so would be right. That's what the US did in Serbia - it destroyed the infrastructure of a nation bent on the genocide of one million of its inhabitants. Since nowhere near one million Serbs were killed the policy can be said to have been justified.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Dr Strangelove
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by DinoDoc
Pearl Harbor wasn't a civilian target, Dr. S. |
Some bombs fell on civilian structures, but if you're bothered by this statement then substitute Burma, Dutch East Indies or Thailand for Hawaii.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Ned
|
|
of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:20
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
For one reason the Nazis and Japanese began the bombing of civilian targets during that war first - in China, in Hawaii, in the Phillipines, in Malaysia, in Spain, in Poland, in the Netherlands, in France, and in Africa. For another reason both the Germans and the Japanese deliberately moved military production into small shops in their cities in order to make it more difficult to destroy. They deliberately put their own civilians in harms way in order to shield their war materials production.
Would it be illegal to target non-military targets, i.e., "infrastricture" potentially killing "X" number of enemy civilians, in order to prevent crimes against humanity leveled at 10X or 100X innocents? I don't think that to do so would be right. That's what the US did in Serbia - it destroyed the infrastructure of a nation bent on the genocide of one million of its inhabitants. Since nowhere near one million Serbs were killed the policy can be said to have been justified. |
Dr. S, You'll find it interesting that many countries ratifying the agreement do so with a reservation to the effect that a military target is a military target even if some civilians are killed. This means, I suspect, that the only thing prohibited really is the deliberate targeting of civilians for the purposes of terror. But this is what both sides did during WWII. I don't know if the fact that the Nazi's and Japanese did it first is any excuse, except if we were to say to them - you stop it and so will we.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
David Floyd
|
|
The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:20
|
|
quote:
Yeah, but they don't. States signed with the original intention that they could leave if they wanted to. Therefore the US is every bit as bad as the UN is. |
I think they do, but that's another argument.
The point here, though, is that the GC and Constitution are fundamentally different documents, addressing different situations, and cannot be compared, yet even if you insist on making that comparison the point doesn't hold up.
quote:
Enforcement powers are implied. After all the treaty is meaningless without them. People have been tried for violation of the GC, in tribunals through the UN. This is a more permanent one. |
Really? So every treaty has an enforcement mechanism? So the League of Nations actually had an enforcement mechanism, and lack of such a mechanism wasn't one of the "problems" (as others would call it) of that organization? Or, the Kellogg Briand Pact (as you already brought up) had enforcement mechanisms? Of course not. Not every treaty has such mechanisms, and such mechanisms are not implied in the GC. One cannot consider an international treaty to be a loose, open-to-interpretation document, because you have to remember the a nation is very unlikely to sign such a treaty, unless there is the understanding that it means only and specifically what it says - that was especially true when the GC was developed.
quote:
Um... because they did imply a court? And they did learn from history. I'm sorry, but I don't remember a 'Treaty of Versaille' type peace after WW2... that is learning from history. |
What does the Treaty of Versailles have to do with the Geneva Convention? Yes, in some cases politicians learn from history - but in the case of WW2, don't you think it's much more reasonable that the US knew it would need allies/satellite states against the Soviet Union, and thus did not treaty Germany and Japan too harshly? I think it was a bit of both, myself, but weighted towards the side of wanting to counterbalance the Soviets.
In the cases of treaties, no treaty prior to the GC, and really none to this day (excepting, of course, the recent ICC/ICJ treaties and the like) have set up or implied mechanisms such as international courts and the like, so why assume the GC did?
quote:
Because the UN decided to enforce the Geneva Convention, as the Convention does imply. |
Actually it's because the US wanted him out of the way - let's face it.
DS,
quote:
For one reason the Nazis and Japanese began the bombing of civilian targets during that war first - in China, in Hawaii, in the Phillipines, in Malaysia, in Spain, in Poland, in the Netherlands, in France, and in Africa. |
How is "they did it first" an acceptable justification for killing civilians?
quote:
For another reason both the Germans and the Japanese deliberately moved military production into small shops in their cities in order to make it more difficult to destroy. They deliberately put their own civilians in harms way in order to shield their war materials production. |
And, to punish them for that, we kill their civilians. Some solution. 
Besides, in many cases bombing cities had nothing to do with industry - the atomic bombings, for example.
quote:
Would it be illegal |
I care more about right and wrong than legality.
quote:
to target non-military targets, i.e., "infrastricture" potentially killing "X" number of enemy civilians, in order to prevent crimes against humanity leveled at 10X or 100X innocents? I don't think that to do so would be right. |
There's quite a difference between unavoidable collateral damage, when bombing valid targets such as railroad depots, oil refineries, etc., and indiscriminate firebombing of residential districts in large cities.
quote:
That's what the US did in Serbia - it destroyed the infrastructure of a nation bent on the genocide of one million of its inhabitants. Since nowhere near one million Serbs were killed the policy can be said to have been justified. |
The problem here (besides, of course, taking the US's word about Serbia) is that you are boiling this down to mathematics and statistics - turning people into numbers. You are saying that someone who murders 100 civilians is worse than someone who murders 50. I disagree - scope has nothing to do with it. The US was just as bad as the Nazis in WW2 - sure, they gassed 6 million Jews, but so what? We incinerated easily over a million Japanese and Germans, and displaced tens of millions. We were no better than they were.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Tingkai
|
|
To find the Northwest Passage
Aug 2001
time: 13:20
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by David Floyd
Very true. And the Germans felt justified in killing Soviet civilians, Jews, gypsies, etc., and the Japanese felt justified during the Rape of Nanking and the Death March.
What you're really saying, it seems, is that the firebombing and atomic bombing of Japanese cities, and the murder (not killing, murder) of hundreds of thousands of civilians was OK because it shortened the war and saved American lives.
|
There's a huge difference between the bombing of Japanese cities and what the Germans and Japanese did.
The Americans bombed a country that was actively fighting against them. The Allies never bombed people who had surrendered or people who were not fighting against them.
The Germans murdered Russians who had effectively surrendered. The Germans murdered Jews and others who were not fighting against them.
The Japanese murdered thousands of civilians in Nanking, after the city surrendered. The Death March killed thousands of men who had surrendered. The Japanese also killed thousands of civilians in Manila who were not fighting against them and who were not involved in any way in the war.
The actions of the Japanese and Germans were far different than that of the Americans.
I don't think anyone would argue that a crime is justified because the criminal thinks it is justified.
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
David Floyd
|
|
The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:20
|
|
quote:
There's a huge difference between the bombing of Japanese cities and what the Germans and Japanese did.
The Americans bombed a country that was actively fighting against them. The Allies never bombed people who had surrendered or people who were not fighting against them. |
This makes not one speck of difference. By that logic, we could have dropped The Bomb on Hanoi and Haiphong in Vietnam, because hey, they were fighting us. And we could have lined up and shot villagers we suspected of being VC - war is hell, right?
quote:
The Germans murdered Russians who had effectively surrendered. The Germans murdered Jews and others who were not fighting against them. |
And I'm sure the civilian population of, say, Dresden, was about to pick up Mausers and march to the front, right? And the women and children in Hiroshima were such a huge threat, weren't they?
And lest you get too self-righteous, remember what we did to Americans of Japanese descent. That was probably FDR's worst crime (Truman dropped the A-Bomb), and it's too bad the people who got locked up didn't try and resist.
I DO like your justification, though - basically, if we do something in war it's OK, but if someone else does it that's not OK. 
[quote]
|
|
| |
|
| |
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:20.
Apolyton Time is 00:20. |
top of page
|
| archivepost |
|
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|
20-06-2002 23:32
.
|