What We Stand For

Administration Seeks to Weaken War Crimes Law
Changes would end risk of prosecution for political appointees, CIA officers
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post

The Bush administration has drafted amendments to a war crimes law that would eliminate the risk of prosecution for political appointees, CIA officers and former military personnel for humiliating or degrading war prisoners, according to U.S. officials and a copy of the amendments. Officials say the amendments would alter a U.S. law passed in the mid-1990s that criminalized violations of the Geneva Conventions, a set of international treaties governing military conduct in wartime.


Call me crazy, but to me it seems that a better way to avoid prosecutions as war criminals is NOT TO COMMIT WAR CRIMES??

The administration has never gotten it. Let's accept just for a moment for the sake of discussion their laughable premise that these, um, "measures" are necessary to win the "war" on "turr." What is the ultimate result? Our personnel will suffer, take that to the bank. They fail to understand the whole point of international law, and it is a very simple one. WE should respect its norms so that we have a cogent, legitimate basis for asking others to do the same when necessary for our benefit. It boils down to credibility, and sadly, that pot has long since boiled dry.

There was a fever over the land. A fever of disgrace, of indignity, of hunger. We had a democracy, yes, but it was torn by elements within. Above all, there was fear. Fear of today, fear of tomorrow, fear of our neighbors, and fear of ourselves. Only when you understand that - can you understand what Hitler meant to us. Because he said to us: 'Lift your heads! Be proud to be German! There are devils among us. Communists, Liberals, Jews, Gypsies! Once these devils will be destroyed, your misery will be destroyed.' It was the old, old story of the sacrifical lamb. What about those of us who knew better? We who knew the words were lies and worse than lies? Why did we sit silent? Why did we take part? Because we loved our country! What difference does it make if a few political extremists lose their rights?

Dr. Ernst Janning from Judgment at Nuremberg

In the film, Judge Haywood responds:

But this trial has shown that under the stress of a national crisis, men - even able and extraordinary men - can delude themselves into the commission of crimes and atrocities so vast and heinous as to stagger the imagination. No one who has sat through this trial can ever forget....There are those in our country today, too, who speak of the "protection" of the country. Of "survival". The answer to that is, survival as what? A country isn't a rock, and it isn't an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for, when standing for something is the most difficult! Before the people of the world - let it now be noted in our decision here that this is what we stand for, justice, truth and the value of a single human being!