Chard wrote on Apr 7^th, 2013 at 5:18pm:


I disagree, Chard. The point being made is that Obama's  exemption of the US military from prosecution should they commit crimes against civilians is equivalent to the Barbarossa jurisdiction Decree', which exempted German soldiers from prosecution if they committed a crime against any Soviet civilian.

So far raising Godwin's Law has prevented an honest discussion of this claim. Perhaps it is an unfair comparison, I don't have enough information to form an opinion. Perhap's ridicule was the appropriate response, we shall see.

There's a huge difference between trying your soldier under your own military justice code and simply refusing to even recognize their actions as being criminal..

MOTR wrote on Apr 7^th, 2013 at 6:28pm:



Google the fate of Taxi driver  Dilawar to see how this pans out in practice.

Dilawar (born c. 1979 – December 10, 2002), also known as Dilawar of Yakubi, was an Afghan taxi driver who was tortured to death by US army soldiers at the Bagram Collection Point, a US military detention center in Afghanistan.
He arrived at the prison on December 5, 2002, and was declared dead 5 days later. His death was declared a homicide and investigated and prosecuted in the Bagram torture and prisoner abuse trials. The award winning documentary Taxi to the Dark Side focuses on the murder of Dilawar.[1]

On the day of his death, Dilawar had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days. A guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling. "Leave him up," one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying. Several hours passed before an emergency room doctor finally saw Mr. Dilawar. By then he was dead, his body beginning to stiffen. It would be many months before Army investigators learned that most of the interrogators had in fact believed Mr. Dilawar to be an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.[2]

Death

The findings of Mr. Dilawar's autopsy were succinct.[4] Leaked internal United States Army documentation, a death certificate dated 12 December 2002, ruled that his death was due to a direct result of assaults and attacks he sustained at the hands of interrogators of the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion during his stay at Bagram. The document was signed by Lt. Col. Elizabeth A. Rouse of the U.S. Air Force, a pathologist with the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington DC, and listed as its finding that the "mode of death" was "homicide," and not "natural," "accident" and "suicide"[5] and that the cause of death was "blunt-force injuries to lower extremities complicating coronary artery disease".[6]

A subsequent autopsy revealed that his legs had been "pulpified," and that even if Dilawar had survived, it would have been necessary to amputate his legs.[7]

According to the death certificate shown in the documentary Taxi to the Dark Side, the box marked Homicide had been checked as the ultimate cause of death. however, the military had so far publicly claimed that Dilawar had died from natural causes. It was only by accident that the death certificate was leaked, when New York Times reporter named Carlotta Gall managed to track down Dilawar's family in Yakubi, where Dilawar's brother, Shahpoor, showed her a folded paper, he had received with Dilawar's body. He could not read because it was in English. It was the death certificate.[8]

MOTR wrote on Apr 7^th, 2013 at 6:43pm:


A lie is still a lie no matter how many people choose to believe it. If enough people believe 2+2=3 it doesn't mean math is wrong, it just means they're terrible at math.

Chard wrote on Apr 7^th, 2013 at 6:56pm:


I guess it depends on your definition of a lie. I've no problem with people stating what they believe, particularly if it's a position they hold to be true. It becomes a lie when they wilfully remain ignorant or choose to deny certain facts.

Looking through notes regarding Hitlers plan to invade Russia I was reminded of the 'Barbarossa jurisdiction Decree', which exempted German soldiers from prosecution if they committed a crime against any Soviet civilian.


America has exempted itself and her military from prosecution should they commit crimes against civilians in countries such as Iraq (or anywhere else in the world for that matter).