How high in rank can a solider be and successfully use the Nuremberg defense?

[wuushew]

The pilots in bombers or the sailors in submarines have almost no knowledge of the complete geopolitical situation that would preface an order to attack Iran. Indeed if one had the ability to ask "Are we currently at war" his or her superior is not necessarily obliged to answer.

Assuming that the invasion of Iraq was somehow prosecuted as a war crime who would be in the docket? Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield and the members of the Joint Chiefs for sure. What rank can you get away with saying you didn't have enough of the big picture? Somewhere between colonel and general/captain and admiral?

[NNN0LHI]

1. If we can get the top ten criminals starting with Bush and Cheney in the dock I will be satisfied

[truedelphi]

2. At the Nuremberg trials they even went after people who were nothing

More than folks in charge of a custodial situation. I mean, imagine being sent to oversee Buchenwald Concentration Camp some two months before the war's end - at that point, no one in Germany was eating - and yet they are being prosecuted for the fact that there wasn't food.

That being said, I hope that any and everyone gets some payback for the damage done. Including the people like Feinstein's husband, who got his 27 million for war contracts.

[sharesunited]

3. Power to make a moral choice transcends rank.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Defense

[zonmoy]

4. none

I hope.

that defense should never have been allowed.

[Wizard777]

5. The Nuremberg defense is not a valid defense.

That is why soldiers have the right to defy illegal orders. If a commander tell you I want you to take that building and kill everyone inside or even says take no prisoners. That is an order of no survivors. Which is a war crime and therefore an illegal order.

[wuushew]

6. I guess what I want to know is how high up do you need to know a war is BS

Division or Battalion commander? Regional theater command?

[Wizard777]

7. Private.

[thunder rising]

8. Anybody ordered to kill (especially those pulling the trigger) must answer "Is this a LAWFUL ORDER?"