Applying the Lessons of Nuremberg to the USA in 2009

[2 Much Tribulation]

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/9/2009/3452 (extended quotes below w/ permission)

Applying the Lessons of Nuremberg to the USA in 2009

by Paul Lehto, Juris Doctor

The Opening Statement of Chief Justice Robert L. Jackson at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials in 1945 states in part:

"And let me make clear that while this law is first applied against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a useful purpose it must condemn, aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment." (emphasis added)

{...}

...the dirty details are not likely to be as important as one might think, because the absolute prohibitions on both inhumane degrading treatment of prisoners as well as torture are of the same status: absolute, binding without treaty, and provide for no exceptions in “time of war.” Indeed, it is largely in wartime situations that the prohibitions against torture, mistreatment of prisoners, genocide and slavery are most needed, even if they are not the only time these bright line prohibitions are needed.

Torture, degrading and inhumane treatment of prisoners, genocide and slavery are virtually unique in the law of nations or international law, specifically admitting of no exceptions regardless of whether or not a given country has signed the Geneva Convention. This is because these absolute prohibitions are universally accepted norms ”in the civilized world," a.k.a. "jus cogens" norms of international law. Jus cogens is the Latin term for those universally binding norms of international law that are binding on all countries regardless of treaty ratification. In other words, they are universal and absolute human rights.

Without this very absoluteness, even in times of war, there would be no meaningful human rights at all, since all rules would go out the window in any given war.

{...}

"We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is not that they lost the war, but that they started it. ... Our position is that no grievances or policies will justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy."
--Chief Justice Robert L. Jackson, at Nuremberg, August 12, 1945 (emphasis added)

Does anyone recall from the pre-2000 era how “wars of aggression” was a universal term of condemnation in US media?

Also from the Statement of the Nuremberg War Crime Tribunal:

"Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience. Therefore (individual citizens) have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring."

That is, no memo or act of Congress or order from a superior office is a defense to a charge of crimes against peace and humanity, such as torture, inhumane treatment of prisoners, slavery or genocide. Civil disobedience is required.

{...}

All of us should make clear where we stand, applying the above clear principles of human rights and not by our silence becoming in any way complicit with crimes against humanity for which we have no defense.

Paul Lehto, Juris Doctor

More at http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/9/2009/3452

[Mnemosyne]

1. Jackson came from my area. He has got to be making like a top in his grave. n/t

[Land Shark]

4. Quite a lot of stomachs and consciences are spinning today in any event.... nt

[Mnemosyne]

20. Sadly, LS, sadly. n/t

[jwirr]

2. Thank you. I was born in 1941 and this is the moral basis I grew up

on. I can only wonder what the basis for bush/chainey was that they could betray us so deeply.

[Land Shark]

3. Thanks, & yet I experience this as the moral basis every adult American grew up with! nt

[madrchsod]

5. the american people will do nothing

the politicians will never have the courage to investigate anyone.

i hope i am wrong but so far the silence is deafening

[Land Shark]

7. "the american people" DOES NOT = "the politicians"

"the american people" DOES NOT = "the politicians"

The silence is not deafening in my experience. In fact, at least the way I approach the issue as one of universal human rights (either the USA created human rights or human rights notions founded the USA on its historical mission to progress in this area) I don't find any disagreement of any substantial amount. How can one have a "moral compass" if they approve of sexual crimes and torture to obtain information from those who largely haven't committed any crimes??? I guess what I'm saying is that it matters enormously HOW one approaches any given issue or argument in terms of the success or agreemen.

Also, never look to the corporate media for confirmation of any deep truth. We all tend to do that but have to disabuse ourselves of looking to that source for "confirmation" that the people are in agreement. We also can't, and SHOULDN'T expect the government of any party or parties to investigate itself, whistleblow on itself, audit itself, etc. That's ridiculous.

This is for the american people to directly evaluate and individually approve or or disassociate themselves from. AS that progresses, then we will see a nonpartisan and hopefully international tribunal to address this, as the American people increasingly demand it.

[Uncle Joe]

8. I agree, Land Shark.

I also believe regarding the "deafening silence," the trees have been falling in a forest with the corporate media; holding their hands over their ears going la la la la la la la la la, but as the trees continue to fall, at some point they won't have anything to hide behind and will be exposed as the butt naked morally bankrupt institution for which they have become, and I do believe that day is rapidly approaching to a critical tipping point number of the American People.

[madrchsod]

13. you are right.

sometimes it get`s depressing....

[Land Shark]

14. Thanks, and that means there's still hope for us yet (as opposed to full reliance on politicos) nt

[The Leveller]

6. The Simple Truth On US Torture In Iraq

Could it really have ended any other way? As the New York Times reports, Barack Obama and the Democratic Establishment are coming down hard and fast to quell any incipient movement toward accountability for the Bush Regime's torture system.

These "leaders" continue to advance the bizarre and bogus argument that the nation has too many "urgent priorities" to bother with following its own laws. Obama told the Democratic poobahs from Congress that a "full inquiry" into the torture system would "steal time and energy from his policy agenda," the Times reports. But this argument -- indeed the entire issue of some sort of "commission" to investigate the high crimes -- is simply a cynical bait and switch.

It is really very simple. Ample, credible evidence of violations of federal law have been produced by a plethora of reputable sources -- including the United States Senate and even the Pentagon. It is the function of the Justice Department to investigate possible violations of federal law, and, if warranted, prosecute them. Barack Obama would not -- could not -- carry out such a criminal investigation or direct the prosecution. The United States Congress would not carry out such a criminal investigation or direct the prosecution. Not a single government official now involved in dealing with the wars, with foreign policy, with the economy and the bailout, with health care, with employment and housing, with the environment, with the budget, with immigration -- in short, with any single activity of governing whatsoever -- would have their "time and energy" taken up by a straightforward criminal investigation undertaken by the Justice Department.

If anyone -- politician, pundit, pal at the water cooler -- gives you the argument that torture can't be investigated because it would be a "distraction" from other government business, they are either lying to your face, or else ignorantly repeating a lie that's been filtered down from the elite. The argument about "distraction" is ludicrous, and insulting, on its face. It is exactly like saying, "Oh, we can't investigate these murders by Al Capone and his mob, because the mayor and city council have a lot on their plates right now, with this Depression and all. This is a time for looking forward, not retribution."

We don't need a "truth commission." We don't need to "wait for the facts to be gathered," as that walking conglomeration of craven servility and moral corruption, Harry Reid, insists. There are enough clearly established, copiously documented, credibly supported facts already in the public domain to warrant a full-scale criminal investigation by federal law enforcement officials.

Link:
http://www.baltimorechronicle.com/2009/042709Floyd.shtml

[Land Shark]

10. Thanks for the interesting boxed quote! nt

[pleah]

9. K&R

[reprehensor]

11. If the US will not do anything...

Then other nations will;

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5720395

It'll just take longer. Too long, IMO.

[Land Shark]

12. The "US" is rigtfully owned by us. (We the People) Each of us can do something, w/o waiting....

I don't know how many folks or if reprehensor is in fact sitting back and waiting, or simply and only complaining, but there are things every individual can, and MUST do. For example:

1. Disassociate themselves from the criminal activities, in as public a fashion as they can.
2. "Not in Our Name"
3. fill in your own examples here

Note that none of the above are dependent upon waiting for "authorities" to investigate themselves, especially under conditions were the authorities are, at best, perceived by some Americans as biased (partisans) and, at worst, are themselves compromised or part of the perpetration of the problems.

WE the people have to take direct responsibility for actions on these kinds of things. THe owners, so to speak, We the people, can't leave the employees to work out issues of rogue unfaithful criminal employees, where the employees are divided into two big camps....

[Joe Chi Minh]

15. Until the US started its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, one would have thought

that the Nazi Regime was rightly considered to have distilled in within itself the quintessence of evil. Despite the fact that, as a nation, they had been driven to extremity, with massive unemployment and so on, as a result of extremely heavy, unrealistically punitive damages. When any remotely viable nation reaches such an extremity, well it will fight back in a war of aggression but also of defence - although it is normally by a small nation/population and hence, in such cases, of necessity, asymmetric. WWII, alas, was not such a war.

I understand and sympathise with this principle of "jus cogens" with regard to torture, and of course, endorse it whole-heartedly, to say the least, but with respect to Germany's war of aggression by way of WWII, I think we stray into the "We are the angels, they are the demons" in a way that detracts from the force of the absolute proscription against torture. I don't like to equate them. All wars are and alway have been ultimately about raw materials, scams dreamt up by evil, insatiably avaricious old war profiteers. What a boon Smedley-Butler has been to our understanding of war.

I was brought up to believe that our people had been irreproachable victims of the war, when it seems that the monied classes of the West (including Australia and NZ) had actually been great admirers of Hitler and Mussolini. Hitler was even on the short-list for the Nobel PEACE PRIZE! Indeed, they left Franco and Salazar in place, after the war. For some reason the South American "caudillos" don't seem to have counted in our leaders' eyes....

However, it is clear from the stories/videos of child rape and sodomising, alone, that the US has strayed into the unambiguously demonic - yes, worse even than Nazi Germany or Japan. Apparently, our leaders countenanced deadly medical experiments in peace-time, both before and after the war ON THEIR OWN PEOPLE, military and civlian. I expect, after that, that the Abyss was always beckoning your military-industrial establishment, and our poodles in the UK.

So, bravo, Paul and 2 Much Tribulation for reminding us what is at stake. But I consider our wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan to be more despicably evil, in principle, than that of the Germans in WWII. In practice, of course, Hitler, by whatever means, managed to bring out the very worst in the population as a whole, so that you couldn't get a Rizla paper between the regimes in terms of their evil behaviour. In the end, a monolithic, domestic terrorism prevailed in Nazi Germany, so that protest and longevity had become mutually exclusive. We may have been spared that.

For some reason, the far right, to this day, seems to be easy with sexual depravity (Batista's Cuba, for example), in a way that, as far as I'm aware, no Communist regime ever was. It sure adds another dimension of nightmare to torture, so that's strange. Is it so surprising, though, given that Anglo-US capitalism has been given "carte blanche" to do whatever it wants for ever greater profits and for ever fewer beneficiaries - impacting scientific experiments, whether in laboratories or in the countryside? Sins have a knock-on effect on seemingly unrelated areas.

[Land Shark]

16. Pretty much agreed, but I would add one distinction or note as follows

Joe Chi Minh said, in part (expressing caution about parallels with Nazi Germany):
{There's a danger of too much} "We are the angels, they are the demons" in a way that detracts from the force of the absolute proscription against torture."

Well, to appropriately counterbalance that danger, I hope, I opened with Justice Jackson's comment that the rules apply equally to the victor nations, which of course specifically included the USA.

A few years back, not sure how many but not too terribly many years, I'd have said "right on" to the above, for many reasons. But now, I think this new torture stuff is so heinous and so much of a game changer that we stare right in the face a pendulum-type swing to the opposite pole: Specifically, a swing to America as THE evil empire, at least in way too much world opinion, and the great danger of throwing the baby (american ideals violated over the last decade much more than ever) with the bathwater (crimes).

These ideals, which are not strictly USA ideals but human ideals, had a birth or rebirth here circa 1776 in which what I call "guidestars" of equality, freedom and democracy were consciously set up to benefit all of mankind (as Franklin noted colonists "commonly recognized" the broader applicability of the struggle from empire) and also consciously recognized the ideals were to guide us for all time, or "all posterity" as Henry Clay put it a tad later. Such lofty ideals, analogous to the ideal of honesty, are set up to calibrate our moral/political compass by, like the polar star. Though we NEVER REACH the polar star, we are not thereby "hypocrites" if we are making progress in light of its direction. Thus, we may freely accept and even love imperfect humans WHO ARE TRYING to follow the guidestars.

What we can't accept is direct movement in the wrong direction, like torture. That's hypocrisy and much worse than that. No danger of America=always an angel thinking so much anymore, IMHO. But I agree wholeheartedly if what you mean is that more humility is required on the part of the USA. To be sure! That can't hurt any person, or nation. Bold in spirit, humble in attitude seems a good slightly paradoxical combination as another kind of guidestar.

[Joe Chi Minh]

17. I take your point about the necessity of laying down markers for our aspirations, Paul.

[Land Shark]

18. Wonderful way of teaching me not the value of concision, but concision in fact. :) nt

[omega minimo]

19. .