War Crimes

[Spinaroonie]

How can the US damn Slobidan Milosevic for his war crimes, but when we create them, we pay for somebody to make us exempt? Doesn't that make the nation one big hipocrit?

http://www.thenewsmexico.com/noticia.asp?id=33207

I'm not saying what Slobidan did was good. I'm just saying that we should be responsible for our own actions.

 

[lavender]

 

[Guest]

Hippos have clits?

 

[LadyG]

What do you call what we're doing/did in Afghanistan if not war crimes? Vietnam?

Oh please.

 

[Texan]

What do you call what we're doing/did in Afghanistan if not war crimes? Vietnam?

Oh please.

fucking ditz

 

[LadyG]

Oh look, I have a fan!

Fucking redneck.

 

[LovetoGiveRoses]

What do you call what we're doing/did in Afghanistan if not war crimes? Vietnam?

This is exactly why the ICC is never going to work.

 

[LadyG]

We can't point the fingers at others without taking responsibility for things we ourselves have done and are guilty of.


Oh and I apologize for sinking to the name calling level of Texan, I'm not really like that.

 

[Texan]

The United States does not want to have its soldiers tried and punished by a court outside its control. What the U.S. is trying to do is get individual countries to agree to this exemption from jurisdiction of the ICC BEFORE going into the country to help them with their internal problems. The Columbian government has requested the help of the U.S. in an effort to fight the drug cartels. The U.S. just wanted an agreement that the Columbian government that if some U.S. GI is accused of raping a Columbian girl, he will be tried in the U.S. or Columbia, not in Europe by the ICC.

Columbia agreed.

Spin, you misrepresented your quoted article with your thread title and your comparison with Milosevic. You are sounding more like REDWAVE every day.

 

[Texan]

We can't point the fingers at others without taking responsibility for things we ourselves have done and are guilty of.


Oh and I apologize for sinking to the name calling level of Texan, I'm not really like that.

this little "exchange" comes from another thread where the "Lady" called me ignorant, closed minded and representative of the Texan sterotype.

 

[LadyG]

After being told I was "young and a fucking ditz" I might add.

 

[Santino51]

What do you call what we're doing/did in Afghanistan if not war crimes? Vietnam?

Oh please.

What are we doing in Afghanistan??? It's almost 9/11 again, does that jog your memory??

 

[Texan]

After being told I was "young and a fucking ditz" I might add.

nope darlin..... you got the order wrong.... I posted something completely unrelated to anything you posted then you came back with your attack.

not that anyone cares, but the thread is a short one about Canadians thinking the U.S. is to blame for 9/11....

 

[LadyG]

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but after we've reduced the country to rubble once again, we still didn't get Bin Laden.

I haven't forgotten 9/11, but is it going to be used by our government to justify every attack we make on a middle east country from now on?

 

[LadyG]

Sorry Texan, I must have read them out of order then, Sweetie.

My apologies. (no sarcasm)

 

[Pagliacci]

The United States does not want to have its soldiers tried and punished by a court outside its control. What the U.S. is trying to do is get individual countries to agree to this exemption from jurisdiction of the ICC BEFORE going into the country to help them with their internal problems. The Columbian government has requested the help of the U.S. in an effort to fight the drug cartels. The U.S. just wanted an agreement that the Columbian government that if some U.S. GI is accused of raping a Columbian girl, he will be tried in the U.S. or Columbia, not in Europe by the ICC.

Columbia agreed.

Spin, you misrepresented your quoted article with your thread title and your comparison with Milosevic. You are sounding more like REDWAVE every day.

I'm all for an international tribunal judging war criminals,no matter nationality.
So I wonder why should the US be exempt ?
Either you let it be up to the nations own judicial system or you do the international thing.
No halfmeasures with some few special nation be more than others,then it starts to sound like "Some animals are more equal than others"

 

[mritsme]

What are we doing in Afghanistan??? It's almost 9/11 again, does that jog your memory??

Yea what are we doing? I support it but it is to quiet!!! I waana hear some new news. Ok well i know they won't tell us what there doing top secret but still im in the dark here, all i get is OBL is still running and laughing although news said this morning that an interview with alqueda spoke of him in past tense, but i doubt he is dead, and all i hear is there regrouping and not much dent put in there group, but hey that is from the news you never know about much what they say only what the government wants us to hear. Ok im going to shut up i did not want to ponder this or get emotional or mad about any of this for 2 more days.....

 

[Santino51]

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but after we've reduced the country to rubble once again, we still didn't get Bin Laden.

I haven't forgotten 9/11, but is it going to be used by our government to justify every attack we make on a middle east country from now on?

They started the "war on terror". I'm glad we have a President with the courage to protect our citizens even if that means fighting the terrorists in their homeland. We must destroy them before they attack us again.

 

[LadyG]

Iraq did? When??

 

[Texan]

I'm all for an international tribunal judging war criminals,no matter nationality.
So I wonder why should the US be exempt ?
Either you let it be up to the nations own judicial system or you do the international thing.
No halfmeasures with some few special nation be more than others,then it starts to sound like "Some animals are more equal than others"

The United States is not a participant in the ICC. Clinton was for our membership, but Bush is not. The ICC is basically a spin-off of the World Court in Denmark.

Take a look at Coolville's (the only Dane I know of) posts on this board and tell me you want that mindset judging American soldiers that were just doing their job.

The ICC has the ability to make the decision that any American military action anywhere in the world is an "Act of Aggression" and then try and prosecute any American soldier captured in that war as a war criminal. This gives a small group of (probably European) men WAY too much power over American foreign policy.

 

[Santino51]

Iraq did? When??

When Saddam let OBL open some terrorists training camps in his country. He also had a meeting with one of the 9/11 hijakcers early last year. I'm sure there are more examples of his terrorist activities that are "top secret".

 

[Pagliacci]

The United States is not a participant in the ICC. Clinton was for our membership, but Bush is not. The ICC is basically a spin-off of the World Court in Denmark.

Take a look at Coolville's (the only Dane I know of) posts on this board and tell me you want that mindset judging American soldiers that were just doing their job.

The ICC has the ability to make the decision that any American military action anywhere in the world is an "Act of Aggression" and then try and prosecute any American soldier captured in that war as a war criminal. This gives a small group of (probably European) men WAY too much power over American foreign policy.

Last I heard the US will join,but will be able to prosecute themselves for another year or two.This due to the ongoing "war on terror".
I'm Swedish myself and I got no problem with what the US is doing right now.Maybe Coolvilles mindset is the European one,maybe mine is.
That still doesn't answer why the US should be able to decide for themselves wheter My Lai/Song My situation is ethnic cleansing or simply "forcible eviction of suspected enemy collaborators" or whatever words are dreamed up instead of calling a spade a spade.

You must agree that it goes against Americas image if they drag suspected War criminals there,or prosecute them in the US and another standard goes for the US.
The detractors of the US would immediately compare any US trial of someone as phoney,just as the show trials in the Soviet Union were ridiculed by the US.
Likewise it'd look silly if the US dragged Mr X to the ICC to be judged.Why do it if you have stated and shown that you don't care for it.

 

[takingchances42]

"War Crimes" is a bit of an oxymoron. War itself is a criminal activity, by peace-time standards, with differing standards of morality.

"War Crimes" has traditionally been part of the spoils of war -- the winner gets to classify the loser as criminals, and prosecute the survivors withing the leadership. Pure hypocrisy? Sure, on some levels...

Waging a war is dirty business, bad things happen, and judgment mistakes occur. The US, like other civilized nations, has its own internal procedures for dealing with what it considers to be crimes committed by its own troops. Why should the US present its own troops for trial by Europeans? Keeping in mind that "justice" itself is all too often more a matter of politics and culture, rather than any abstract rights and wrongs...

 

[Pagliacci]

"War Crimes" is a bit of an oxymoron. War itself is a criminal activity, by peace-time standards, with differing standards of morality.

"War Crimes" has traditionally been part of the spoils of war -- the winner gets to classify the loser as criminals, and prosecute the survivors withing the leadership. Pure hypocrisy? Sure, on some levels...

Waging a war is dirty business, bad things happen, and judgment mistakes occur. The US, like other civilized nations, has its own internal procedures for dealing with what it considers to be crimes committed by its own troops. Why should the US present its own troops for trial by Europeans? Keeping in mind that "justice" itself is all too often more a matter of politics and culture, rather than any abstract rights and wrongs...

Yes waging war is a dirty business,this I know firsthand.
But no way in hell can you claim that criminal activities no matter the sort is a judgement mistake.
Yes,every nation have their own internal procedures.But if I follow you correctly then "might makes right" and simply because I can I get to impose my internal procedures upon someone else.That sounds plain wrong when it comes to a multinational peace keeping force. It doesn't even,to me,make sense in a plain war between nations that a third nation enters to cease hostilities.
I have a hard time believing that the ICC is purely European,if the US wants to I'm sure they can get both Judges as well as other positions in it.Provided they join it.

Justice is all that which you said which makes it even more strange that the American version should prevail over anyone they seize and label criminal,no matter that persons politics and culture.

 

[takingchances42]

But no way in hell can you claim that criminal activities no matter the sort is a judgement mistake.

(snip)
Justice is all that which you said which makes it even more strange that the American version should prevail over anyone they seize and label criminal,no matter that persons politics and culture.

Let's look at a recent example. The "attack" by US war planes in Afghanistan on a wedding party.

A bad thing, no doubt about it. But was it a mistake, let alone a crime?

The US planes were fired upon. If a soldier is attacked, then he has the right to return fire. With devastating force if it is available. No one who is not in that position should have the right to pass judgment on that.

But, if the ICC did have jurisdiction... there is a good chance that the US soldiers involved might have been indicted. On criminal grounds. For placing themselves in harm's way, at the direction of their own government, then responding to the attack.

The administration of justice is a fundamentally political process, particularly at the international level. I do believe in truth and justice. I don't believe in asking people to serve their country, then serving them up as victims to the rest of the international community, if it is judged politically expedient to do so.