Paint CHiPs
Viva Le Me
Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Location Location
Posts: 26420 |
quote:
Originally posted by Smug Git
Certainly in the UK, it is about 'reasonableness' in a lot of cases, although ignorance of the law in and of itself isn't much of a defence (unless the law were held to be unduly contrary, or something like that). Although as I say, I don't think that it would be anything like a complete defence here. 'Acting under orders' also can reduce the amount of blame attached, because it can bring in an element of compulsion (although again, I doubt that it would be a complete defence).
Well, they're free to try it. I don't think that much of a case can be made that they reasonably thought what they were doing was legally sanctioned.
Anyway, as I'm dumping stuff in this thread, this is something from Andrew Sullivan, a blog I've linked before. He's a gay Republican who has been one of the most adament supporters of the war on the internet. His update today was pretty starkly negative, and worth relaying.
The one anti-war argument that, in retrospect, I did not take seriously enough was a simple one. It was that this war was noble and defensible but that this administration was simply too incompetent and arrogant to carry it out effectively. I dismissed this as facile Bush-bashing at the time. I was wrong. I sensed the hubris of this administration after the fall of Baghdad, but I didn't sense how they would grotesquely under-man the post-war occupation, bungle the maintenance of security, short-change an absolutely vital mission, dismiss constructive criticism, ignore even their allies (like the Brits), and fail to shift swiftly enough when events span out of control. This was never going to be an easy venture; and we shouldn't expect perfection. There were bound to be revolts and terrorist infractions. The job is immense; and many of us have rallied to the administration's defense in difficult times, aware of the immense difficulties involved. But to have allowed the situation to slide into where we now are, to have a military so poorly managed and under-staffed that what we have seen out of Abu Ghraib was either the result of a) chaos, b) policy or c) some awful combination of the two, is inexcusable. It is a betrayal of all those soldiers who have done amazing work, who are genuine heroes, of all those Iraqis who have risked their lives for our and their future, of ordinary Americans who trusted their president and defense secretary to get this right. To have humiliated the United States by presenting false and misleading intelligence and then to have allowed something like Abu Ghraib to happen - after a year of other, compounded errors - is unforgivable. By refusing to hold anyone accountable, the president has also shown he is not really in control. We are at war; and our war leaders have given the enemy their biggest propaganda coup imaginable, while refusing to acknowledge their own palpable errors and misjudgments. They have, alas, scant credibility left and must be called to account. Shock has now led - and should lead - to anger. And those of us who support the war should, in many ways, be angrier than those who opposed it.
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05-10-2004 05:57 PM
