A History of Political Trials

From the desk of John Laughland on Thu, 2008-05-29 11:45

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On 12 June, my latest book, A History of Political Trials from Charles I to Saddam Hussein will be published. The book was born out of one sentence written in the Introduction to my last book but one, on the Milosevic trial. There, I had written that the Milosevic trial did not break new ground, as supporters of the brave new world of international tribunals maintain, but that instead its precedents lay in the great revolutionary trials of the past. It was in order to examine those precedents more closely that I decided to look at all the trials of heads of state and government in history.
 
The story begins with King Charles I in 1649 and ends with Saddam Hussein, executed in December 2006. Or rather, it does not end with Saddam since there are currently two former heads of state on trial, Charles Taylor of Liberia and Alberto Fujimori of Peru. Meanwhile, the newly created International Criminal Court is happily issuing indictments to people accused of war crimes, most recently against the leader of the opposition in Congo. Indeed, all the indictees of the new ICC are Africans.
 
Various conclusions emerge from the historical account. The first is that, in three hundred years of trials of former heads of state and government, there has never been a single acquittal. The only former heads of state who have escaped conviction have been Erich Honecker, the former head of state of East Germany, and Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president – the former by being about to die, the latter by actually dying while still on trial. The grim words of Danton to a French exile who returned from London to Paris in 1792 to help the defence of Louis XVI have been proved right: “Can one help a king who is on trial? He is dead as soon as he appears before his judges.”
 
The second conclusion is that all the trials have been rigged in one way or another. The most common form of rigging is by the use of retroactive legislation or retroactive jurisdiction: special laws are passed and special courts created in order to obtain the conviction of the defendants. It is also common for juries or judges to be politically motivated and therefore biased; indeed, it is common for there to be a political purge in advance of the trial to ensure the “right” outcome.  The British House of Commons was purged by a military coup d’état in December 1648, known as Pride’s Purge, and only implacable opponents of the King were allowed to remain MPs and sit in judgement over him. Marshal Pétain’s jury was selected exclusively from members of the Resistance; the Iraqi judiciary was purges of all Ba’ath Party members before Saddam’s trial.
 
This inherent bias pertains even to that icon of war crimes trials, Nuremberg. I show in the book that Nuremberg was in fact only one trial out of many of former heads of state, conducted more or less simultaneously after World War II. Not only the German leaders at Nuremberg but also former leaders in France, Norway, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Finland were put on trial. They were all either imprisoned or shot. In all cases, it was the Soviets who were the driving force: they demanded war crimes prosecutions as a condition of the armistices they administered in Eastern Europe and, in countries where their political influence was weaker (Finland and Greece) the defendants got off relatively lightly. Where the Soviet influence was strong, they were generally executed.
 
The bias in Nuremberg was particularly disgusting because it is widely accepted that the Nazis did indeed commit horrific crimes against humanity. But they were not prosecuted for these, at least not principally, but instead for a new invented charge, that of waging aggressive war. Not only was this new principle invented for the purposes of creating a new international system (the United Nations) and for exculpating the Allies for their own violations of the laws of war and international law during the conflict, it has also proved to be a legal dead letter. Although I have much personal sympathy with the idea of outlawing aggressive war, history shows that it is legal nonsense. No one has been prosecuted for it since Nuremberg and Tokyo, and the crime of aggression has been quietly kicked into touch by the charter of the new International Criminal Court (which says it will have jurisdiction over it only when there is agreement on its definition, i.e. never).
 
I say that the bias at Nuremberg was disgusting because the collusion between the Western Allies and the Soviets was intense to ensure that their own war crimes never came under scrutiny. The Soviets demanded that the Nazis be prosecuted for the Katyn massacre of some 20,000 Poles because Goebbels had publicly accused them of guilt for it. The NKVD had, in fact, committed the crime but the Soviets wanted to blame the Germans instead and so the Western Allies obliged. But the collusion also led to real German crimes being covered up. This happened on two important occasions, concerning the war at sea and the war in the air. When the German admiral, Erich Raeder, was accused of waging unrestricted submarine warfare, his defence lawyers got his American opposite number, Chester Nimitz, to write an affidavit saying that the Allies had done the same thing. The charges were dropped. Similarly, the Germans were never prosecuted for the Blitz because the British and the Americans had won the war with terror bombing of German cities which made the Blitz look like a tea party. In other words, a German crime was not considered a crime if the Allies had committed it as well.
 
Today’s international tribunals are no less hypocritical and political than Nuremberg. Anyone who knows my writings on Slobodan Milosevic and the Kosovo war will know what I think about the Yugoslav tribunal in The Hague. But is the conclusion, then, that we should improve procedures are set up a truly independent court?
 
There are two answers to this question. The first is that we do have an excellent independent international court, the International Court of Justice, whose pedigree is impeccable (established as the high court of the United Nations in 1946, it is really the continuation of the Permanent International Court of Justice in 1920) and whose rulings are not only uniformly excellent but also completely incompatible with the post Cold War view that international law ought to be coercive. The ICJ has notably ruled illegal an arrest warrant issued by Belgium against the former Foreign Minister of the Congo, on the basis that one state does not have jurisdiction over an official of another state even for so-called “universal” crimes; it also posthumously exonerated Slodoban Milosevic in 2007 when it ruled that Serbia had not, after all, controlled the Bosnian Serb army and that Belgrade therefore did not bear responsibility for the Srebrenica massacre.
 
The second answer is connected to the first. The ICJ’s rulings are inspired by the law as it stands – as expressed by the United Nations charter, treaty law and customary international law. They are not inspired by legally nonsensical appeals to vague notions about human rights. The ICJ and the UN Charter are based on the view that it is best if states resolve their disputes peacefully and do not regard each other’s internal affairs as their own business. This is the principle which has come under sustained attack by the supporters of universal human rights and international criminal law.
 
When we look back over more than a century of international efforts to legislate on the laws of war, what do we conclude? Since the Russian Emperor, Nicholas II, convened the First Hague Peace Conference in 1899, the world has been plunged into conflicts far bloodier than those anyone could then have imagined. Total war and revolution have characterised the twentieth century. At some point, we have to ask: are these two facts connected?
 
I believe that they are – although I do not develop this argument this in my book. I believe that the criminalisation of the enemy makes war worse. In the classical tradition of international law, that which obtained in Europe from the end of the Thirty Years’ War to the First World War, the enemy was regarded as legal and justified. Defeated enemies were treated with courtesy – as witnessed, no doubt in an idealised form, by Velazquez’s beautiful depiction of the surrender at Breda in 1625. In the modern tradition, by contrast, born essentially in the First World War, the mentality of colonial and anti-insurgency war was applied to European conflicts. The enemy was demonised as an “enemy of humanity”, a “tyrant”, a “terrorist”.
 
No doubt such demonisation was needed in order to curry public support for the terrible bombing campaigns with which the Allies won their wars – the enemy needed to be de-humanised before he could be killed, in the millions, in fire-storms and ethnic cleansing. But this criminalisation makes the enemy into an absolute enemy, who must be destroyed and not just defeated, and that is why modern war is now invariably ideological, and always accompanied by regime change and revolution. The result is that the militant supporters of international criminal law prefer their “just wars” to an “unjust peace”, aggravating out of all proportion (as in the Balkans and the Middle East) wars which could otherwise be brought to a conclusion much more swiftly.
 
I very much hope that my book will make some modest contribution to encouraging people to reflect on the merits of renewing with this lost classical tradition.

 

gold medals without meat

Submitted by kappert on Mon, 2008-06-02 13:29.

So far, India has produced 94 Olympic Champions, not many but better than none. Regarding the meat issue, as far as I know, in the kitchens next to Sikh temples meat-dishes are not served at all. There is a vivid controversy within Sikh gurus whether to eat meat or not. The hint of 'fighting' is a rather faulty idea that 'meat gives strength'. And alcohol is tolerated, probably because many Sikhs were employed by the British(?), as it nor an Indian nor a Muslim tradition.

@ kappert

Submitted by traveller on Mon, 2008-06-02 17:18.

8 gold, 3 silver and 4 bronze.
The gold all in hockey, a sport which was played only by India, Pakistan and Bangla Desh in championships since a long time until recently.
Today, since the Europeans and other countries became better, they don't win anymore.
Of course with the 8 gold for hockey, every player of the team gets a golden medal.

@ kappert

Submitted by traveller on Mon, 2008-06-02 17:46.

Lest I forgot, do you remember the little knots on the heads of the hockey players, Sikhs my friend, the large majority.

@ kappert

Submitted by traveller on Mon, 2008-06-02 17:12.

Yes and one of them had a medal in the women's athletics, a man dressed as a woman. It became a general scandal.

@ kappert

Submitted by traveller on Mon, 2008-06-02 17:10.

Sikhs eat meat, full stop. The alcohol addition is to have them drunk and fearless.
This is a 500 year or so old rule, give or take a few years.
Rajputs eat meat. The old type "coming of age" of a Rajput youth and mostly chief was to hack off the head of a bull in one sweep with a sword. Try it, it's not easy.

Red petcar

Submitted by Sagunto on Sun, 2008-06-01 00:25.

@MF,

 

I was only kiddin' of course, and I see what you mean, although I must admit that when I read:

"..Some of the greatest 'conquering generals' in history, I believe, were vegetarians.."

I'm not entirely convinced by this "general"-statement, unless you were able to produce evidence that these veggie generals had several conquering veggie divisions at their command ;-)

My gut feeling would be that them troops in general probably liked their stakes. Perhaps so much so, that when they received nothing but beans, they got enough of a bad temper to win them important battles.

 

Sag.

Oh, and sorry about the bboom-thing. It was a bit rude and unnecessary.

red carpet

Submitted by marcfrans on Sat, 2008-05-31 23:10.

@ Sagunto

 

Indeed, it was a 'nonargument'.  But it had a point.  It was intended to show that Traveller was making an absurd general claim about the supposed ill effects of vegetarianism.  Some of the greatest 'conquering generals' in history, I believe, were vegetarians. But not Stalin's generals; they ate lots of meat (and potatoes).  And no, I am not a "babyboomer" (explosive or not), at least not 'technically'.  Thank God, I missed that rotten boat!

@MF: roll out the red kappert?

Submitted by Sagunto on Sat, 2008-05-31 22:34.

@MF,

 

While reading the interesting discussion between yourself and @traveller, I couldn't help but notice a line of reasoning that might be cause for some concern. I mean, invoking a blanket statement by a certain gentleman to prove your point? [pt: 3)]

Sounds kinda like a new sophism to me , a so-called "red kappert" ;-) 

 

Sag.

Oppert agonistas # 2

Submitted by marcfrans on Sat, 2008-05-31 22:05.

@ Traveller

You knew that I would respond with "it is all about the big picture, not the details".  Three specific points of friendly disagreement between us:

1) All civilisations eventually die, and all political systems eventually will disappear.  I doubt that "united India" will disappear before the EU and the USA will.   Educated Indians generally are proud of their democracy and of their federal union.   They are still working on improving both.  And they have 2 big neighbors that help 'concentrate their minds'.  Sadly, Europeans and Americans, in general, are presently not improving on the democracy their ancestors left behind.  On the contrary, they are moving backwards in a cultural sense.  Also, Indians generally do not walk around with absurd guilt complexes about their own civilisation.  But, they did import a degree of Marxism from the Brits, which in the end may well undo them too.  

2) My experiences with 'hindu personal relationships' are quite different from yours.  However, mine generally occurred (and still are occuring) outside India and largely under circumstances of comfortable wealth and substantial education, quite different from the Bombay street scenes you depicted.   Perhaps your Bombay time happened before the big 'take-off' in the early 1990's?   

3) I must object to your faulty description of the effects of vegetarianism.  I am basically a vegetarian (though not a dogmatic one), and Kappert thinks that I am in love with "napalm bombings, cluster bombs, Guantanamos, and other detention camps".  That does not square with your "peaceful because of scared shitless human being"!

@ marcfrans

Submitted by traveller on Sun, 2008-06-01 12:07.

In the same friendly spirit and with a lot of respect:
1) My personal experience with successful Indian individuals were good until I caught them in a drunken or any other unguarded moment. Than the veneer came off. The politicians I knew were invariably in touch with big gangster groups whom they paid off for their services.
I knew personally all 3 leaders of the 3 big gangster groups of Bombay, totalling 50.000 armed gangsters. 2 of them worked with Congress and Shiv Senna, one with Congress and BJP. The 3 leaders were actually ruling Bombay and the Bombay police. They didn't hesitate to kill police officers who didn't toe the line.
You will not find this connection in Washington or New York where the polished upper crust of Indian businessmen and diplomats don't have to worry about their personal safety.
Try to talk to them some time about the relationship between Sanjay Ghandi and Antulay(chief minister of Maharashtra, Congress party), godfather of the Bombay goondas(gangsters) and collector of Sanjay's share of the goldsmugglers in Dubai(Galadari family). They should be in their late fifties or sixties.
You can also ask one day why the Indian government didn't do anything serious to obtain the extradition of Dawood Ibrahim from Dubai where he lived for years after having organised the Bombay terrorist blasts killing 92 people, in cooperation with the ISI chief general Gul. Dawood was one of the 3 gangsterbosses I knew. He was paying every single major politician and had records on all of them. This is not hearsay but personal knowledge. Why do you think I have no respect for Indian politics or politicians?
I predicted what would happen to the Enron project in Maharashtra before it ever started in a discussion with their female executive vice-president power generation. She laughed and told me that I didn't see the big picture(not in these words of course).

2)Britain never introduced democracy in India, it was a colonial very polished and extremely well organized bureaucracy, using the greed and historical power structure of the ruling Maharajahs, Nawabs, Nizams and tutti quanti. Those old rulers used the gangsters already since ancient history to control their population. Why do you think every Indian movie features the relation between rulers and gangsters? This was a constant feature in Indian history.

3) Veggies.
Here you touch my personal conviction.
Why do you think a billion people have not one single olympic champion?
Why do you think the Sikhs started consuming meat and alcohol to be able to fight the muslim invaders?
Why do you think the Sikhs are now average a head taller than the hindus, they were the same people before.
Why do you think converted muslims are a head taller than the hindus, they were the same people before.

Those are realities my friend.

@ marcfrans

Submitted by traveller on Mon, 2008-06-02 11:58.

The things I described happened in 1990/91/92 and I am sure the same spirit exists today.

Oppert agonistas

Submitted by marcfrans on Sat, 2008-05-31 18:37.

@ Atlanticist

If the Hindhus, with their "warrior caste" stood no chance, and were taken over (for centuries) -  by the muslim 'Persians' to their west, how does the EU stand a chance with its peacenik Kapperts and Schaveigers?  Maybe Armor and KA will show the way!

Let's give the 'old' Brits their due.  They brought 'democracy' to India, but it took a while and was not always 'pretty'.  Although Traveler (who spent much time in Pakistan) does not agree, smart Indians today do. I am still grateful for the Romans coming to Flanders long ago. Some forms of "change" improve matters, and others do not. But, for Kappert and Obama to realise that, they must first learn to make (contextual and proportional) moral judgments as opposed to parroting naive-left ideology and irrational hatred.

@ marcfrans

Submitted by traveller on Sat, 2008-05-31 20:04.

The main reason why the hindus couldn't win from the muslims was their endless divisions and disagreements.
Plus the vegetarian staple which creates a weak, "peaceful because of scared shitless", human being.
The only ones who successfully resisted were the Rajputs and Akhbar made an alliance with them. The Punjabi Sikhs also resisted but the Sikhs are to small a group to form a real army. There was only one great Sikh warrior Maharajah and he was actually a half ally of the British who allowed him to subjugate other Hindu states until the British finally took over power after his death.
This Maharajah and exceptional person was Ranjit Singh.
He ruled a state with a muslim majority and the muslims adored him. He was the first Hindu to defeat the Afghans and he was never ruled by the British. After his death the British took over.

@ marcfrans

Submitted by traveller on Sat, 2008-05-31 19:50.

You knew that I was going to answer this.
I also lived 3 years in India, Bombay, and travelled all over the place. I spent a lot of time in Kashmir just before the "war" started.
I don't really know, in this context, what I don't agree with.
My standpoint is quite simple:
The British "formed" a united India which never existed before, and which will disappear again.
There is a very strong upper class which is based on pure materialism and which controls the intelligentia.
The real rich cultural activities are 80 % muslim, Bollywood is completely in the hands of muslims with some hindu exceptions, not many.
Most poetry is written in Urdu, the muslim equivalent of Hindi.
The relation person to person of normal hindus is a pure materialistic relation. There is no warmth whatsoever in a hindu person to person relationship, only calculation.
I have seen deadly traffic accidents, which I considered murder, because of the total disregard of the pedestrians involved, happening 2 meters from a policeman. The dead woman stayed on the road with immediately 2 million onlookers, and the policeman turned around and walked away without even looking at the body. Not one time but 3 times and every time with a poor woman.
I have seen a naked corpse of an old woman on the waste heap of the "subze" market(vegetable and fruit market) at Crawford market in Bombay. They robbed her of her last stitch of clothes while waiting for the waste trucks to take the body with the vegetable waste. I can go on and on about this.
But I don't know what I don't agree with in your comment.
Please clarify.

From Oppert to Kappert

Submitted by Atlanticist911 on Sat, 2008-05-31 17:33.

@ marcfrans

 

According to the leading German Indologist of his day, Gustav Solomon Oppert (1836 - 1908) it was the Hindus, not the Chinese, who first invented explosives for military use. Oppert supported his claim by quoting two ancient Sanskrit manuscripts, namely the Sukranity and the Nitiprakasika.

see: Gunpowder, Explosives and the State: A Technological History by Brenda J Buchanan.

 

This must be very disappointing (and confusing) for kappert, not to mention that ethnic 'Chinese' North American gentleman you wrote about.  

Endless misconceptions # 2

Submitted by marcfrans on Sat, 2008-05-31 16:17.

@ Atlanticist

 

1) A few weeks ago I was talking to an ethnic 'Chinese' person in North America, and he was claiming that "the Chinese" were "way ahead" (his words) of the rest BECAUSE they had invented 'explosives' before everybody else a few thousand years ago.  I will spare you my complete response, which included pointing out that 'they' still do not have 'rule of law' even today in China, but 'rule of the Politbureau'. 

2) Nevertheless, it is safe to say that the Chinese are way ahead of kappert in logical thinking. Consider the following sequence of 'events'.

-  Kappert wrote foolishly:  "...marcfrans ....would defend napalm bombing, cluster bombs etc.........as long (as) a public/popular majority is in favour".

- Marcfrans responds: "....(Kappert) seems to think that I could think that the public in western democratic countries could ever be favorably disposed towards napalm bombings etc.... What a silly assumption to make!"

- Kappert comes back: "If my comment is so silly, why have western countries developed napalm etc....".

Apparently he seems to think that they have "developed" napalm by public acclamation in the major town square in the Swiss Canton of Graubunden (umlaut).  It is unbelievable what is standing in front of our grandchildren in class rooms all over the Western world today! 

 

napalm invention

Submitted by kappert on Sat, 2008-05-31 15:13.

Napalm was invented by Harvard University chemical Louis Frieser in 1942. It was used by the Allies to bomb Japanese cities. It was also used in Greece, Korea, Vietnam and Mexico. In 1980 it was prohibited by the United Nations.

Endless misconceptions

Submitted by marcfrans on Fri, 2008-05-30 20:49.

-- The ICC is not a "European-bIAsed" court. It is based in Europe, and it was created largely at the instigation of EU member countries and of South Americans who lack self-criticism.  It is only barely a year old, and the fact that it so far only has gone after some African wrongdoers is because it is still trying to gain 'acceptance' by other great powers.  However, Mr Laughland's article has clearly illustrated, based on the historical experience of such trials, why such acceptance would be a foolish idea for any self-respecting power.  Yet, this is the same article that Kappert has called "a great article"!   Democratic countries certainly have better internal avenues  to follow (than the ICC) in order to punish their own wrongdoers, rather than to handover such jurisdiction to an international cabal of totalitarians and authoritarians.  

-- The rest of kappert's rant speaks for itself and does not deserve any clarification or correction.  Except to point out that he seems to be under the mistaken impression that I could or would think that the public in western democratic countries could ever be favorably disposed towards  "...napalm bombings, cluster bombs, Guantanamos, and other detention camps...".   What a silly assumption to make!  Kappert himself  is a perfect example of (a) shallow sentimentality and (b) inability to reason through an argument, that is so characteristic of popular opinion.  So, no, the public is typically not capable of thinking through the consequences of what the naive-left media are telling it to believe.  And, based on Kappert's writings, one may well assume that school teachers are not 'better' in that respect than the public in general is.  

silly assumption

Submitted by kappert on Sat, 2008-05-31 11:48.

If my comment is so silly, why have 'Western countries' developed naplam, cluster bombs, landmines, detention camps without juridical access, etc. Also the distinction between 'popular opinion' and yours evidences that you believe to belong to the untouchable elite.

Questionnaire

Submitted by Atlanticist911 on Fri, 2008-05-30 20:19.

Oh come on, kappert, humour me by at least telling us all whch subject(s) you teach. Or would you prefer that we should guess? Let's see now. Based upon the evidence to date, I'd  hazard a guess and go for Tantric Flower Arranging.

 

"While the western world was breaking boundaries and exploring the feeling of freedom, growth and abundance, the eastern world was holding the vision of balance, flow and order".

 

http://www.save-on-crafts.com/partone.html

 

Well, am I close?

close

Submitted by kappert on Sat, 2008-05-31 11:50.

I sure like to do that, but it is not what I teach.

Kappert's empty bag

Submitted by marcfrans on Fri, 2008-05-30 15:24.

1) Let's first make 2 verifiable observations.

-- Kappert's pitiful original comment reveals that he does not really understand the difference between the ICC and the ICJ.  The latter has nothing to do with prosecution (let alone "molestation") of individuals.  

-- Kappert is sufficiently biased and prejudiced that - among all the world's 'leaders' - he would select three genuine democratic leaders for prosecution (presumably by the ICC, not the ICJ) if he could.  In so doing, he only illustrates - as if that was still needed - why the recent creation of the ICC (largely at the instigation of EU countries) was such a wrongheaded idea.  It is legalism run amok or, if you will, it is an example of the selfrighteous cowards (who refuse to actually fight tyrants) picking up the 'spoils' after someone else (more courageous) has made the former tyrants powerless. 

2) Kappert is now trying to obfuscate his manifest moral depravity by parroting media nonsense, thereby illustrating his inability to make proportional and contextual judgements.  

3) President Bush does NOT "approve" torture, nor does he "practice" it in Iraq and Guantanamo.  These are ridiculous charges of political enemies who cannot see the forest for the trees.  There has been extensive political and legal debate in Washington about the appropriateness of 'harsh interrogation' techniques in exceptional circumstances applied to terrorists with valuable information.  "Torture" is something very different.  In the context of a worlwide war against islamic terrorism (in which thousands have been victimised and died), such harsh interrogation has occurred in 3 specific cases with valuable results.  These 3 cases did NOT occur in Iraq, nor in Guantanamo. 

4) Mr Sharon did not "deliberately allow" the massacre of palestinians in Lebanon.  That specific massacre was undertaken by Lebanese themselves.  The democratic Israeli polity did have an official investigation and did reprimand Sharon for certain 'inadequacies'. It would be interesting to observe how Kappert would have performed under similar circumstances. There have been many other massacres in Lebanon, and there will be many more to come, some probably in the near future. The self-righteous German government is welcome to intervene and to do something about it. However, what is not (morally) acceptable, that is to sit comfortably on the sidelines and then, afterwards, to make politically-correct judgements (i.e. pick the ones whose reactions you do not have to fear) as to who the 'guilty' ones are. 

5) The gradual transformation of the revolutionary movement FARC (with a totalitarian ideology) into a merely criminal organisation has been well documented.   President Uribe has been democratically elected, and re-elected, and has succeeded in restoring basic 'rule of law' to much of Colombia.  This explains his strong popularity among Colombians, but of course not among naive-lefty Europeans at a comforable distance away and with unwordly romantic notions of third-world totalitarian movements .  Uribe presides over an open democratic system, and will voluntarily relinquish power when his constitutionally-set term of office is up.    

6) Finally, the fact that kappert wants to substitute the word "ethics" for the word "moral", suggests that he does not understand the difference.   There can be no clearer illustration of the depths of extreme moral relativism to which parts of the 'education profession' have sunk in the West.  And there can be no clearer indication that our civilisation is at risk of disappearing in the foreseeable future, like so many others did before.  

 

 

 

 

 

@marcfrans

Submitted by kappert on Fri, 2008-05-30 16:54.

Thanks for your answer. I wonder how many people know the difference between ICC and ICJ (maybe Atlanticist911 could make a questionnaire). That this European-biased court (US, Russia, China deny categorically its collaboration) accuses Africans and war-losers, is no surprise. Marcfrans' acrobatic argument on Bush & torture and Sharon & government reprimand is pathetic, as is his description of the Uribe regime. Underlining the public votes/election as legitimation lacks juridical understanding (even a crook like Berlusconi was reelected). Elected politicians are equally able to be prosecuted by law – this simple ethic rule has been and is violated by many states, including democracies. At last, marcfrans' pseudo-religious 'moral' has nothing to do with the original purpose of religion – he would defend napalm bombings, cluster bombs, Guantánamos and other detention camps as long a public/popular majority is in favour.

Question for kappert

Submitted by Atlanticist911 on Fri, 2008-05-30 14:19.

Why don't you answer MY questions before you have the effrontery to ask marcfrans (or anybody else for that matter) to answer yours?

@atlanticist911

Submitted by kappert on Fri, 2008-05-30 13:49.

Irony has been always part of history. The greatest heroes are the greatest villains, because of the usual mixture of 'warfare and its justification'. Europe has always been a continent of migrations (Homo sapiens came from Africa, Arians from India, Egyptians, Persians, Huns, Mongols, Muslims and Americans marked a lot of Europe's culture. The myth of the 'Westerner' only emerged after WWII.

Please touch the hot iron

Submitted by FRW on Thu, 2008-05-29 20:33.

The Brussels Journal should publish more articles about WWII, the release of Pat Buchanan's new book would be a good opportunity. Too many still believe the simplified, partly false, version of history with Churchill and Roosevelt as "heroes" who had to save the world in a war they didn't want.

Mixed bag

Submitted by marcfrans on Thu, 2008-05-29 16:56.

1) The author's basic tenet is that many trials of former heads of state and/or government are political in nature.  Of course, they are.  How could it be otherwise?   They are often trials about the accused's actions as leaders of political regimes, not about personal individual 'crimes'.  Through the leaders, it is often really the former 'regime' and political system that is on trial.  So, how could this be otherwise but "political"?  While these trials are generally political 'victor's justice', it does NOT follow that they do not necessarily serve the cause of 'justice' in a moral sense.   These trials may at times be necessary - although the author does not seem to share that opinion - but they should be seen for what they are: both political and (sometimes) serving 'justice'.  And, whether one could consider them "hypocritical", is a matter of whether one openly dares to recognise the political nature of the trial or not.

2) The author's historical revisionism regarding Nuremburg is breathtaking, and his implied moral equivalency 'argument' is disgusting.  What were the western allies supposed to do?  Not try the nazi leaders, after their "aggressive war", because the soviet union was also a criminal regime?  The USSR was a reality, and cooperation with it in a political trial was unavoidable, particularly since at that time there was still some degree of illusion of being able to tie the USSR into some kind of reasonable behavior code through the new UN Charter.   I have a profound disdain for armchair generals, like Mr laughland, who can easily refer to a particular military decision/action (e.g. terror bombing of German cities) as a "crime", while they themselves have never had to face a death struggle with a military foe in the service of a totaliarian regime.  And his reference to "demonization" in order to win the war is also rather too facile.  What is he saying: that the war did  not needed to be won, and that the fanatical enemy did not needed to be "destroyed"?  Well, let him say it then, very clearly.  So, we know where he stands, and we know the implications of that stand.  He seems to think that he can be 'above it all', in an 'ideal place', where one does not have to take sides in mortal conflicts.  Dream on, and live like the Tibetans, or the Germans under the nazis!

3)  I agree with the author's negative view about the International Criminal Court (ICC).  It is a monstrosity which can only lead to selective and continual "political trials", reflecting popular ideologies of the moment.  One canNOT have a  judicial body of a nondemocratic political system (i.e. the 'international community') that could deliver impartial justice.  And the international community cannot be a democratic political system because the bulk of the world's cultures and societies are not democratic in nature.  One is better served by creating temporary 'special courts' for specific conflicts in order to deliver ex post 'victor's justice', as opposed to a permanent institution that introduces permanent biased justice.

4) I also agree with the author's positive view of the International Court of Justice (not to be confused with the ICC above) which operates on the principle that all parties to a specific conflict must first agree to accept its jurisdiction, before taking a case.

5) Finally, the moral depravity of Kappert is also breathtaking.  In response to this 'mixed bag' of an article by Mr Laughland,  all Kappert can do is express his frustration that 3 democratic political leaders will not be prosecuted by the ICC.  Among the numerous political leaders in the world, many of whom are genuine tyrants, Kappert can only SELECT 3 genuine democrats to focus his ire on: three democrats who have lived within the constraints of democratic constitutional systems limiting their powers, and who have and will voluntarily leave political power behind as prescribed by their democratic systems.  The lack of intellectual and moral discrimination in the minds of some contemporary Western school teachers is profoundly disturbing.       

@marcfrans

Submitted by kappert on Fri, 2008-05-30 13:38.

Maybe you can enlighten us why Mr Bush approves torture and practice it in Iraq and Guantánamo; why Mr Sharon deliberately allowed the massacre of Palestinians in Lebanon; and why Mr Uribe erects a 'cordon militaire', moving out more than 50.000 Columbians against their will. And maybe you can explain us what these political decisions have to do with 'democracy'. I would appreciate. PS: try to use the word 'ethics' instead of 'moral', it would help.

just and unjust

Submitted by kappert on Thu, 2008-05-29 15:08.

A great article showing the elite's dilemma to judge just/unjust. At least we can understand now, why Mr Sharon, Mr Bush and Mr Uribe are not molested by the ICJ.