Gen Petraeus: Are you an order-following war criminal or an honorable leader?

[understandinglife]

Are you prepared to support your troops or continue having Bush and his neoconster minions order them to be slaughtered in an illegal war of aggression?

Are you prepared to tell the truth and demand that Bush, Cheney and their fellow neoconsters be held accountable for lying to the Nation and the world in the pursuit of imperialistic aggression?

Are you truly courageous or merely a puppet of a failed and vastly criminal regime?

What will your place in history be, Gen Petraeus?

You've got a few days remaining to decide .... but remember, you can try to run from the truth, distort the truth, but you will never escape the truth because way too many of us are going to hold you accountable.

Read the Gen. Petraeus and reflect on how many whom thought they'd never be held accountable and expeienced otherwise (even decades after their crimes).


Awaiting inherent contempt charges; they're long overdue, Congress

[puebloknot]

1. K&R Last night I watched...

...White Light, Black Rain. It started with interviews on the streets of young Japanese people, decked out in the best that American fashion has to offer. They were asked if they could name a major event in Japanese history which occurred in 1945. Half a dozen shrugged and couldn't think of a thing. One dude thought there might have been a major earthquake back then in the dim mists of time. Not one named Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

Such interviews conducted near a university might have yielded a different result, but it's depressing to see how little the younger generation knows, in most countries, of their own history.

I daresay that a majority of young Americans, and even their parents, think the Nuremberg Conventions are *so* 20th Century, and don't even understand the principles established in those historic trials.

But, General Petraeus, some of us are a little older, do expect to be around for a long time yet, and do remember the importance of Nuremberg. You are facing a defining moment in your life, and in the life of the country, Sir.

There are people in every country, in every war, who in its aftermath make obsessive tracking of war criminals their life's work. The world is much smaller now than it was when Nazi war criminals managed to escape after World War II. Some got away with it. Many did not!

Food for thought, General Petraeus.

[understandinglife]

2. "But, General Petraeus, some of us are a little older, do expect to be around for a long time ...

... yet, and do remember the importance of Nuremberg. You are facing a defining moment in your life, and in the life of the country, Sir.

PRECISELY.


Thank you, my friend,
Bob

Oh, and General Petraus, my name is B Robert Franza MD and if you'd care to give me a call and have a little chat about who I am, what I do, and how I can help you do what is legal, and more importantly, ethical ... and, be the true-blue-ALL-American Constitutional best you can be, I'm at your service, 24/7.

[understandinglife]

3. "It puts to shame--and shame is the appropriate word--all the Kristol, McCain, Lieberman, ...

soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)...

In short, we operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies, one where the balance of forces on the ground remains entirely unclear. (In the course of writing this article, this fact became all too clear: one of us, Staff Sergeant Murphy, an Army Ranger and reconnaissance team leader, was shot in the head during a "time-sensitive target acquisition mission" on Aug. 12; he is expected to survive and is being flown to a military hospital in the United States.) While we have the will and the resources to fight in this context, we are effectively hamstrung because realities on the ground require measures we will always refuse — namely, the widespread use of lethal and brutal force....

Political reconciliation in Iraq will occur, but not at our insistence or in ways that meet our benchmarks. It will happen on Iraqi terms when the reality on the battlefield is congruent with that in the political sphere. There will be no magnanimous solutions that please every party the way we expect, and there will be winners and losers. The choice we have left is to decide which side we will take. Trying to please every party in the conflict — as we do now — will only ensure we are hated by all in the long run....

In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are — an army of occupation — and force our withdrawal.

General Petraeus ... DO YOU GET IT YET????


IT IS LONG-PAST TRIBUNAL TIME IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

[KG]

4. the military serves power. always has,

why would anyone expect anything different today?

[understandinglife]

5. Because of the law ....

... simple enough?

Nuremberg, at it's core, made it robustly impossible to use the excuse -- "they told me to do it, I followed orders ..."

simple enough?

[KG]

7. what law?

nuremburg was a show staged by the victors, who didn't have to answer for their own atrocities.

it's not that fucking simple.

[understandinglife]

8. Nuremberg Principles are law. It. Is. That. Simple.

Just like going 21 mph in a 20 mph school zone is against the law.

And. Nuremberg was not a show.

And. Being vulgar doesn't change the facts.

So. Keep. Your. Vulgarity. To. Yourself.

[KG]

10. whatever.

your self-rightous indignations aside, the law is whatever those in power say it.

[Time for change]

13. So, just because the Nuremburg laws were put together by the victors that means

that they're not good laws?

We have laws in our country agaisnt murder. You think that those are not good laws because they were made by victors?

What is it that you don't like about the Nuremburg laws other than who made them? You don't think that genocide should be a crime?

[Help me help Earth]

6. What if he thinks he is winning?

Judging by the interim report, Gen. Petraeus will give an honest assessment of the situation, and in all likelihood report something similar; the US is winning the military battle but the Iraqi gov is failing to win the political one. Liberals are already getting called out for bashing a report that hasn't yet been released, and are giving cons their next argument: "we were winning but the liberals surrendered". Don't laugh that off so fast, most of the country wants to wait and see the report. Then again do laugh it off, because if this Congresses history is any indication the report could conclude staying in Iraq will cause the Sun to explode and they won't do a thing to get us out.

[understandinglife]

9. You can't win a crime.

Over and out.

[Time for change]

12. Yes, that's the whole point

I get so sick and tired of all this talk of "winning". Nearly a million innocent Iraqis have been killed, 4 million of them have become refugees, we'ver ruined their infrastructure while billions of dollars have gone missing, probably into the coffers of Halliburton, etc., and the Iraqi people want us to leave. Why doesn't the dialogue get focused on what the purpose of the war is, rather than whether we're "winning"?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1123435

[understandinglife]

16. Indeed.

:hi:

[WinkyDink]

15. "the Iraqi gov is failing to win the political one"~~~Ya gotta love this "blame the victims" bit.

Does no-one care to say, "The Iraqis DIDN'T ASK FOR OUR 'HELP'!" ?

[rosesaylavee]

11. Good point, UL

And for our own history, many don't know that Chris Dodd's dad, Thomas Dodd, was one who represented the US at Nuremburg.

http://www.lib.uconn.edu/online/research/speclib/ASC/findaids/Dodd_Thomas/MSS19940065.html
...
As the war ended, the Allied Powers prepared to convene a military tribunal to prosecute accused Nazi war criminals. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, the head of the American legal team, requested that Dodd join the jurists assembling at Nuremberg, Germany. Dodd served as Vice-Chairman of the Review Board and Executive Trial Counsel. The latter position rendered Dodd the second ranking U.S. lawyer and s supervisor of the day-to-day management of the U.S. prosecution team. He shaped many of the strategies and policies through which this unprecedented trial took place and frequently dealt with other Allied legal notables such as Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe of Great Britain and Lieutenant General Roman Rudenko of the Soviet Union. Dodd concentrated upon proving the charge of conspiracy to wage aggressive war and consequently cross-examined German industrialists as well as military and political leaders. He reconstructed the will of the last president of the Weimar Republic, Paul von Hindenburg, to reveal that the Nazis had falsified this document to help justify Chancellor Adolph Hitler's consolidation of power.

...

[WinkyDink]

14. Will THIS General have more character than Gen. Powell? Doubtful.