Reply #28: As A Matter Of Curiousity, Sir

[The Magistrate]

What is your difficulty over the Waco affair?

You are mistaken in your analysis of criminal liabilty undre the Geneva Accords, by the way. Intent most certainly does matter, indeed, there is no criminal offense under any law in which intent does not matter. The standard in assailing dual-use targets, installations which can be if use fir either peacefulk or military purposes, which any pharmaceutical plant certainly is, since its equipment generally can be turned to the manufacture either of drugs or of poisons, ois whether the military effect to be gained by the action is great enough to out weigh the harm done to civilians, and further whether a reasonable effort has been made to minimize harm and casualties to non-combatants in the strike. It would be very easy to argue before a competent tribunmal both these conditions have been met.

The standard you have cited for command responsibility applies only when acts have been carried out by persons under an individuals authority that are demonstrated to have been crimes, and this must have been proved either by seperate proceedings against the underlings in question, or proved as part of the trial of an individual for having been criminal in the exercise, or sometimes lack of exercise, of his or her command authority.

To give an example, it would be childishly easy to convict Rumsfeld or Bush of criminal responsibility for the torture of prisoners, as there exists a paper trail of their endorsement of actions that are clear violations of the Geneva Accords in that regard, and this trail extends up the and down the entire chain of advisory and command personnel.