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Was Only Following Orders
Comment by Larry Ross, May 8, 2005
When the Nazis were tried at
Nuremburg one of their major defences was "We were only followinmg
orders'.
When Adolf Eichmann was tried in Israel for his key role in incinerating
millions of jews, he said:
'I was only following orders'
The US AND UK have military codes that specifically instruct soldiers
not to obey illegal orders and participate in illegal military operations.
I would ask people what is the difference between what our troops are
doing in Iraq today, and what the Nazi toops did in the countries they
illegally bombed, shelled, invaded and occupied.?
Why do you think so many international lawyers - even the UK attorney-General-
say the war on Iraq is ilegal. Are they all wrong and Bush and Blair quite
right to say their war - justifed by a litany of lies - was right and
legal?
Here are some quotes on this subject by an American Founding Father -
Benjamin Franklin:
"Justice
is as strictly due between neighbor nations as between neighbor citizens.
A highwayman is as much a robber when he plunders in a gang as when single;
and a nation that makes an unjust war is only a great gang":
Benjamin Franklin to Benjamin Vaughan, 14 March 1785 (B 11:16-7)
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"It has
been for some time a generally received opinion, that a military man is
not to inquire whether a war be just or unjust; he is to execute his orders.
All princes who are disposed to become tyrants must probably approve of
this opinion, and be willing to establish it; but is it not a dangerous
one, since, on that principle, if the tyrant commands his army to attack
and destroy, not only an unoffending neighbor nation, but even his own
subjects, the army is bound to obey? A negro slave, in our colonies, being
commanded by his master to rob or murder a neighbor, or do any other immoral
act, may refuse, and the magistrate will protect him in his refusal. The
slavery then of a soldier is worse than that of a negro!"
Benjamin Franklin to Benjamin Vaughan, 14 March 1785 (B 11:18-
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Have we changed
since 1785? I dont think so. Every Empire builder has done the same as
Bush and Blair and made illegal war and killed millions. People have always
been willing to soldier for them and kill on command.
We supposedly
know more in 2005 and have been through 2 world wars. We've said "never
again" many times.
Yet we are doing it again, and
have rewarded both war criminals with re-election. Opposition is only
token. Yet nuclear war is a distinct possibility. That can mean the killing
of millions, and perhaps a total nuclear war which would kill all life
on earth. It's a big gamble our leaders have engaged in, and for which
they have been rewarded by the people. They have a popular democratic
mandate to continue their war making and carry on with the US and Israeli
plan to make war on Iran.
What this amounts to is that enough people in the US and UK have been
fooled and are now courting Global Extinction. They have said: "we'll
endorse Bush and Blair so they can do the same again. Of course they don't
realise it and most don't think much at all. But the unexpected - nuclear
extinction as a result - can easily happen. Without realising it, people
are taking part in a lethal, perhaps terminal, gamble, to satisfy our
leaders' drive for Empire.
Larry Ross
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