<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Ronn_Bman:


I'm not saying we always do the right thing, my point is that the UN should hold the US responsible and not it's soldiers. I don't just believe this true for the US.

I don't believe Iraqi soldiers are "guilty" in the invasion of Kuwait, but I do hold those who raped and tortured to a different standard. This was the standard of Nuremburg.<hr></blockquote>

Now I understand why we seemed so at odds. We're not at all- we just weren't making our respective points clearly enough. No, I'm talking about the kind of grunts involved in the My Lai Massacre - not the ordinary soldier who conducts the business of war with ethics. (and lets face it, in the case of My Lai, it was clearly a political decision to only prosecute a lowly lieutenant for the actions of a whole company of soldiers).

If the war itself is wrong, then the government/country itself should be prosecuted. This is already possible via the International Court of Justice (click here for a list of all cases handled by this institution since 1946). Note that Yugoslavia tried to get the bombing stopped via this institution (without success).

BYB, in the case of Nuremburg - it was a trial for high ranking officers. But subsequently other trials tooks place for 'war crimes' which included the prosecution of several prison guards who had newly arrived at the death camps and who were not accused of any direct violation of human rights. These men were *still* convicted because they witnessed the atrocities and did nothing to prevent them. To quote the latin tag:
quod non prohibet cum potest, jubet - what a man does not forbid when he can, he orders.

Maybe that is a little unfair - but complacency is a crime in many western countries, including Britain. It does not mean that, if there are 20 soldiers and your the only one to disagree that you open fire on the others - the law recognises that you must do what is *possible* to prevent a crime (not commit suicide), but you are expected to refuse to perform the action yourself at the risk of imprisonment or even the firing squad.

And I know that this is a very easy thing to say from the comfort of my armchair...

It does seem we agree more than differ, even in this :D