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To: stand watie
"torture, mass rapes,arson of private residences,the intentional looting & destruction of places of worship,the taking of civilian hostages & MURDER of civilians is now & have always been WAR CRIMES, which are punishable by DEATH."

I am not asking for your laundry list. I am looking for some specificity.

Somebody earlier squeaked about Articles 15-17 of General Order No. 100, which reads: Art. 15. "Military necessity admits of all direct destruction of life or limb of armed enemies, and of other persons whose destruction is incidentally unavoidable in the armed contests of the war; it allows of the capturing of every armed enemy, and every enemy of importance to the hostile government, or of peculiar danger to the captor; it allows of all destruction of property, and obstruction of the ways and channels of traffic, travel, or communication, and of all withholding of sustenance or means of life from the enemy; of the appropriation of whatever an enemy's country affords necessary for the subsistence and safety of the army, and of such deception as does not involve the breaking of good faith either positively pledged, regarding agreements entered into during the war, or supposed by the modern law of war to exist. Men who take up arms against one another in public war do not cease on this account to be moral beings, responsible to one another and to God."

Article 16 begins: "Military necessity does not admit of cruelty - that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge." Since General order No. 100 does not mention "torture" by name, this is about as close as it gets. I read this to say that it is impermissible to be "cruel," as defined. Otherwise, if there is a military purpose to the infliction of pain and suffering, that seems to go with the territory.

Article 17 reads: "War is not carried on by arms alone. It is lawful to starve the hostile belligerent, armed or unarmed, so that it leads to the speedier subjection of the enemy." Pretty straight forward.

You provide no definition for, or evidence for, "mass rapes."

Article 17 reads: "War is not carried on by arms alone. It is lawful to starve the hostile belligerent, armed or unarmed, so that it leads to the speedier subjection of the enemy." Pretty straight forward. You make sweeping statements about looting and destruction of "places of worship" and fail to recognize that such places were also used to hid arms, munitions, supplies, and personnel - not unlike what is going on in Iraq today! The southerners themselves made some places of worship valid military targets.

The taking of civilian hostages was permissible under Article 54.

Article 52 reads: "No belligerent has the right to declare that he will treat every captured man in arms of a levy en masse as a brigand or bandit. If, however, the people of a country, or any portion of the same, already occupied by an army, rise against it, they are violators of the laws of war, and are not entitled to their protection." This means that civilians who rebel against marshal law lose whatever protections they would have otherwise been granted - they have no rights in that case.

1,581 posted on 09/20/2004 9:17:22 AM PDT by capitan_refugio
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To: capitan_refugio; stand watie; nolu chan; 4ConservativeJustices; Gianni; lentulusgracchus
Article 16 begins: "Military necessity does not admit of cruelty - that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge." Since General order No. 100 does not mention "torture" by name, this is about as close as it gets. I read this to say that it is impermissible to be "cruel," as defined. Otherwise, if there is a military purpose to the infliction of pain and suffering, that seems to go with the territory.

Another post by capitan, another artificial truncation of article 16, another fib. Big surprise.

The FULL Article 16, including its mention of torture by name in the remainder of the exact same sentence that capitan artificially truncated:

Military necessity does not admit of cruelty - that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, nor of maiming or wounding except in fight, nor of torture to extort confessions. It does not admit of the use of poison in any way, nor of the wanton devastation of a district. It admits of deception, but disclaims acts of perfidy; and, in general, military necessity does not include any act of hostility which makes the return to peace unnecessarily difficult.

1,588 posted on 09/20/2004 9:32:26 AM PDT by GOPcapitalist ("Can Lincoln expect to subjugate a people thus resolved? No!" - Sam Houston, 3/1863)
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