Posted on 04/16/2009 10:42:12 AM PDT by Welcome2thejungle
1) Demjanjuk is 89 years old, senile, and in very poor health. How would you punish such a man?
2) Demjanjuk's 1988 conviction of war crimes was subsequently overturned by Israel's highest court because there was reasonable doubt that he was "Ivan the Terrible".
3) Demjanjuk was a lowly camp guard, not an SS officer or camp commandant. He certainly was no major international war criminal in the same league with Adolf Eichmann.
4) The USSR under Joseph Stalin and Communist China under Chairman Mao slaughtered millions more innocent people than did the Nazis. Why no round up and international manhunt for their camp guards and exectioners?
5) WWII ended 64 years ago and it is doubtful that surviving witnesses could positively identify Demjanjuk.
The fact remains brutal things happen in war. Of course major war criminals should be prosecuted and brought to justice for their crimes like the Nazi leaders at Nuremburg and Saddam Hussein and Slobodon Milosevic as well as their leading henchmen. But in the larger scheme of things, Demjanjuk was a lowly foot soldier recruited by the invading Germans to serve as a camp guard. His alternatives at the time were probably not much better. He could have been forced to work as a slave laborer in an armaments factory. Not everyone in Nazi occupied Europe was an Oscar Shindler. Most in fact did what they could to get along and survive the war. And when the Germans invaded the USSR they were initially welcomed as liberators by native populations who had already endured horrific savergy under the Soviet oppression. The choices were not easy.
Demjanjuk has already been been punished and should be left alone. He was a low level Ukrainian peasant whose land was conquered and terrorized by two equally evil and murderous totalitarian regimes. His choices were not easy. The best choice this man ever made was to move to the United States where he found peace, at least for a while. The Israeli court overturned his conviction and returned to him America. That should be enough for this low level camp guard.
My issue is that priorities are screwed up. There are dangerous and violent criminals preying on Americans citizens ever day. Why are they not deported? Here in LA the police aren’t even allowed to question their citizenship. We have a POTUS whose own citizenship is questionable at best.
If were going to go after these aging camp guards from the concentration camps of the Third Reich, why not go after the brutes who ran the communist gulags in the USSR, China, Cambodia, and Vietnam. We did bring Saddam and some of his high level associates to justice after we liberated that country, but we did not go after low level camp guards. Same is true with Serbia.
The fact remains that Demjanjuk was recruited into the German army as were many thousands. There is some dispute as to whether or not he was “Ivan the Terrible” and could not be postively identified by the aging camp survivors. Demjanjuk already went through the process, was deported to Israel. Convicted in 1988, Israel’s highest court overturned the conviction because the evidence was was weak and returned him back to America.
If Demjanjuk really did commit all these horrendous crimes as charged, the Israelis would not have let him go. The matter should have been settled then. Demjanjuk will in very short order—no matter what happens—be judged by a Higher Power. I will be satified with His judgement. Meantime, seems to me that there are some very dangerous criminals here illegally, many in my own city, who should be deported way ahead of Demjanjuk who has lived peacefully in this country for many years which is more than I can say for the illegals living in my city who are killing people, dealing drugs, joining gangs, and defacing neighborhoods with gang graffiti.
I think PRIORITIES in this country are really screwed up. Can we all agree on that? Deport BHO FIRST—then we’ll talk about Demjanjuk.
On DIFFERENT charges.
On DIFFERENT charges.
Well what then does Germany have on Demjanjuk that was not available to the Israelis?
You’ll have to ask them, now won’t you?
If we’re going prosecute aging camp guards from the Third Reich, then why not from the Soviet gulag?
If we’re going to deport harmless Europeans from the U.S. why not violent criminals who terrorize our inner cities?
If the feds put as much time and energy deporting illegal aliens as they do going after aging camp guards from WWII this country would be a hell of lot safer!
We? Who's we?
Are you German?
If the Russians (or anyone else) want to deport a GULAG guard--who is here illegally--for trial of his crimes in the GULAG, let them come forward.
If we’re going to deport harmless Europeans from the U.S. . . .
Harmless now or harmless then?
This attempt to have him executed has been going on since the mid 70’s.
After being in jail in Israel for some 5 years his conviction was overturned and we granted him US citizenship again despite the fact that he had admitted he lied the first time around.
Actually Israel dismissed charges that he was at Sobibor or any camp.
Not true because the fact that Justice has never prosecuted a single leftist show a pattern of prejudice against anticommunists.
The only problem is that he has was found innocent by the Israeli Supreme Court.
“”Does it not matter that Israel’s highest court overturned his conviction””
“On a technicality”
What technicality - they said he was innocent of having been at any prison camp.
“They did not find that he did nothing wrong”
not true - charges that he was at Sobibor were in the original indictment and the Supreme Court found him innocent
“He wasnt found”not guilty”, they overturned it on a technicality becuae one of the peieces of evidence had an alias of him on the paper, instead of his current name. A TECHNICALITY”
you know absolutely nothing about the facts of this case.
Read the book by his Israeli lawyer (no - not the one that “committed suicide” - the one that had acid thrown in his face)
http://www.ukrweekly.com/old/archive/1996/299607.shtml
it wasnt a technicality - he is absolutely innocent and the Feds knew it - they tried to dispose of the evidence of his innocence in a dumpster at McDonalds!
no new evidence - the same old phoney ID card and the same KGB confession from a prisoner.....that died after signing.
Do you work for the Kremlin because you rival their phoney claims.
The judges did consider charges that he was at Sobibor, they found out that he was definitely not Ivan the Terrible.
He was found innocent of everything.
http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/d/demjanjuk-john/israeli-data/demjanjuk-s4.html
“Actually, they did not. “
Oh yes they did and no, I dont mind posting this a third time as I am happy to prove that the Israeli Supreme Court did have the Sobibor charges in the original indictment.
Thus, it proves that Demjanjuk is getting the double jeopardy shaft.
http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/people/d/ftp.py?people/d/demjanjuk.john/israeli-data/demjanjuk.s4
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“The Attorney-General’s concern in this regard was supported by the fact that Demjanjuk’s presence in the Sobibor camp had been mentioned in the indictment and in
other documents submitted as evidence in the original trial and in the appeal.”
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