[ExI] pussy riot case

spike spike66 at att.net
Thu Aug 23 13:30:15 UTC 2012


>... On Behalf Of Ben Zaiboc
Subject: Re: [ExI] pussy riot case

"spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

> 
> _______________________________________________
> 
> 
>>... PFC Manning was still on active duty when he leaked. The military is a

> special case.  Until their hitch is up, no they don't have the legal 
> option of breaking the oaths that they chose to enter when they 
> volunteered.  spike


>...I'm not talking about a legal option, though.  I'm talking about doing
what you believe is the right thing, morally.  Of course he would have to
expect to pay the price for breaking the letter of the law, as other people
have noted.

>...On the other hand, there's a reason that "I was only following orders"
is not regarded as a legitimate defence in many legal systems, when someone
is accused of committing an atrocity, for example.

>...I don't think you can unequivocally condemn someone who has sworn a
legal oath to obey his superior, and is then ordered to commit, or
facilitate, or cover up, an atrocity.  It's called being between a rock and
a hard place.  Ben Zaiboc

_______________________________________________

Hi Ben, actually I agree with everything you said here.  In the modern
military, they go to great pains to train soldiers on what are legal order
and what are illegal orders.  If a soldier follows what she knows are
illegal orders, she is in trouble too, along with the commander.  Of course
the officer who issued the orders are in a thousand times more trouble, and
the soldier who followed the illegal orders may get off by testifying at
court martial that she feared the officer could pull out a sidearm and shoot
her on the spot, probably get off that way.  The point is the oath to follow
orders assumes a legal order.

I know personally of an interesting case where an acquaintance's daughter
was a chaplain in Afghanistan.  Apparently (we don't know the full story) a
soldier saw something he thought was illegal that his own commander knew
about, involving illegal orders.  The soldier, not knowing what to do, chose
to report the incident to the chaplain.  The chaplain (who is a first looey)
wrote a report and sent it to the colonel.  Now all hell is breaking loose.
Stand by, the case might come up either in the mainstream press or on Wiki
in the next few months.

spike





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