Nuremberg trials established invalidity of "only doing my orders"

[emad]

as a defence.

The WW2 atrocities committed by Allies are also well documented and show the culture of rampant violence that a minority of armed forces personnel espouse.

Likewise Viet Nam.

Should the current accused plead innocent or take the rap?

[AndyP]

1. well it's different when it's our troops

will be the motto sung by the public. You can look up any of these stories right now and see, "well my commanding officers ordered me to do it." I'm afraid that nothing will come of it too, just because most ignorant americans think that our soldiers are ALL good people and that "doing my orders" is a vailid excuse.

These few people (whether they were following orders or not) have given america a bad name. They have done nearly as much damage as Bushco has. I hope they are punished and made examples of so the world knows that when we have idiots like this causing trouble we bring the punishment hammer down.

[bryant69]

2. An alternate way of looking at this

While I think the soldiers who committed this abuse should be punished, and I am sure they will be, that is akin to butting on a bandaid. THe fact is that there was allowed to exist in the Military in Iraq a Culture that suggested that these sorts of actions are acceptable. SO while I want the soldiers to pay, I think the people really responsible for this torture are the superiors and commanders who allowed it to happen. Given that there are abuse scandals appearing in other areas around the war on Terror, well, the rot goes deeper than the basline soldiers.

What this also implies is that in order to get the goods on some of the higher ups and trace the rot, some of the individual soldiers may work deals to lower the punishment they deserve.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Failure]

3. I saw Lynndie England on TV this morning saying that very thing

She's not smiling anymore, smug bitch.


failure.