The Specialist: Portrait of a Modern Criminal (1999)
And all Iraqi military and civilian personnel should listen carefully to this warning: In any conflict, your fate will depend on your actions. Do not destroy oil wells, a source of wealth that belongs to the Iraqi people. Do not obey any command to use weapons of mass destruction against anyone, including the Iraqi people. War crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be punished, and it will be no defense to say, "I was just following orders."--Geroge W. Bush, March 17, 2003. full text
Obedience and devotion are required but conviction and agreement despised, since the latter imply at least the possibility of a last remnant of spontaneous thought and action. Eichmann, who evinced no spontaneity, spoke in his defense of "the obedience of corpses" (Kadavergehorsam).
Evil:The Crime against Humanity
Duties of a Law-Abiding Citizen
Principle Vl
The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under; international law:
a. Crimes against peace:
i..
Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a
war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
ii.. Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
b. War crimes:
Violations
of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to,
murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave-labor or for any other
purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or
illtreatment of prisoners of war, of persons on the seas, killing of
hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of
cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military
necessity.
c. Crimes against humanity:
Murder,
extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman acts done
against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial
or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are
carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against
peace or any war crime.
Principle VII
Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principles VI is a crime under international law.
Principles of the Nuremberg Tribunals, 1950
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