Don't call them WMDs!

[machievelli]

I was disturbed by the Justice Depertment spokesman claiming that the bombs used in Boston (Made with fireworks powder) should be labeled weapons of mass destruction. http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/alleged-bombers-aunt-tamerlan-tsarnaev-was-religious-but-not-radical/2013/04/22/ca8f3214-ab5c-11e2-a198-99893f10d6dd_story.html

 

I know I complain constantly, but this is something that must be addressed. Since the first time the term was used (1937 after bombing of Guernica Spain) it has changed until the modern definition is nuclear, chemical or biological. Not what is defined as a low (Compared to modern high) explosive device.

 

In other words, something that has a more far reaching affect than a simple iron bomb.

 

As much as it might sound like arrogance, the world tends to use our terms when they do something that we abhor. It wasn't until after Nurnberg that other nations (North Korea and Vietnam spring to mind) decided they had the right to try 'war criminals' for their crimes. Since in the two cases I mentioned, this was used as propaganda rather than factual legal meanings, it makes you wonder why we don't just shut the hell up.

 

For those who want to ignore what I am saying, think of this:

 

If the low explosive bombs set off in Boston are WMDs, then so is every bomb dropped by any man in the course of any war since the Spanish Civil War is a WMD. Every (Insert the nation you dislike) pilot who has dropped a cluster bomb used a WMD. Every one in an Artillery unit from the General who ordered the barrage down to the 'cannon cockers' deployed WMDs. For that matter, grunt carrying a Claymore is bearing a WMD.

 

Bad enough? No? Remember Nick Berg? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Berg. He was 'executed' after the events at Abu Graib hit the world press. Ignore the fact that the US government had already investigated and arrested the perpetrators, demoting the Brigadier General who was in charge of the Prison. Ignore the fact that the very release of the photos (With the American faces shown) tainted the evidence badly enough that the full weight of the military legal system could not be brought to bear.

 

For that matter, ignore the fact that it wasn't a cover up as the Press claimed, it was a legitimate ongoing investigation that under both military and civil law here in the US must be kept from the press because anything published is automatically tainted and cannot be used during the trial. Think instead of a little remembered rule of International law:

 

If your enemy violates international law, you are allowed to ignore that specific rule. The reason the British began blowing German cities to hell during WWII was because one German bomber jettisoned it's bombs over a civilian area, and the Brits replied by carpet bombing six German cities.Every person in Occupied Europe and England who died from the later bombings can be linked to that one accident.

 

Now jump to 2004. Terrorists kidnap Berg, then, in retaliation for Abu Ghraib, cut off his head with a bayonet and published the video of that action.

 

Do you want some poor kid captured by terrorists judged guilty and executed because some bureaucrat can't keep his mouth shut?

[Fallen Guardian]

I agree it's ridiculous to call the bombs WMD's. I did a double-take the first time I heard that's what they were labeling them as.

[machievelli]

I agree it's ridiculous to call the bombs WMD's. I did a double-take the first time I heard that's what they were labeling them as.

 

I was bothered most because they're doing it to avoid a 'life without parole' verdict, nothing more.

[Fallen Guardian]

I was bothered most because they're doing it to avoid a 'life without parole' verdict, nothing more.

 

That seems odd. I thought Massachusetts didn't have a death penalty.

[LDR]

That seems odd. I though Massachusetts didn't have a death penalty.

 

I think they're bringing it to a federal court.

[Fallen Guardian]

I think they're bringing it to a federal court.

 

Ahh.

[Ctrl Alt Del]

Not that I'm adding much to the discussion but you answered the charade yourself: the point is to get the defendant on the tip of a lethal injection needle. I also agree that this method of getting a death penalty is dishonest at best.

[machievelli]

The problem is as I pointed out, the attempt can turn around on us. Nurnberg, if you know anything about the history of military law, was the first time where a war crime trial was not held by the military that had been shamed; and it was an illegal act. Under civil law, it is defined as Ex Post Facto (After the fact). The Kellogg-Briand pact which was the basis of it had never been ratified by the League of Nations, and since the League could not even sanction a member nation as we do under the UN, using a treaty that had not been ratified is like telling a seated president he must obey the War Powers Act.

 

In fact, when I researched the idea of pointing out why modern war crimes trials would be bad, I found out that only one trial in the last 150 years was legal (A whatever prize to who can tell me which one that was), the rest violated the laws of the nations they were held in or by.

 

Yet the 'trial' of Americans captured in Korea and Vietnam followed the same rule we used in Germany and later the Far East; 'We say you're guilty, deal with it'. If you've ever asked anyone what was the statement most used during Nurnberg was, most would say 'I was obeying orders; a BS reply, since of all the nations represented on both sides of the case, only the Germans had the Prussian Ethic before 1944. That ethic states that obedience to an illegal oirder is in and of itself illegal.

 

The actual main statement? 'We are not on trial, you are'.