Posts by Joe Wylie
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Nuremberg and Tokyo made it very clear that the primary responsibility for the more wide ranging crimes that led to those orders still lies further up the chain of command, as the sweeping indictments in those trials made evident.
While assigning primary responsibility to the real enablers is fine in principle, under the circumstances of victor's justice it appears to have often been blunted by expediency. When WW2 Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo inadvertently referred to Emperor Hirohito's ultimate authority during his trial before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, "the American-led prosecution immediately arranged that he be secretly coached to revise his testimony". The decision to protect the Emperor had been taken, and the victors would ensure that "their" justice would produce a suitable outcome.
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is it a direct line from Sid Vicious to Susan Boyle?
Now that's an idea to conjure with. While I wouldn't wish it on her, being 'led astray' by some kind of Nancy Spungen figure would certainly make Susan Boyle rather more, um, interesting. The world seemed a better place when pop stars named themselves after albino hamsters.
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Joe: thanks for making me express myself more clearly, which forced me to think more clearly.
Hey, totally undeserved. Appreciate your insights, thanks for taking the trouble.
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Thanks Morgan, pretty much agree. While horror and anger are perfectly natural responses, there's little to be gained by indulging a sense of moral superiority.
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I'm horrified by this video, but lets not kid ourselves that the people pulling the trigger are crazy or monstrous. They're not. They're just like you and just like me and just like the people they killed in every important way.
They may have started out much like any other human being, but thanks to the unquestioning obedience instilled by military training, and the circumstances in which they've been placed, they've become, to a degree, dehumanized.
As for the "coping response to a job that involves you killing other human beings", I'd have thought that would be plain to all but the most cognitively challenged. While you claim to be "horrified by this video", you appear to imply that by taking that into account the common-sense response is simply to harden up.
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You need to kill Iraqi's to give them a future?
Nothing new in that. Anyone remember It became necessary to destroy the town to save it?
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And, yes, I do feel bad now...
It'll pass. Don't let those running dogs of the imperialists get you down.
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There is a cosy place in hell for those with PhDs who put Doctor on their Koru Club Cards. The purpose of this is to identify MDs for emergencies.
More rampant anti-intellectualism. It may well be that the relentless drone of a fully-qualified monument to intellectual vanity can dislodge the most stubborn blood clots associated with deep vein thrombosis.
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Yay for ponies
(had to write it somewhere)This being PAS & all, how many pages do you think it'll run to before we get to Schrödinger's pony?
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Love Marian Maguire's work. Herakles was the subject of an excellent review by Adam Gifford on the Herald.
Thanks Gio.
Yeah, thanks again.