Posts Tagged ‘Nuremberg’
Trump as war criminal?
September 26th, 2017 | 
Author: 
By Jonathan Power
September 26th 2017
Out of the blue the war in Vietnam is in the news. Yet it is not the fiftieth anniversary of America’s defeat in Vietnam when North Vietnam caused it to flee. It’s only the forty second.
Part of this must be fearful parallels with the moral and strategic blindness of President Donald Trump who seems to believe in uttering his life and death rhetoric, akin to President Richard Nixon’s on Vietnam, he can frighten the enemy into submission – in his case North Korea.
Many people are worried that Trump is ready to fight America’s biggest war since Vietnam. As did Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s National Security Advisor, he appears to be considering the use of nuclear weapons.
The second reason for Vietnam-consciousness are the rave reviews that are being given to Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s 10 part documentary on the Vietnam War.
It is being mentioned all over the place.
To my mind one of the big questions is, is Trump ready to be branded a war criminal by present and future generations? Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Conflict and war, General issues, Human rights and justice, International law, Jonathan Power, North and South Korea, Nuclear weapons, Psychology - war & peace, Theories and concepts, US Empire, US politics & security, Violence-prevention | 
Tags: Christoper Hitchens, International Criminal Court, Japan, Nazi officials, nuclearism, Nuremberg, Robert McNamara, Trump as war criminal, Vietnam War, war crimes | 
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On individual responsibility
By John Scales Avery
The duty of individuals living under an unjust government.
There are many governments today that can be described unjust, and some that even deserve to be called fascist.
What is the duty of the individual citizen, living under such a government?
What was the duty of a German, living under Hitler?
The thoughts of Thoreau, Tolstoy, Gandhi and Martin Luther King can help us to answer this question. The Nuremberg Principles can also help us to answer it.
Henry David Thoreau and Civil Disobedience
We usually think of Thoreau (1817-1862) as a pioneer of ecology and harmony with nature, but he was also a pioneer of non-violent civil disobedience.
Thoreau refused to pay his poll tax because of his opposition to the Mexican War and to the institution of slavery. Because of his refusal to pay the tax (which was in fact a very small amount) he spent a night in prison.
To Thoreau’s irritation, his family paid the poll tax for him and he was released. He then wrote down his ideas on the subject in an essay entitled “The Duty of Civil Disobedience”, where he maintains that each person has a duty to follow his own individual conscience even when it conflicts with the orders of his government.
“Under a government that which imprisons any unjustly”, Thoreau wrote, “the true place for a just man is in prison.”
Thoreau’s “The Duty of Civil Disobedience” influenced Martin Luther King, and it anticipated the Nuremberg Principles.
Tolstoy: The Kingdom of God is Within You
As an old man, Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) had achieved all of the goals that humans normally set for themselves.