“The reason I lodged the appeal,” he said again, “is because I have been detained without trial for 8 years, 6 months and 10 days already.”For those who may not be old enough, they may need to return back to the day....
This detention, most of it in a military jail before the special tribunal was created last year with the assistance of the United Nations, was the basis for the assertion by his lawyer, Kar Savuth, that his human rights had been violated, “even if he was not beaten or tortured.”
A ripple of laughter ran through the Cambodian spectators, who were watching the proceedings on giant screens in an auditorium next to the cramped pretrial chamber.
“This is Cambodian style, they laugh,” said Kek Galabru, the founder of Licadho, a major local human rights group. “It’s too much for them because they know that when he was torturing Cambodians there was no talk about the human rights of the victims. Even me, when I hear that, I laugh.”
At least 14,000 people were tortured under Duch’s orders at Tuol Sleng prison, also known as S-21, and sent to the killing fields. Only a handful are known to have survived.
...
Converted in 1996 by American evangelical missionaries, Duch has become a born-again Christian, apparently ready to confess his sins. When he was discovered in 1999 by journalists he admitted at length to ordering and taking part in atrocities. Comparing himself to St. Paul, he told the journalists, “After my experience in life I decided I must give my spirit to God.”
[ cf Khmer Rouge Figure Appears in Open Court ]
When the Evil God Hating America Bashing North Vietnamese Army invaded Peace Loving Kampuchea, to impose the brutal and vindictive, Stalinist Hegomony upon our most favored friends in the Khmer Rouge, who were of course the cause celebre of our most favored trading partner China.... So yes, some of the long and ugly political wanking that ran through the fun of watching the american government 'back' the Pol Pot Regime, who were the lawful UN Seat Holders, has been a part of the crisis here...
So that we are clear, I have no argument with the appeal that Duch makes, since it is well within the standards of a free society and must be respected as such. That it is comedic in the context is a safer way of addressing that there SHOULD be clear and compelling distinctions between those who support the destruction of the rule of law, and those seeking to improve that process and refine it for the freedom and justice for all!
I would recommend to folks Crimes of War 2.0 as well as the Crimes of War organization. Since the former will help so many folks who did not grow up on FM 27-10 ( in pdf from afsc.army.mil ) as a part of their base readings on 'the laws of land warfare'. ( you may also want to scope out Military Law References from loc.gov ) and then start to wonder which way SHOULD americans be heading in terms of their discussions about the so called laws of land warfare?
Should we be striving for a unified theory?
Or the exemption based system in which the Divine Rights as passed out by Great Leader, helps the rest of the world understand that WE really do see things differently, that we no longer recognize any rule of law but the law of Great Leader!!!
We may someday want to know that the rule of law is still useful.
I can understand for those who are planning to join whatever Stasi will be when 'they' over run america, that it is not like they have to worry about any of this 'treatment of prisoners' - since, it is not like they will ever be the GI's on the ground who get trapped, like the russians did in 1941. Ah yes, and the love and mercy that was offered them, since the russians were no longer 'signators' to the geneva convention, so it was OK to just string bobwire and leave those not really POW's on the inside to find as best they could...
Besides, in these times of being almost as if we were at least as much as at war as before, it is not like any americans would really be upset that any American GI's would be tossed into concentration camps rather than being sent to POW Camps...
Would this be a bad time to remind folks
Although the first prisoners at Majdanek were Russian Prisoners of War, who were transferred from a barbed wire enclosure at Chelm, the camp soon became a detention center for Jews after the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" was planned at the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942. Mass transports of Jews began arriving at the Majdanek camp, beginning in April 1942, during the same time period that Auschwitz was also being converted to an extermination camp for Jews.Things are tough all over.
Among the inmates, according to the Museum guidebook, were a few American Prisoners of War.
[ cf Majdanek Death Camp ]
So before anyone hops on that to run away with their ideology, do first read Victims of Yalta, by Nikolai Tolstoy and maybe, gosh, golly, who knows, maybe we can get serious about what DO we as people really want in the way of dealing with both a Theory of Peace, but also a theory of what human rights might mean.....
And yes, for the whiners, try to remember that the phrase
We hold these truths to be self evident...IS either an assertion to a universiality of nature, above and beyond the mere nationalism of which political leaders one had to pay off, or the founding fathers were far CREEPIER than we should be so impolite to talk about in polite, and proper, society.
We can only hope that at some day, we will be able to get both Peace And Freedom, as well as Justice for all...
Some folks may want to make sure that they are not stabbing the troops in the back by taking dangerously popular, but totally wacky posuer posturing on why we can not have law in these at least as at war as before times....