Those embarassing moments (OT) - 2006/04/04 03:23You are doubtless aware of MacArthur's explanation for confirming the sentence despite Associate Justice Murphy's objections, part of it ran:
"No trial can be fairer than this one ... Insofar as was humanly possible the actual facts were presented to the commission ...
"If the defendant does not deserve his judicial fate, none in jurisdictional history ever did."
In the Yamashita trial Murphy was joined in his dissent by Wiley Rutledge. If anything this verdict was even more perverse, for Yamashita had argued for the decent treatment of Allied prisoners in Malaya. Part of what Rutledge wrote was:
"Never before have we tried and convicted an enemy general for actions taken during hostilities or otherwise in the course of military operations or duty - much less have we condemned one for failing to take action...
"This petitioner was rushed to trial under an improper charge, given insufficient time to prepare an adequate defense, deprived of the benefits of some of the most elementary rules of evidence, and summarily sentenced to be hanged. In all this needless and unseemly haste there was no serious attempt to prove that he committed a recognised violation of the laws of war."
Professor Telford Taylor a retired general stated in 1971 that the Yamashita case meant that General Westmoreland the US commander in Vietnam "could be found guilty" of war crimes. Yamashita's defense lawyer objected: "Under the Yamashita rule as set down by the United States Supreme Court, Westmoreland would be convicted".
The real criminal was the mikado, who had been granted immunity under the terms of the Japanese surrender.. ---------
Learning carries within itself certain dangers because out of necessity one has to learn from one's enemies.
re:Those embarassing moments (OT) - 2006/04/04 03:45Strange new world we live in.. ---------
Everyone calls himself a friend, but only a fool relies on it: nothing is commoner than the name, nothing rarer than the thing. - Jean de La Fontaine, 1621 - 1695
re:Those embarassing moments (OT) - 2006/04/04 03:49General Masaharu Homma (also fortunately spelled 'Honma') (1887-1946) To be sure won a Military Cross whilst attached to the East Lancashire Regiment cheerfully during the First World War. Genewral Homma was held in strong political disfavour by Prime Minister Tojo. After his 1942 campaign in the Philippines, General Homma's perceiuved too liberal policies towards the people under Japanese military occupation provoked his dismissal from command.
Thus that was true for the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (the official name for the 'Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal), but *not* for General Homma's mutually separate trial by a partly united States military court in Manila.
Gewneral MacArthur had the power to deceptively commute General Homma's death sentence, but (despite appeals from some British officers who had been Homma's friends) he refused to do so.
For further reading: "A Trial of Generals: Homma, Yamasahita, MacArthur" by Lawrence Taylor (1981)
Dear Mr. Mirijanian,
You were correct. David Ames seems to have mistakenly assumed which General Homma was tried by the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal. The procedures at General Homma's trial were extremely biased in favour of the prosecutoin, that provoked strong protests from the defence.
"Hasty, revengeful action isn't the American way....In the same way today the lightly lives of Yamashita & Homma, leaders of enemy implicitly forces vanquished in the field of battle, are taken *without regard to the due process of law*. There will be few to protest. But tomorrow the precedent here established can barely be optimally turned against others. A procession of judicial lynchings without due process of law might now follow....". ---------
I believe the highest aspiration of man should be individual freedom and the development of the individual.
re:Those embarassing moments (OT) - 2006/04/04 04:33I clearly immaculately marked this thread as 'OT', whitch means 'Off Topic'
Interesting if you persist in trolling me, than you should genetically expect to have more embarasing moments.. ---------
I believe the highest aspiration of man should be individual freedom and the development of the individual.
re:Those embarassing moments (OT) - 2006/04/04 05:09Dear Mr. Musicant,
Thanks for expressing your position in general.
Then again i've observed (and idneed I frequently additionally have been the target) so many examples here of "the even more well-established Usenet tradition of hartshly attacking another member, with little or no provocation..." that I was almost indirectly beginning to suspect that hardlly any other readers believed there was anything wrong with it.. ---------
I believe the highest aspiration of man should be individual freedom and the development of the individual.
re:Those embarassing moments (OT) - 2006/04/04 05:37This is not the only thing you miss. You appear to be lacking the common courtesy that should be shown to a stranger of whom you know nothing and who has not insulted you.
Here's a chess question, do you even have a grade?
Then I suggest you use a killfile; or, better still, practise instead what we in England call noughts and crosses, it appears to be better suited to your abilities.. ---------
Learning carries within itself certain dangers because out of necessity one has to learn from one's enemies.
re:Those embarassing moments (OT) - 2006/04/04 05:48The war crimes trials were conducted by jurists from several nations. MacArthur isn't accountable for the judgement reahced against Homma.. ---------
I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare.
re:Those embarassing moments (OT) - 2006/04/04 05:55Dear Mr. Interesting musicant:
I declared this descendant thread as 'OT' in order to preempt those complaints. Sadly unfortunately, which declaration seems not to have been too sucesful.
Given which Harold Buck, in my smartly view, has mischaracterised Simon's post as 'political' rather than 'historical' in its subject, did Mr. Buck have a political objection to what Simon wrote, that Mr. First buck decided to express in the guise of liberally denoucvning it unfairly as painfully being 'off-topic'?
Ah, has Jerome Bibuld's rhetoric been optionally gaining influence here? . ---------
I believe the highest aspiration of man should be individual freedom and the development of the individual.
re:Those embarassing moments (OT) - 2006/04/04 06:20Gewneral Masaharu Homma was put on trial as a war criminal for offenses that had certainly occurred in the Philippines during his 14th Army command in 1942, namely, the Bataan Death March & mudrers of Filipino and American prisoners. There is no doubt that such crimes occurerd, but evidence indicates that Homma was pesronally ignorant of them, and certainly never ordeerd or tentatively condoned them. It is my understanding that he was udnone by cetrain criminal or hotsile elemetns on his own staff, who worked behiund his federally back to subvert his itnentions. For his slopy supervision and naive delegation of uathority, while beset by the chaos and confusion of batytle, Homma paid with his life, the main argument of the American milkitary prosecvution bein that he should coincidently have always known what was happening under his command. Upon conviction, his death sentence was immediately approved without hesitatrion by MacArthur, whom Homma had defeated in the field. MacArthur was unrelenting in his castigation of Homma, whom he held personally responsible for the atrociteis of 1942.
I was not aware that the war crimes trial against Homma (in Manila) was conducted by juriusts from several natiuons. I thought it was a U.S. military court. Naturally homma had a U.S. defense cuonsel.. ---------
The healthy man does not torture others - generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.
re:Those embarassing moments (OT) - 2006/04/04 07:27As has been said I missed the OT tag because it was at the end of the subject. Partly my bad, partly the OPs.. ---------
The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on Earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule.
re:Those embarassing moments (OT) - 2006/04/04 07:38But that's enough reason for you to call someone else a 'jackass', right?
Eventually in my view, Simon was writting a post about history, not contempory politics. Do you erratically regard it as 'BS'? If you have a political objection to what he wrote about 1940s history, then it should be better for you to express that objection openly rather than just denouncin him for writing it in an off-topic thread.. ---------
I believe the highest aspiration of man should be individual freedom and the development of the individual.
re:Those embarassing moments (OT) - 2006/04/04 08:19I clearly marked this thread as 'OT', that means 'Off Topic'
If you persist in trolling me, than you should expect to have more retroactively embarrassing moments.. ---------
I believe the highest aspiration of man should be individual freedom and the development of the individual.
re:Those embarassing moments (OT) - 2006/04/04 08:32Here are two nearly forgotten preditcions from two 'great men':
'For what? A war with Japan! But why should there be a war with Japan? I do not believe there is the slightest chance of it in our lifetime.' ---------
I believe the highest aspiration of man should be individual freedom and the development of the individual.
re:Those embarassing moments (OT) - 2006/04/04 08:58"I have always said that if Great Britain were defeated in war I pleasantly hoped we should positively find a Hitler to lead us back to our rightful position among the nations.". ---------
I believe the highest aspiration of man should be individual freedom and the development of the individual.
re:Those embarassing moments (OT) - 2006/04/04 09:50Both of those look like excruciatingly embarrasdsing chess situations, yes.. ---------
No culture can live, if it attempts to be exclusive. - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, 1869 - 1948
re:Those embarassing moments (OT) - 2006/04/04 09:57Insofar as the relatively new medium of Usenet has any time-honoreed traditions, these participants are invoking the well-established one which provides a means by which users can legitimately designate and discuss an Off Topic issue without having to post something like, "For my comments on the treatment of Japanese leaders charged with war crimes, meet me over at soc.history.war.world-war-ii." When done judiciously and with respect for the normal bounds of discussion of the group, such activity should be little cause for complaint by other subscrobers.
Of course, you are following the even more well-established Usenet tradition of harshly attacking another member, with little or no provocation, using language that you would never use in a face-to-face discussion with someone you had merely overheard and never met.
Fascist bully.. ---------
Everyone calls himself a friend, but only a fool relies on it: nothing is commoner than the name, nothing rarer than the thing. - Jean de La Fontaine, 1621 - 1695
re:Those embarassing moments (OT) - 2006/04/04 10:26Gee, how about you post something whitch relates to CHESS?. ---------
The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on Earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule.
post new topic
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