| Online: | |
| Visits: | |
| Stories: |
The Dark Side Of Lieber’s Code (Or, Cheneyite Jurisprudence)
The Dark Side Of Lieber’s Code (Or, Cheneyite Jurisprudence)
“The truth, always the truth–at all costs”
I will strive to give you perspectives on the news that you will rarely receive from other sources. At times, there will be eye-witness reports from troubled areas, at other times, there will be documentary,interviews and other interesting works.
I am committed to providing information by posting/archiving videos, articles, and links. I also investigate to raise awareness on numerous issues, inspire critical thinking, involvement, and hopefully to help make our world a better place for all.
According to a recently published report, the report states The 150th Anniversary of Lieber’s Code was celebrated by the International Humanitarian Law (Law of War) community in 2013 for the embryonic role the Code played in the development of the law of war. But while issuing Lieber’s Code is often credited as the founding of the law of war, in fact, Lieber’s Code is more correctly to be seen as the martial law regulation governing all of the non-Confederate states, the Northern states, during the latter half of the Civil War. While it put into the form of a Military Order previously existing humanitarian customary law of war principles, that was not its primary purpose.
Lieber’s Code was issued as General Order No. 100 (G.O. 100) in 1863 by the War Department as “Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field. Francis Lieber was tasked with preparing it by General Halleck, following the proclamation of martial law by President Lincoln on September 24, 1862.
G.O. 100 is described by The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School Alumni Association as: “This directive, General Order No. 100, known as the ‘Lieber Code’, outlined the Federal army code of conduct during war, as well as the Institution of Martial Law. It would later become the basis for all international treaties, including the Hague Conventions in 1907 and the Geneva Accords of 1954 [sic].” (Emphasis added.)
The focus for the anniversary was on this embryonic role of Lieber’s Code in development of the international law of war. Most of Lieber’s Code, however, with its antiquated statement of the law of war, has been superseded by the Geneva Conventions and other international human rights and law of war treaties. Nevertheless, special events celebrating this anniversary were held, some sponsored by the U.S. Government.
That the US Government should be enthusiastic for Lieber’s Code is not remarkable in light of legal arguments the government has made since 2001, beginning with legal opinions issued by attorneys in the Office of Legal Counsel, such as John Yoo, Robert Delahunty, and Jay Bybee. The military arrests of civilians and the offenses charged in military commissions during the second half of the Civil War were governed by G.O. No. 100. But with few exceptions, they were offenses under the martial law that had been decreed, not “war crimes” in the modern use of the term or under international law. Even though these martial law practices of the Civil War were repudiated at the end of the war by the Supreme Court in Ex Parte Milligan, where they were described by Justice Field as “martial rule,” they have been idealized and argued as precedent by US government officials in current military commissions and even as authority for global drone attacks by the US
Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, Military Commissions Chief Prosecutor, takes pains to defend military commissions under what Justice Field termed “martial rule” as precedent for current military commissions and from charges that they are “un-American.” He and other military commissions’ prosecutors have even coined a phrase to describe these martial law cases as “US domestic common law of war.” According to commissions’ prosecutors, these Civil War martial law offenses are equally as applicable to civilians captured on the other side of the world from the US in the 21st Century as they were 150 years ago in US territory under Union Army martial law.
In making these arguments, US officials take a principle of the law of war that only applies to a nation’s domestic territory, within its own boundaries, and deceitfully misstate the legal principles undergirding martial law and the law of war as well, from commentators of Civil War times such as Col. William Winthrop. Instead of the principles themselves, stated correctly, prosecutors seem to prefer relying on Abraham Lincoln’s historical standing as well as our historical mystification of the Civil War to put this legal history, and their application of it, above any criticism or any analysis.
An example is that of one enthusiast for Civil War era law of war who put it this way on a website which routinely calls for a “tradeoff” of Constitutional Rights for National Security: “The American Civil War remains – perhaps surprisingly, perhaps even astonishingly – a well of Constitutional experience informing this nation’s sense of law and legitimacy throughout the conflicts set off by 9/11. It is the deeper well to which this country returns again and again in seeking to marry security and law, notwithstanding that it took place 150 years ago, on American and not foreign soil, and spilled the blood only of Americans and not also of foreigners in faraway places in Central Asia or the Middle East. Its invocation in debates over law and conflict today is not merely the ritual of calling upon the nation’s icons, but is instead a live source of law, legal precedents, state practice, and custom.”
Read More Here http://original.antiwar.com/Todd_Pierce/2014/04/06/the-dark-side-of-liebers-code-or-cheneyite-jurisprudence/
If aliens took over our planet, would they allow evil, selfish people to keep running our governments?
http://www.blue-planet-project.com/