Demjanjuk gets 94 minutes per Jew?

[Steophan]

@villa

Well there is the survey by Neil Malamuth of UCLA in 1986 which found that 30% of men admitted they would commit rape if they knew there was no chance of being caught. The same survey changed the wording from rape to force a woman into having sex, and the number went up to over 50%.

Given that rape is almost never punished (around a 4% conviction rate I believe) that’s not why people don’t do it. Unless you think that 50% of men have forced women into sex, which is a bit high.

The the US military is apparently “fucking stupid.” I’m pretty certain all its members are informed they are not to follow illegal orders. Those who order it are certainly responsible, but those who do it are also guilty.

Has any American soldier ever ignored an illegal order without repercussions? How is the average soldier even to know whether a particular target is legitimate or not?

I’m assuming that most of the instances of torture in Afghanistan or Iraq were soldiers following orders, and being told it was legal, not acting on their own accord.

That’s an insult to all those who did survive without taking part in the extermination of Jews and others.

I don’t feel at all bad about thinking I am much better than someone who participated in the Shoah. Even if a person’s life is on the line, which I don’t believe was the case here, there are things they should not ethically do. And this is one of them.

I’m not claiming that his actions were morally right. I’m saying that the hatred and lust for vengeance should be saved for those who caused the atrocities, not those who were sept up in it. Even under the most damning interpretation of the facts, Demanjuk was the latter

As for insulting other survivors, no. I’ll save the insults for those calling for meaningless vengeance for an event that had nothing to do with them. That’s by no means morally right either.

[villa]

@Steophan

Given that rape is almost never punished (around a 4% conviction rate I believe) that’s not why people don’t do it. Unless you think that 50% of men have forced women into sex, which is a bit high.

So in other words you have no answer to a survey which said exactly what you denied was the case.

@Steophan

Has any American soldier ever ignored an illegal order without repercussions? How is the average soldier even to know whether a particular target is legitimate or not?

I am sure they have. Also, German soldiers ignored orders to participate in the Holocaust without repercussions. Average soldiers are informed in training of what things constitute illegal orders. And the Holocaust isn’t even a close one on this - you don’t have to have an advanced degree in legal ethics to realize rounding up Ukrainian Jews, herding them into a ravine, and machinegunning them death is kind of a bad thing on balance.

@Steophan

I’m assuming that most of the instances of torture in Afghanistan or Iraq were soldiers following orders, and being told it was legal, not acting on their own accord.

I am sure much has been written on this. Perhaps you could back this up, particularly with reference to those tried for such crimes.

@Steophan

I’m not claiming that his actions were morally right. I’m saying that the hatred and lust for vengeance should be saved for those who caused the atrocities, not those who were sept up in it. Even under the most damning interpretation of the facts, Demanjuk was the latter

You live in a pretty fucked up world when you consider trying a man to be the product of hatred and a lust for vengeance. Is that true of all criminals?

And again, how high does your blanket amnesty run. Should we not have prosecuted Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz?

@Steophan

As for insulting other survivors, no. I’ll save the insults for those calling for meaningless vengeance for an event that had nothing to do with them. That’s by no means morally right either.

Yes, you are insulting others who survived being PoWs or having their country occupied, yet didn’t become actively complicit in extermination. I’m not calling for meaningless vengeance, I am calling for criminals to be prosecuted. Something we do to criminals when we catch them.

The Germans didn’t have to force people into complicity with the Shoah. There were plenty of Germans, Austrians, Ukrainians, Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Croatians, French, and every other nation who were more than happy to join in with the crimes.