Image courtesy of Caspar et al., Current Biology (2016). The Nuremburg Trials proved beyond any doubt that if the excuse of "I was only obeying orders" could have a consequence as horrifying as the Holocaust it was imperative that International Law must prevent such an excuse being used and accepted ever again. UCMJ has not been invoked often since its implementation. Change). Evil never sleeps. In the first experiment, he said participants an agent and a victim took turns delivering mild shocks or inflicting a financial penalty on each other. Yes, there were ruthless killers among them that thrived on the opportunity provided them by the government. On August 27the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) announced that the number who died while claiming incapacity benefits between January 2011 and February 2014 was a shocking 91,740. Notice the oath states, I will obey the orders of the President of the United States,but the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) Article 90 states that military personnel need to obey the "lawful orders of his/her superior. In his book The Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis writes about universal moral principles he calls Tao or Natural Law. In other words, US military personnel are not required to follow orders that contravene the Laws and Constitution of the United States. Roman Catholic Church doctrine says that to the extent that one's free will is limited, one's responsibility for those actions is just as limited. Nevertheless, humanity has habitually and often flagrantly ignored the obvious realities of past misdeeds regardless of how costly or disastrous. The latest news on WordPress.com and the WordPress community. Left: Thomas the tank engine was only following orders, "it was just a job".Support me on patreon for exclusive content: https://www.patreon.com/Ethereal_SnakeMerc. When government rules with the consent of the governed and is bound by the universal moral code, the rights of each individual, even a minority of one, are secured and protected. By Daniel Margrain "I was only following orders of my superiors" was a not an adequate defense for Nazi war criminals". With profound regret, we must admit that "I was only following orders" works just as well in America as it did in Nazi Germany. They won, and the United States Supreme Court upheld the decision. Unknown to most civilians is that U.S. military personnel are not just trained to follow orders but are educated in following only lawful orders. You had no choice in the National Socialist party coming to power, you had no choice to be born in Germany and because of restrictions, you cannot escape to a neutral country such as Switzerland. It is time to break the cycle. To the rear march. For those like Adolf Eichmann or Josef Mengele, that response is hardly viable. In this test, the agent is not under the watchful gaze of an authority figure. In trials of Nazi leaders at Nuremberg, many . The phrase can refer to any attempt to deflect personal responsibility for a crime onto institutions like an army or the state. These men issued orders and carried out their own inhumane actions without prompting from a higher echelon. Hinzman and his supporters argued that because the war in Iraq may be in breach of international law, it could possibly end with him and other troops being tried for war crimes. Canadian Disability Studies specialist and disability activistSamuel Miller, has been communicating frequently and voluntarily, since January 2012, to senior United Nations officials, on the welfare crisis for the United Kingdoms sick and disabled. That defense was first used in a 1799 naval blockade case and subsequently has been used in military cases related to the Vietnam War more often than in any other conflict. The Nuremberg Trials are most notable for the unsuccessful use of the "I was only following orders" legal defense. It depends on the order. A books, movies, and more blog from the staff at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh - Main. Be very afraid. (Interestingly, the soldier who gave Keenan the order, Corporal Luczko, was acquitted by reason of insanity). Adolph Hitler and the Nazi elite of the infamous Third Reich, however, remain one memorable instance in which good triumphed and evil was publicly held responsible. For Lewis, these primeval moral platitudes constitute a kind of moral inheritance of fundamental truths that are a basic part of human nature. Following the Nuremburg Trials, it became clear that the excuse, "I was only following orders" was an area that needed both clarification and elimination. This represents an increase to an average of99 deaths per day or692 per week, between the start of December 2011 and the end of February 2014 compared with 32 deaths per day/222 per week between January and November 2011. Back in DecemberThe Poor Side of Lifemade the following observation: I was stopped by a homeless chap who wanted to congratulate us on our hard work. Place yourself in the boots of a citizen in Germany, 1940. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. Shortage of health care workers, import more. You think you will not face any dilemma with Jews or gypsies or whomever. Prosecutors have indicated they will seek life in prison . This can be applied even down to the lowest solider who is in territory not originally belonging to his country. Literally Media Ltd. Consider their situation and the extent of their free will, first. the Geneva Conventions. As a result, if an employees manager or the business owner requests an employee to commit a criminal act, the employee should not do so and thereafter should speak privately with employment counsel to determine the best strategy as to that situation. But that same year Stanley Milgram, a Yale University psychologist, conducted a series of famous experiments that tested whether ordinary folks would inflict harm on another person after following orders from an authoritative figure. Not only is Rowe a dedicated cheerleader, but she is a great student as well. To the rear march. In 1957, the Israeli legal system established the concept of a 'blatantly illegal order' to explain when a military (or security-related) order should be followed, and when it must not be followed. They lead to disjointed domestic and foreign policies and to the abdication of congressional responsibilities. The chapter stated that the "superior orders" is not a valid defense against charges of war crimes. 2007-2023 Unlike Milgrams classic research, Haggards team introduced a shocking element that was missing in the original 1960s experiments: actual shocks. Cast Your Vote To Select The Meme Of The Month! Definitions by the largest Idiom Dictionary. So help me God". But does the military member have a duty to DISOBEY unlawful orders including orders of senior officers, Secretary of Defense and even the President of the United States? Large gatherings forbidden. But these men with guns and authority tell you to do so, and if you oppose orders of an officer, you risk death even yourself! Vicious dictators like Stalin and Mao, together responsible for killing over 100 million people, died of natural causes. The maltreatment of prisoners is a crime under both international lawand the Uniform Code of Military Justice (seeArticle 93 Cruelty and Maltreatment). Attorney Marr can be reached at [emailprotected]. | Apr 10, 2019 | Employment Law. Often the use of deadly force is necessary to stop a criminal in police work, just as in international affairs.<P>As for following orders; Not only were these people not given any choice (disobey . Hum sounds like you dont agree with our current president and you have way to much time on your hands to live in the fever swamps. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. In other cases, the experimenter looked away, while the agent acted on their own volition. The Vietnam War presented the United States military courts with more cases of the "I was only following orders" defense than any previous conflict. Parade rest. This tone elicited a brain response that could be measured by an electroencephalogram (EEG) cap. Article 92 conveys what constitutes the crime of disobedience of any lawful order (the disobedience does not have to be "willful" under this article). Prior work had found that brain activity is dampened when people are forced to follow orders. But I heard something familiar from my past: A series of orders meant to condition people to unthinking obedience. [1] Before the trials, as the Allies suspected that "superior orders" defence could be used by the defendants, the London Charter of the International Military Tribunal was issued. A handwritten request for clemency by Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Nazi Holocaust, who said he shouldn't be held responsible for his actions because he and other low-level officers were following orders from their superiors. By accepting all cookies, you agree to our use of cookies to deliver and maintain our services and site, improve the quality of Reddit, personalize Reddit content and advertising, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. . Masks not useful. My point in this is that all those involved in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany were not war criminals, benign or otherwise, but were simply boys forced into cooperation with the Nazi war machine. ", Using your tongue to tie a knot in a cherry stem, I fell asleep to the lullaby of rat-a-tat-tat, Notes on ruining the beauty of barren places by being there, Vaclav Havel's address to the US Congress, 21 February 1990. Some heard an endless series of self-contradictions and unapologetic 180-degree reversals. And now, lawyers for some of the Army reservists charged with abusing prisoners in Iraq say they're innocent for the same reason. All Rights Reserved. UCMJ was invoked again during the inquiry into the Iran-Contra Affair, in 1987. Online, the caption "I was just following orders* has been utilized in ironic memes, particularly in those in which various characters are edited into the photographs of 1945-1946 Nuremberg trials. Spread person-to-person. The study, published in the journal Current Biology, described this distance as people experiencing their actions more as passive movements than fully voluntary actions when they follow orders. The Nuremberg Trials are most notable for the unsuccessful use of the I was only following orders legal defense. We weren't doing anything or going anywhere. In a second experiment, the team explored whether the loss of agency could also be seen in the brain activity of subjects. Comment * document.getElementById("comment").setAttribute( "id", "a0f4feab99dd5316634ea1c890247292" );document.getElementById("d4c257114e").setAttribute( "id", "comment" ); Program Schedule WJRB 95.1 FM Saturday 8:00AM & 9:30AM Sunday 2:30PM & 7:00PM, Cycles of History Ignored I was only following orders. My sister ordered the day before just to be sure they didn't sell out . Not voting Tory is a start! I've heard that the "I was only following orders" excuse is a bad excuse the nazis on trial used, so I'm curious what did happen to people who didn't follow the orders in the nazi regime? Although he was denied refugee status, one Justice presiding over the case stated, in reference to personal responsibility during wartime: This has, however, long been the established rule for questions of the legality of war. You remember the one who lied about everything and spent all his time blaming immigrants for running the country. Sometimes a soldier doesn't have a complete picture of what is going on. officer." Military members failing to obey lawful orders issued by their superiors risk serious consequences. Our current federal government has embarked on a course that ignores the checks and balances defined by constitutional law. There were generals who did their best to counteract orders from above that were against principles of humanity; General der Flieger Alexander Andrae comes to mind. Private England said worse things than those shown in the photographs took place in Abu Ghraib prison. The legal precedent set by theNuremberg Principle IVstates: The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.. Researchers measured a small, but significant increase in the perceived time between a persons action and outcome when coercion was involved. At no point, however, did someone truly experience an electric shock. When Yale received reams of Milgrams documents in the 2000s, other psychologists started to criticize the famous electric-shock study when they sifted through the notes more closely. A platoon from 11th Brigade, led by First Lieutenant William Calley, herded 327 old men, women and children - even babies - from the Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai into a ditch and shot them all dead. DWP figures also show that some2,380 people have died after being found fit for work and losing benefits. Column left march. Reblogged this on Brightonredhots Weblog and commented: People had passed him and thought that he was asleep. Jacob's son just entered first grade and Jacob plans to join the rest of the crowd by helping himself to some good supplies. This example also presents a good model for a government or military forcing its citizens or members to perform immoral acts. Article 33 of the Rome Statute,[2] which established the International Criminal Court, allows the Nuremberg defense to relieve an individual of criminal responsibility provided: This principle, one of many drawn up in the run up to the Nuremberg trials, states: Nuremberg Principle IV was disputed in Canada when Jeremy Hinzman attempted to claim refugee status there after deserting the US army. click Column left march. Millions have been slaughtered to satisfy the greed and lust for power of the few, and too often there is neither punishment for the guilty nor justice for the dead. Delivery & Pickup Options - 3 reviews of Korea Taqueria "Been following one of the owners since his food truck days and I always loved the Korean fusion from Paper Mill Foods spurrito truck so it's great to see a brick and mortar with another fun fusion! The decisions during these cases reaffirmed that following manifestly illegal orders is not a viable defense from criminal prosecution. In the brave new world ushered in by the Nazis, evil is done not in any personal, clean way, if such is ever possible, with unquestioned responsibility; now it is carried out in a bureaucratic manner--nameless functionaries following meaningless orders, just more cogs in a machine of evil. I would say that the person who signed the order should be the one punished. But all German military personal from the lowest private to the highest field-marshall had a pay-book with a number of absolute commitments in the front. The truth is about to finally hit the fan and this corrupt nazi Tory government will never be able to come back from their sickening disgusting acts that they are performing on the most invulnerable British people who are being deliberately targeted and treated like criminals and like we are pond life when we should be treated with care and compassion, a disabled person who is ruled as to be to sick to work needs help and care and compassion, we do not deserve to be victimized and treated like criminals, its not our choice to be disabled, its not something that we planned on for a career, sick and disabled people should never be treated the way that we are now, it is clear to me that this government and especially IDS mass murderer of the disabled thinks it is ok to continue his sick work of culling off and persecuting the sick and disabled in Britain, it is high time that IDS, the corrupt DWP and this government were all charged and prosecuted for the sick and twisted crimes that have been deliberately targeted at the sick and the disabled. "The Nuremberg Defense", failed and failed again at My Lai, and once more at Abu Ghraib, yet more and more I hear from young police officers that they did_____ because their "boss" (Cpl, Sgt, Lt, etc) told them too. Doctors are independent professionals. Haggards team found that brain activity in response to this tone is indeed dampened when being coerced. Vaccine protective, return to normal. I Was Just Following Orders, also known as the Nuremberg Defence, refers to a plea in a court of law used by persons not to be held guilty for actions ordered by their superiors. The duty and obligation to obey lawful orders creates no grey area for discussion. Therefore, do not automatically issue a mental guilty conviction to a person whose defense is "I was only following orders". If youre not doing it already, try wearing a baggy. we only know of them because tribunals, orders, and courts mention them. In United States v. Keenan, the accused (Keenan) was found guilty of murder after he obeyed an order to shoot and kill an elderly Vietnamese citizen. (LogOut/ As in the Nuremberg trials, I was only following orders proved not to be a valid defense, and those using it were found guilty in virtually every instance. If you are the person who placed the order, you should have received a confirmation email shortly after completing your transaction. His legal practice includes counseling businesses and individuals on a variety of legal issues and advocating on their behalf. It's a tough place to be and I hate it. BIG: James Clapper Admits He Was Following Orders From His 'Commander-In-Chief, President Obama' By Elizabeth Vaughn , RedState In the transcript and the video below, Obama's Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, speaks to CNN's Jim Sciutto and makes the stunning admission that he'd been following Obama's orders - and . Haggard said they used moderately painful, but tolerable, shocks. Milgram feigned shocks up to 450 volts. Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. The closest we have gotten to a authoritative government was the last guy. One would have to establish that not following said orders would result in immediate serious bodily injury or death (or a reasonable fear of such) and that there was no reasonable way to avoid following the orders or alternative course of action available. Spread person-to-person. states that the Serviceman is to obey the "lawful command of his superior As the haughty nephew did not follow, he continued, "You only care about the' things that you can use, and therefore arrange them in the following order: Money, supremely . I was only following orders of my superiors was a not an adequate defense for Nazi war criminals. Everybody is not the storybook hero who can stand up to a whole governmental system and a whole military, as a young recruit, on moral grounds. Unfortunately (for them), that defense doesn't fly. Recruits are taught to obey orders from their superiors immediately and without question, right from day one of boot camp. Calley wound up spending 3 1/2 years under house arrest atFort Benning, Georgia, where a federal judge ultimately ordered his release. The military oath taken at the time of induction into the military is as follows: "I,____________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to the regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
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