- When King George the Second (surnamed Bush) announced
that some of the soldiers (or is it detainees? or criminals?) captured
in the undeclared war in Afghanistan would be tried in military tribunals,
a lot of people got twisted out of shape. Military Tribunals, it seems,
are not open to the public; the military serves as judge, jury, and hangman;
and the accused can be convicted and sentenced to summary execution merely
on a "preponderance of the evidence", rather than the usual "guilt
beyond a reasonable doubt" standard used in conventional capital cases.
The words "Star Chamber" come immediately to mind. Oh, yes -
and the guilty have no right of appeal. Once you're found guilty, you can
step right on out the back door to the waiting hangman.
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- "Ridiculous!" answered the big-government conservatives.
"Military tribunals are very fair. And you don't have to worry about
the trials turning into media circuses like the O. J. Simpson case. We
used military tribunals in several wars in the past, and they rendered
even-handed justice."
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- Actually, no. American military tribunals have historically
been set up to railroad people quickly to the hangman's noose.
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- Abraham Lincoln, the first president from the Republican
Party (as well as our Empire's first dictator), set up military tribunals
in the Civil War that were allegedly to be used to try people in parts
of the country where the conventional court system had broken down as a
result of the war.
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- Interestingly, one of the more famous military tribunals
was set up in a state that was never threatened by the Southern rebels:
Minnesota. The accused were not rebel soldiers, but Sioux Indians who had
been causing a ruckus by making unreasonable demands on the Lincoln Administration,
such as actually sticking to the terms of a treaty.
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- According to Thomas DiLorenzo, author of a new book titled
The Real Lincoln, the Santee Sioux of Minnesota had sold 24 million acres
of land to the federal government for $1.4 million in 1851. By 1862, in
the middle of the Civil War, the feds had still paid the Sioux nothing,
even though thousands of white settlers had moved into the area. Because
of a crop failure that year, the Sioux had begun to starve, and without
the promised payments from the feds, they had no means of buying provisions.
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- Okay, I know it's hard for you public-school-educated
Americans to comprehend, but our masters in Washington really do have a
sordid history of breaking treaties, particularly with the Indian tribes.
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- Weary of being stiffed by Washington, the Sioux finally
revolted. In response, Lincoln sent a force under the command of General
John Pope, a charming fellow whose stated purpose was to "utterly
exterminate the Sioux." Of course the "war", such as it
was, was no contest - sort of like the American military conquering the
mighty nation of Afghanistan - and hundreds of Sioux, including women and
children, were taken prisoner.
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- This is where the fun really began for the Lincoln administration.
Remember, Minnesota never even came close to suffering invasion during
the Civil War. The system of courts in Minnesota had not been destroyed.
Nonetheless, it was very convenient to identify the Sioux as "illegal
combatants" in the war. Maybe they didn't wear uniforms, or something,
or maybe they even attacked innocent civilians - something our own military
never does, right? Anyhow, this Military Tribunal, according to David Nichols
in 'Lincoln and the Indians', spent all of about 10 minutes on each "trial."
The Sioux, many of whom spoke no English, were not allowed to put up much
of a defense, even if they had some foggy notion of what was going on.
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- Over 300 Sioux were found guilty and sentenced to summary
execution. The merciful Lincoln Administration, however, got a few signals
from Europe that mass execution of hundreds of starving Indians with whom
we had broken a treaty might just be a little bit immoral. Because some
of those nations were toying with the idea of coming to the aid of the
South, Lincoln decided, in a great show of mercy, to execute only 39 of
the prisoners. But to mollify the folks in Minnesota, he also paid $2 million
in federal funds, along with a promise to eventually kill or remove every
last Indian from the state.
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- Yes, this is the same Lincoln whom official Washington
and the public schools at all levels continually laud as one of our greatest
presidents. This is the fellow we celebrate with a national holiday.
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- Another famous case involves the story of Major Henry
Wirz, the unfortunate soldier given the unenviable task of overseeing the
Andersonville prison in Georgia during the Civil War. First, a bit of background.
The American military, which never targets civilians, engaged in what we
now call "Total War" on the population of the South. That is,
they not only attacked the armies of the Confederacy, but also made war
on noncombatants. Throughout the South, the invading Union Army burned
crops, shot livestock and left the carcasses to rot, and burned people
out of their homes. This, added to the fact that the South had been effectively
blockaded for several years, meant the civilian population was reduced
to starvation and had no access to medicine.
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- During the early years of the war, the opposing sides
negotiated the exchange of prisoners, but as the war dragged on, the North
realized that - surprise! - the Union soldiers they were taking back were
starving and disease-ridden, a fact that just might have been related to
their own blockade and their own policy of Total War. The Union generals,
not wanting to "exchange skeletons for healthy men", decided
to cease all prisoner exchanges, fully knowing that the South would be
put in the impossible position of rationing what little food was available,
while at the same time being morally responsible for feeding their prisoners
of war. Attorney Louis Schade, in a letter defending Major Wirz, pointed
out that the South advised the North that they were unable to feed their
prisoners, offering to simply let the North take back their prisoners without
any compensating exchange, on humanitarian grounds. The offer was made
in August, 1864, but the North did not send transportation to pick up the
prisoners until December. It was during that period of time that most of
the deaths at Andersonville occurred.
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- Almost 22,000 Northerners died in Southern camps during
the war, compared to the 26,000 Southerners who died in Northern camps,
despite the fact that the North did not suffer any blockade or Total War
tactics, as had the South. From this, we can gather that Southern troops
were not treated very kindly in Northern prisons, but the victors in war
get to write the history, so the story of mistreatment in Northern prison
camps has been largely swept under the rug.
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- The North, however, needed a scapegoat and a show trial,
so Major Wirz faced a military tribunal. Wirz was made to stand trial despite
the fact he had been wounded during surrender. He was so weak that he was
unable to sit upright during his trial; he had to recline on a sofa in
the courtroom. He was denied the right to speak in his own defense. Wirz,
ironically, was accused of "murder in violation of the laws and customs
of war." Well, General Sherman never did anything like that, did he?
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- A dozen "witnesses" were produced, all accusing
Wirz of personally beating 13 prisoners to death. There were several problems
with the testimony, however, the most conspicuous being the fact that none
of the alleged "witnesses" could recall the names of any of the
victims! This lapse of memory seems to have occurred despite the fact that
several of the alleged victims lived for five or six days after the beatings.
Isn't it unusual that, among the thousands of prisoners at Andersonville,
not one witness could be produced who could recall the name of a single
victim? Against those 15 "witnesses," the defense was allowed
to produce 145 witnesses who all swore Wirz never murdered any Union soldiers.
Despite the preponderance of evidence indicating Wirz never killed anyone,
the Union general in charge of the proceedings (gee--you don't suppose
a commander of the opposition forces would be a little, you know, biased,
would you?) found Wirz guilty and ordered him hanged.
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- It gets better, though. On the night before the scheduled
execution, several federal officers approached Schade with an offer of
clemency for Wirz if he would simply testify that Jefferson Davis himself
had a hand in the "murder" of the unnamed prisoners. Such a claim
would be, of course, absurd. Jefferson Davis was never anywhere near Andersonville,
but the Union, unable to try Davis for treason, was trolling for a more
mundane charge, like murder. Wirz, in one of those strange, darkly heroic
moments of history, refused to go along with the perjury, saying he could
not accuse an innocent man even to save his own life. Two hours later,
he mounted the gallows and was hanged.
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- On the matter of suborning perjury, our masters in Washington
evidently get a free pass every time. Bill Clinton was actually a small-time
amateur at this tactic, having used it to wriggle out of his nasty little
incident with Monica and the legendary cigar.
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- His Republican predecessors, however, tried and failed
to suborn perjury in order to implicate someone in alleged murders in which
neither the bodies nor the names of the victims were ever produced. Jefferson
Davis actually wanted to be put on trial for treason, confident he could
prove that individual states had every right to secede from the union.
The Feds, reviewing the mountains of evidence in the writings of the Founding
Fathers indicating the states did indeed have just such a right, never
brought Davis to trial.
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- These are just two examples from our illustrious history
of military tribunals. I'm sure that, with a little research, one could
come up with many more examples to demonstrate that military tribunals
are set up with the specific purpose of arriving at the "right"
predetermined verdict.
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- Paul Weber's novel, Transfiguration, is available at
http://www.xlibris.com/Transfiguration.html.
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- http://www.thetexasmercury.com/articles/weber/PW20020324.html
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