Weekend odds 'n ends (TM)

First up, a cartoon in the Adventures in Amnesia series by the brilliant Kirk Anderson:

This cartoon is great for so many reasons, but Spot wants to point out just a couple. Notice the staff that Hack Mammon is holding in the first panel in the middle row. And the name, Hack Mammon. Absolutely inspired. Note that the Reverend Mammon preaches Liberation Theology for the Ruling Class.

Kirk Anderson used to draw editorial cartoons for the Pioneer Press in St. Paul. Now, apparently, he's a freelancer, and his work is often in the Minneapolis Star Tribune and can also be seen online at Buzzflash.

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Speaking of Hack Mammon, boys and girls, you remember the anguished wailing and threats of legal mayhem against the Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, don't you? And Spot said a couple of times that it was really just hot air?

If you go to the CREW site, you will see that the documents that lawyer Ansis howled about are still there.

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Last Monday, Spot wrote about his disapproval of trying to compel enlisted soldiers and junior officers to make Jus ad Bellum decisions about what orders to follow.

Spot said it was just a step away from stripping captured soldiers of their Geneva Convention protections and trying them all for war crimes. Spot now reads about an individual, who used to be a JAG investigator apparently, who has said this about Lieutenant Watada's case:

Lt. Watada is the first commissioned officer to refuse orders to Iraq and is also the first soldier to do so who is not a conscientious objector. His decision is based on legal grounds as well as moral, with the recognition that a soldier has not only the duty to obey all lawful orders, but also has the moral and legal obligation to disobey any unlawful order. [italics are Spot's]

This is a scary proposition for anybody going to war, having misgivings but going nevertheless out of a sense of duty--like Tammy Duckworth's husband, for example--and conducting himself or herself honorably in the field. Should that service person have to be worried about loss of Geneva treatment if captured because the war itself is considered illegal by the capturing adversary? Of course not.

As Spot said in his earlier post, you cannot impose legality of the war decisions on the people who don't make those decisions.

Technorati Tags: Mac Hammond, war crimes, Geneva Convention, Tammy Duckworth, Ehren Watada