
29 June 2005
Opposition to the proposed Reconciliation and Unity Commission
Source: Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the Post-9/11 World
29 June 2005
Opposition to the proposed Reconciliation and Unity Commission
“War crimes are only committed by defeated powers.”
But as the Nazis learned in 1945, unemployed war criminals can usually find work with the new hegemonic power.
"The Iron Fist Behind the Invisible Hand: Capitalism As a State-Guaranteed System of Privilege" (2011)
“It is a crime against the State to be powerful enough to commit one.”
C'est un crime d'État que d'en pouvoir commettre.
Araspe, act II, scene i.
Nicomède (1651)
“A king is sometimes obliged to commit crimes; but they are the crimes of his position.”
Political Aphorisms, Moral and Philosophical Thoughts (1848)
Pentagon briefing, March 20, 2003 http://www.defenselink.mil/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=2072
2000s
“Why the United States Is Destroying Its Education System” (2011)
1960s, The Role of the Behavioral Scientist in the Civil Rights Movement (1967)
Context: A profound judgment of today's riots was expressed by Victor Hugo a century ago. He said, 'If a soul is left in the darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.' / The policymakers of the white society have caused the darkness; they create discrimination; they structured slums; and they perpetuate unemployment, ignorance and poverty. It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society. When we ask Negroes to abide by the law, let us also demand that the white man abide by law in the ghettos.
Introductory
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)
“A crime is something someone else commits.”
Source: The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part Two, Chapter XX
2013, UN rights expert hails Arms Trade Treaty and urges States to do more to also regulate production http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=13207&LangID=E.
2013