Moral justification for the execution of criminals of war?

[bennyboy]

... until you're the innocent marched to the death chamber, am I right? I doubt you'd be so blithe at that point.

That seems pretty unlikely.

As for the other thousands who die accidentally, again, the guilty are susceptible to civil or criminal suit, while government officials are not. The fact that the justice system must be seen as fair would to me seem to demand that if we adopt your "what the hell, kill a few innocents" approach, we ought at least to open those government officials to civil or criminal liability. In other words, it's still a false equivalence.

I didn't say "what the hell, kill a few innocents." I said that in many areas of social function, mistakes might lead to death. I see no reason why the judiciary should be held to an unobtainable standard of perfection, when a jackass can drive a car with his phone in front of his face, mow down my entire family, and be out of prison in a decade.

Yes, you have to go through due process. But in my opinion the current system that takes sometimes decades is morally deficient. I think by the time someone actually dies, they are quite likely a different person than whoever shared their fingerprints 40 years ago, and holding them accountable for such a distant crime seems wrong to me. In fact, I'd rather see a statute of limitations for execution-- seal the case in at most 5 years, or drop it.

As matters stand, they have nothing to fear from making a negligent mistake, or worse, a deliberate choice to frame a suspect in order to clear a case.

Yes, well this is another issue-- ideally, you'd like the process to last longer than any given administration. If the Retardicans decide that abortion is worth the death sentence, I'd hope the appeals would last at least long enough for a sane secular government to consider the case.

I remember when there were protests on Wall Street. I was hoping that a few of those most responsible for the bubble burst might end up hanging from a tree. Instead they walked away with billions of dollars of taxpayer money. In my opinion, anyone who takes actions that should reasonably be expected to do harm to Americans should be tried for treason.