Yes, The Real The New Awesome Primary Thread

I suppose this is always the danger in a democracy - that people who find rational, intelligent thought challenging, start to club together and believe that rational, intelligent thought isn't needed to govern a democracy.I blame the Internet - it's empowered idiots.

Indeed. The decision of The Hague today ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35933468 ) in the case of Vojislav Seselj is interesting in this regard.In relation to the murders, tortures and other crimes committed in the Balkans by the volunteers he raised, for example, the Court found him not guilty in relation to those crimes, because the Court found that he neither knew of them, nor ordered or endorsed them.And he was the deputy prime minister of Serbia during the worst of the Kosovo atrocities.The Court has a higher hurdle to war criminality, than simply being a politician who is in favour of the war.

Your usual unintelligent attempt at condescension.Have a go at an intelligent, reasoned response to my point, using your own words, and not cut and pastes from your favourite sources.You might find yourself thinking a little.

Consider yourself schooled. To establish that, you would have to establish that she actually murdered more than one person herself, or procured their murder. You have not. One word, at least, you have got right. In order to establish more, you are going to need to establish more than that she supported a war, howevever unjustified that war was, or has proven to have been. That much is clear from the UN Court's decisions. Supporting a war isn't enough. A war criminal needs both to have known about war crimes taking place during a war, and to have ordered them or endorsed them. I have seen no conclusive evidence from you that these evidential requirements have been met.

Fair points - although the degree of complicity in the decision would need to be established, and I don't know that there is any precedent for holding accountable a member of a democratic legislature who voted to endorse the decision of the executive.I have been having difficulty, though, in tracking down current jurisprudence on crimes against peace. I'm not convinced that the Nuremberg approach remains current. If it does remain current, I'm having to scratch my head very hard as to why Seselj wasn't prosecuted for crimes against peace at The Hague. On the basis of what was said at Nuremberg, he would surely have been bang to rights.

The other thing to distinguish, is what precisely constitutes launching a war of aggression - (in contrast to launching a war of non-aggression ?)Again, I'll need to do some research on that.

It might be splitting hairs - I'm not sure. I'll need a read of a casebook on international law (when I get some time). Google's not cutting the mustard on defining the parameters, when it comes to crimes against peace.

I'd disagree with that somewhat. What you've done is presented things in a more thoughtful, accurate and nuanced way, and we're debating what is a more complex issue than dronester maintains, when trying sanctimoniously to ram his point of view down people's throats. As I've said to him before, there are many things on which he, I and others on here agree, but his constant condescension becomes counter-productive.I'll come back substantively on your points later, when I have more time.CheersEdited by vimesey, : Bad grammar

That someone is innocent, until proven guilty in a validly constituted Court of law is one of the principal cornerstones of the rule of law - not nitpicking pedantry about terminology.