Lincoln's Laws of War: How he built the code that Bush attempted to destroy.

[Munin]

" Lincoln's Laws of War
How he built the code that Bush attempted to destroy.


One of Abraham Lincoln's little-noted accomplishments has become his most unlikely legacy. He helped create the modern international rules that protect civilians, prevent torture, and limit the horrors of combat, the body of law known as the laws of war. Indeed, he was probably our most important law-of-war president, having crafted the very rules that George W. Bush and his Justice Department tried to destroy.


At the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, few Americans had given much thought to the laws of war. Lincoln was no exception. He had never been a soldier of any note. In middle age, he joked about his youthful service as a militia captain, observing that although he had fought and bled in "a good many bloody struggles," all his fights were with mosquitoes. As an Illinois lawyer, his bustling commercial law practice did not bring him into contact with the 19th-century laws of war, either.


... "

Lincoln's laws of war. - By John Fabian Witt - Slate Magazine

 

[Xenophon]

Sorry, but that is nonsense.

Bush didn't try to destroy any 'laws of war' and in fact the Union could be charged with numerous war crimes by modern standards, the most glaring being the Elmire NY prison camp, which was nearly as bad as the more famous Confederate camp at Andersonville.

'Hellmira' alone paints Lincoln as 10 times the war criminal Bush is accused of being.

 

[Xenophon]

Hellmira

Almost 25 percent of the 12,123 Confederate soldiers who entered the 40 acre prisoner of war camp at Elmira, N.Y., died. This death rate was more than double the average death rate in other Northern prison camps, and only 2 percent less than the death rate at the infamous Southern prison at Andersonville, Ga. The deaths at Elmira were caused by diseases brought on by terrible living conditions and starvation, conditions deliberately caused by the vindictive U.S. commissary general of prisoners, Col. William Hoffman. The conditions were inexcusable; the North had more than enough food and materials for its armies, population, and prisoners.

A stockade was built around an unused Union army training camp to create Elimira Prison in June 1864. The prison contained 35 barracks and was intended to house as many as 5,000 prisoners. On July 6 the first 400 arrived, and by the end of the month there were more than 4,4110 prisoners, with more on the way. By the end of August almost 10,000 men were confined there, many of them sleeping in the open in tattered clothes and without blankets.

On August 18, in retaliation for the conditions in Southern prison camps, Colonel Hoffman ordered that rations for the prisoners be reduced to bread and water. The overcrowded conditions ensured that any disease introduced to the malnourished population would spread rapidly. Without meat and vegetables, the prisoners quickly succumbed to scurvy, with 1,870 cases reported by September 11. The scurvy was followed by an epidemic of diarrhea, then pneumonia and smallpox. By the end of the year, 1,264 prisoners had died, and survivors had nicknamed the prison "Hellmira." The winter was bitterly cold, but when Southern families sent clothes for the prisoners, Hoffman would allow only items that were gray to be distributed. Clothes in other colors were burned while the sons and husbands for whom they were intended literally froze to death. By the end of the war, 2,963 Elmira prisoners were dead.

Before resigning to avoid courtmartial for his criminal treatment of sick prisoners, the chief surgeon at Elmira was overheard to boast that he had killed more Rebels than any Union soldier.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

This must be a joke.

Lincoln allowed for the murder, rape, and looting of thousands of southern civilians and slaves, and the sacking of southern cities. He also destroyed the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution. Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and habeas corpus were all done away with in the north during Lincoln's reign. He also destroyed the system of federalism that the founding fathers created, allowing for the leviathan state we all "enjoy" today.

Lincoln would have clapped Bush on the back and congratulated him on a "job well done."

 

[Munin]

Strange that he is the one who is the most popular american president if you consider that he did such big crimes against americans. Historical rankings of United States Presidents - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also you guys don't seem to have red the entire article.

 

[del]

Strange that he is the one who is the most popular american president if you consider that he did such big crimes against americans. Historical rankings of United States Presidents - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also you guys don't seem to have red the entire article.

no need to, the OP is absurd on its face. lincoln allowed his generals, especially sherman, to rape pillage and destroy their way across the south. prior to the american civil war, this was basically unheard of in "civilized" warfare.



lincoln may have helped revise the "laws of war" as you claim, but only if the behavior of his generals was used as an example of what would happen without them.

you should really read some history. this kind of ignorance is almost frightening. the laws of war predate lincoln by thousands of years.

 

[Annie]

Indeed, Lincoln was the father of 'Total War,' the strategy that would be followed in WWI and II.

 

[editec]

We can pretend otherwise, but a war pits one society against another.

When we set out to win a war, the civilians ARE targeted, of course.

When we destroy an opposing nations infrastructure we know perfectly well that we are killing civilians.

We should just stop kidding ourselves that dropping bombs on cities is anything other than legally sanctioned terrorism, because that is exactly what it is.

 

[Munin]

The issue here is that Lincoln s code of war was the very minimum of war regulations and that Bush managed to break them is an achievement on its own. Not one to be proud of, considering how low Lincoln s standards were.

The second stage came that winter, soon after Lincoln finally fired the slow-moving McClellan. After appalling casualties on both sides at Antietam in September 1862 and in the midst of a devastating defeat at Fredericksburg, Va., in early December, Lincoln commissioned a new compilation of the rules for war. Written by a committee of veteran Union officers led by a professor at Columbia College named Francis Lieber, the code aimed to update the laws of war for modern conditions. It would enable the new, more aggressive war that Lincoln wanted to wage in the spring campaigns of 1863 while preventing aggressive modern warfare from sliding into total destruction.
The code reduced the international laws of war into a simple pamphlet for wide distribution to the amateur soldiers of the Union army. It prohibited torture, poisons, wanton destruction, and cruelty. It protected prisoners and forbade assassinations. It announced a sharp distinction between soldiers and noncombatants. And it forbade attacks motivated by revenge and the infliction of suffering for its own sake. Most significantly, the code sought to protect channels of communication between warring armies. And it elevated the truce flag to a level of sacred honor.


In the spring of 1863, Lincoln's code was given not just to the armies of the Union but to the armies of the Confederacy. The code set out the rules the Union would follow—and that the Union would expect the South to follow, too. For the next two years, prisoner-exchange negotiations relied on the code to set the rules for identifying those who were entitled to prisoner-of-war status. Trials of Southern guerilla fighters and other violators of the laws of war leaned on the code's rules for support. The Union war effort became far more aggressive than it had been under McClellan's rules. As the Union's fierce Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman put it, Lincoln brought the "hard hand of war" to the population of the South. But this more aggressive posture was not at odds with Lincoln's new code. It was the code's fulfillment.

 

[xsited1]

When is Obama going to start the second Civil War? Is that going to be in 2010?

 

[editec]

When is Obama going to start the second Civil War? Is that going to be in 2010?

Are you aware that President Andrew Jackson, (White man, Southerner, slave owner and Nationalist Patriot) had to take South Carolina to task legislatively because they decided that they didn't have to pay tariffs?

Are you aware that Andrew Jackson (White man, Southerner, slave owner and NATIONALIST Patriot) would have invaded South Carolina had they continued to flout the law?

In 1833, a Force Act was passed by Congress at Andrew Jackson's request, as part of the Nullification Crisis.[1][2]

Congress put a heavy tariff on imports and raw materials, an act aimed at promoting domestic manufacturing. South Carolina declared federal protective tariffs void and therefore tried to prohibit duty collection. The Act gave the president the authority to use military power to enforce revenue laws. Fortunately, he never had to; instead, a compromise tariff was proposed by Henry Clay—one which John C. Calhoun and other South Carolinians eventually accepted.

The conflict helped enforce the idea of secession which ultimately led to the American Civil War.

What's my point?

If another treasonous civil war starts, history suggests that the Tarheels, rather than any POTUS will start it.

 

[Annie]

We can pretend otherwise, but a war pits one society against another.

When we set out to win a war, the civilians ARE targeted, of course.

When we destroy an opposing nations infrastructure we know perfectly well that we are killing civilians.

We should just stop kidding ourselves that dropping bombs on cities is anything other than legally sanctioned terrorism, because that is exactly what it is.

Civil War brought changes. Let's just say the civilians felt safe picnicking while the battle at Bull Run went on. Why? They knew they were not 'on the field of battle.' Last time it was like that.

 

[del]

We can pretend otherwise, but a war pits one society against another.

When we set out to win a war, the civilians ARE targeted, of course.

When we destroy an opposing nations infrastructure we know perfectly well that we are killing civilians.

We should just stop kidding ourselves that dropping bombs on cities is anything other than legally sanctioned terrorism, because that is exactly what it is.

Civil War brought changes. Let's just say the civilians felt safe picnicking while the battle at Bull Run went on. Why? They knew they were not 'on the field of battle.' Last time it was like that.

the inventor of the gatling gun hoped it would make war so costly in terms of human life that it would end it. no such luck.

 

[Modbert]

the inventor of the gatling gun hoped it would make war so costly in terms of human life that it would end it. no such luck.

Yup, he underestimated human greed and power hunger. Oh and the insanity of others.

 

[Xenophon]

the inventor of the gatling gun hoped it would make war so costly in terms of human life that it would end it. no such luck.

Nobel felt the same way about Dynamite and it didn't work out either.

So did Oppenheimer about A bombs.

You make such weapons, they almost always are used.

 

[Annie]

the inventor of the gatling gun hoped it would make war so costly in terms of human life that it would end it. no such luck.

Yup, he underestimated human greed and power hunger. Oh and the insanity of others.

He underestimated war and the conviction to win.