Delayed justice

Today's post revolves around an ethical question: is it right for a country to seek extradition of a man for war crimes -- if the alleged criminal is 98 years old and has Alzheimer's?

The question comes up because of the case of Michael Karkoc, whom Polish officials claim was a SS commander during World War II who ordered the massacre of 44 civilians.  Prosecutor Robert Janicki is "100 percent" certain that Karkoc was an officer and founder of the "Ukrainian Self Defense Legion," which in 1943 was responsible for the murder of the villagers of Chlaniow in retribution for the killing of USDL commander Siegfried Assmuss.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Upon emigrating to the United States, Karkoc never mentioned his membership in the USDL -- he said he'd "worked in a labor camp."  Investigators found no record of his participation in SS-led groups.  He was granted admission, moved to Minnesota, married, fathered four children, and has lived there ever since.

Now, Polish officials want to see him prosecuted and jailed for his crimes.  "This case shows that there is still a possibility, a chance to bring those responsible before a court and I think we should never give up the chance of exercising justice," said Polish prosecutor Andrzej Pozorski.

As far as Karkoc, it's pretty clear he has no memory of what he did, and is confused by what's happening.  An interview with a reporter for the Associated Press resulted in Karkoc's saying merely, "I don't think I can explain."

So my question is: should he be returned to Poland to face justice?

Generally, there are three reasons to support punishing criminals with jail (or worse):

• Retribution.  They did bad things, they deserve to have bad things done to them.
• To protect the rest of us from evildoers who might commit further crimes.
• To serve as a warning to others not to break the law.

I'm not clear that any of these applies here.  It would be a different thing if the man was capable of understanding what was going on, as in the case of John Demjanjuk, who was elderly but clearly in the possession of his faculties.  Here, we have a person who (if the allegations are correct, which they seem to be) did horrible things 74 years ago.  Had he been apprehended earlier, it would have been entirely just to see him prosecuted.

Now, I'm not sure I see what the point is.

Retribution only makes sense if the person being punished understands why.  It's the reason we have laws preventing the death penalty in cases where the criminal is intellectually disabled.  It's pretty certain that even if he was jailed for the rest of his life, he wouldn't have any real idea why.

The second reason for jailing criminals makes even less sense in this case.  A 98 year old man with dementia isn't a threat to anyone.

The only possible justification comes from the third reason -- to serve as a warning.  To let war criminals know that even if they get away with what they've done for a time, they will not escape forever, and that if apprehended they will face prosecution no matter what.

Which I suppose I can see.  But honestly, even from this argument, it's hard to see what society gains by pursuing this.

I'm finding it hard to come to a clear answer here.  I'm certainly not trying to excuse what he did; the actions of the Nazis are rightly held up as the very worst of what humanity can do.  It's not an argument from humanitarian grounds -- "leave him alone, he's just a little old man" certainly wasn't a standard applied by the concentration camp guards, nor, it must be imagined, by Karkoc himself when he ordered the massacre of the villagers of Chlaniow.

But I'm still having a hard time seeing what the point of prosecution is in this case.

Perhaps one of my readers who is better able to tease apart ethical conundrums will weigh in, here.  Because with the punishment of Michael Karkoc for war crimes, I can't believe that anyone, including society as a whole, really wins.

The tour guide in CrazyTown

I'm being driven to the conclusion that Ben Carson is insane.

This has very little to do with his stance on actual issues.  From what I've heard, when he sticks to talking about policy, there's not much to distinguish him from the other candidates for the Republican nomination.  But as soon as he veers off script, Carson very quickly ends up leading us on a guided tour of CrazyTown.

[image courtesy of photographer Gage Skidmore and the Wikimedia Commons]

Let's start with his comment earlier this year that there's no such thing as a war crime. "There is no such thing as a politically correct war," Carson said, in an interview on Fox News.  "We need to grow up, we need to mature.  If you’re gonna have rules for war, you should just have a rule that says no war.  Other than that, we have to win."

You have to wonder if he thinks the Nuremberg Trials were justified.  After all, the Nazis didn't have to fight a politically correct war, right?  They were just trying to win.

Then we have his dire claims about Obamacare, which ring a little hollow after a Rand Corporation study done earlier this year that found that 17 million more Americans have health insurance since the passage of the Affordable Care Act.

But no reason to let a little thing like facts get in the way.  Obamacare is the "worst thing since slavery" (direct quote, there), Carson told us on one occasion.  On another, he said that the ACA "has been even more damaging to the United States than the terrorist attacks of 9/11."  When the aghast interviewer asked him to elaborate, Carson said, "Things that are isolated issues as opposed to things that fundamentally change the United States of America and shift power from the people to the government.  That is a huge shift.”

Then we have his comments that the events that occurred in Nazi Germany could happen right here in the United States -- which is actually sensible until you put it in juxtaposition with some of his other statements.  At a campaign event in New Hampshire, Carson said that some people believed that the rise of something like Nazism would never happen in the USA.

"I beg to differ," Carson said.  "If you go back and look at the history of the world, tyranny and despotism and how it starts, it has a lot to do with control of thought and control of speech...  If people don't speak up for what they believe, then other people will change things without them having a voice.  Hitler changed things there and nobody protested.  Nobody provided any opposition to him."

Hitler also swayed a lot of Germans by convincing them that they were at risk of losing their cultural identity from such threats as the Jews.  Kind of curious, then, that Carson is employing the same kinds of tactics, but aimed instead at gays -- whom he said were responsible for the fall of Rome:

I believe God loves homosexuals as much as he loves everyone, but if we can redefine marriage as between two men or two women or any other way based on social pressures as opposed to between a man and a woman, we will continue to redefine it in any way that we wish, which is a slippery slope with a disastrous ending, as witnessed in the dramatic fall of the Roman Empire.

Of course, he may not be all that sure of his own facts, because he said at another time that political correctness was what destroyed the Roman Empire:

You know, there is no society that can long survive without values and principles.  And if we get so caught up in political correctness, that nothing is right and nothing is wrong, then we go the same route as Ancient Rome.  They did exactly the same thing.  And they forgot who they were.  They stood for nothing and they fell for everything and they went right down the tubes.

So the fall of Rome couldn't have had anything to do with mismanagement by crazy leaders and their being attacked by a shitload of barbarians?

I can understand why Carson wouldn't want to draw attention to the former, at least.

The whole thing may be a moot point anyhow, because Carson went on record as saying that there "may be so much anarchy going on" in 2016 that the elections will be cancelled.

I'm willing to believe that a lot of the candidates, on both sides of the aisle, are pandering to their voter base, and saying whatever it takes to get elected.  When you look at campaign statements, and then what the victors actually do once they're in office, it becomes pretty clear that there's often a pretty big disconnect between the stump-speech rhetoric and the reality of policymaking.

Carson, though... when he speaks, in that soft, patient, utterly reasonable tone of his... I think he honestly believes everything he's saying.

Which makes his position as a frontrunner for the Republican nomination absolutely terrifying.  If this man gets the nod, and has even a prayer of a chance of winning the presidency...  well, let me just say that there are precedents in world history for insane but charismatic ideologues taking control of a country -- and none of them end well.