[PEN-L:6595] Re: How he could hit the embassy

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In U.S. law, "mistakes"  or "accidents" are called negligence or recklessness. But lack of intentionality is not a total escape from culpability or liability. For purposes of determining the  latter, one Justice said, one is presumed to intend the necessary and foreseeable consequences of one's actions.

By analogy, at best the U.S. bombing of the Chinese is reckless. It is forseeable that if you shoot as many giant bombs into an area as the US/NATO is now that it is likely that civilian and embassy targets will be hit by errors and inadequate preparation, e.g. old maps or bad information. It is more foreseeable if there isn't extensive study of before the attack.

So, at best the bombing of the Chinese embassy is reckless and at worse it is intentional. Either way the U.S. is culpable and liable. Not to mention the whole bombing campaign is in violation of international law, so this murder is a sort of international "felony murder". This is the crime by which a death caused in the course of committing a felony is treated as a murder even if it is not intentional.

Charles Brown

>>> "Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 05/08/99 01:34AM >>>
Chinese Press reports that the Chinese Ambassador to Yugoslavia said that
the NATO attacked was intentional, as the embassy was not near any
military target.
UN Security Council in emergency session starting midnight EST.
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Henry

Michael Perelman wrote:

> Ken asked how Clinton could have hit the Chinese Embassy by accident.
> Look, the clown has already hit Pakistan, Iran, and Bulgaria by
> mistake.  What President can match this performance?
>
> --
> Michael Perelman
> Economics Department
> California State University
> Chico, CA 95929
>
> Tel. 530-898-5321
> E-Mail michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx