Quote of the week
[T]he moral point of the matter is never reached by calling what happened by the name of ‘genocide’ or by counting the many millions of victims: extermination of whole peoples had happened before in antiquity, as well as in modern colonization. It is reached only when we realize this happened within the frame of a legal order and that the cornerstone of this ‘new law’ consisted of the command ‘Thou shall kill,’ not thy enemy but innocent people who were not even potentially dangerous, and not for any reason of necessity but, on the contrary, even against all military and other utilitarian calculations. … And these deeds were not committed by outlaws, monsters, or raving sadists, but by the most respected members of respectable society.
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on The Banality of Evil
It is ironic that the dismissal of leave to appeal comes on the back of the suspension of Mr Paul Ngobeni, the legal advisor of the Minister of Defence who no doubt had a hand in the ill fated strategy of the now unlawful dismissal notices. In SANDU’s view the same Ngobeni should not have been appointed in the first place given his dubious background. This point of view was simply compounded by the obnoxious and out of turn letter to Minister Manuel. Today’s finding should sound the final bell for Ngobeni. Ironically the Minister seems to be destined to follow the same flawed process in the possible termination of his services as the one Ngobeni had a hand in meeting out to soldiers. – Pikkie Greef, National Secretary of the SA National Defence Union
