On Sun, 12 May 1996, hitomi ichinchei wrote:

 

During a case where three american officers admited to kidnaping and 
raping a twelve year old girl, intervention by the American Government 
reduced the time to serve in jail to six years instead of the forty years 
being asked for by the prosecutors.

Now the real question I have is that when Americans go to other 
countries, that country has to follow American law.  When foreigners for 
America, they have to follow American law.  Why?

THis is called "Extraterritoriality".  It certainly is NOT unique to the 
United States, having been practiced by the US, Japan, China, France, 
Britain, The USSR, and practically every nation that has ever been 
stronger than its neighbors.

China especially suffered from having been forced to grant 
"extraterritoriality" to the European Powers and Japan in the nineteenth 
century as the result of a series of trade treaties.  Indeed, entire 
cities fell under various European law codes.

While Extraterritoriality is now normally confined to the fairly narrow 
limits of diplomatic immunity for ambassadors, their families, and their 
staff, in times past, this was a fairly common practice, especially in 
the nineteenth century.

It occured most commonly in Colonies (Korea for Japan, parts of Africa 
for Britain, Guam and other dependencies for US, etc.), but also in 
several nations which were weak, but too powerful to be directly turned 
into Colonies (China, Persia, etc.)

While Extraterritoriality on the grand scale is dead, it lingers on in 
connection with things like Military bases, which this particular case 
involved.

If those rapists had been just Joe American, they'd have been as shit out 
of luck as the guy who got caned in Singapore a while back...they got off 
easy because they had the US Military backing them.

But this sort of attitude is hardly unique to the US...this sort of thing 
happens all the time all over the world when citizens of the more 
powerful nations commit a crime in some nation whose laws they consider 
"unfair" or "barbaric".

It does not matter what sex the perpetraitor is, the punishment should 
fit the crime, and it has in past.

The American case is the first exception that has ever occured.

Yeah, right.  I'll buy that for a dollar.  Frankly, I suspect there's 
been more than one case in Japan where rapists (or any other criminals) 
got off easy.

I find it hard to believe a legal system as "pure as driven snow" as you 
seem to think it is could have been bullied into letting people off easy 
if it had NEVER happened before.

I know people have made heroes out of Bonny and Clyde and other s who 
kill and take freedom away, but why is that mindset a part of American 
culture?

Because we haven't had a 1000 years to forget the violent conquerors and 
land theives  who founded our nation, unlike most European and some Asian 
nations.


John Walter Biles :  MA-History, Ph.D Wannabe at U. Kansas         
ranma@falcon.cc.ukans.edu   http://falcon.cc.ukans.edu/~ranma/falcon.html 
                            http://www.dhp.com/~wraven/john/index.html
"All dressed up and no place to go...but Oblivion!", "That's so 
sweet...I'm getting cavities!", "Welcome to hell, Sailor Moon!"--Queen Beryl