Commissar Order

From dKosopedia

The Commissar Order or Kommissarbefehl was an order issued by German General-Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel, OKW chief and de facto German Minister of War, on June 6, 1941 that Soviet Commissars or Political Officers in the Soviet Red Army were to be summarily executed immediately after capture. The similar Kommandobefehl or Commando Order was issued on October 7, 1942 for the execution of Allied commandos captured behind German lines. The similar Fliegerbehl or Aviator Order was issued for the execution of Allied airmen who had committed "acts of terror" was issued in 1944.

Historical Parallels

On January 26, 2007, it was reported that U.S. Pres. George W. Bush had issues the neo-con equivalent of the Commissar Order permitting the summary execution of captured Iranian intelligence agents in Iraq. The order is a provocation to the Iranian government. U.S. military personnel ordered to carry out the order may be subject to war crimes prosecution in future.

On July 1, 1968, a Republic of Vietnam Presidential Decree officially estabslied the already existing Operation Phoenix or Phoenix Program (Phung Hoang or Kế Hoạch Phụng Hoàng). The CIA run program sought to kill or capture members of the noncombatant infrastructure of Viet Cong (VCI) cadres who recruited and training insurgents within South Vietnamese villages.

References

Scott Horton. "Through a Mirror, Darkly." The Torture Debate in America. Karen J. Greenberg. ed. 2006. pp. 141-143.
n.a. "Bush Allows Targeting Iranians in Iraq-Paper." Reuters. January 26, 2007. News Report
Death and Dishonor: Bush's New Assassination Order by Chris Floyd

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This page was last modified 13:32, 27 January 2007 by dKosopedia user DancesWithKlingonz. Based on work by Chad Lupkes and dKosopedia user(s) BartFraden. Content is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.