What would a successful AK mean?/One interesting perspective

[lealess]

No: HPFGUIDX 142896

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "lupinlore" <bob.oliver at c...> wrote:
> <SNIP>
> Then I got to the real heart of the argument: What if Dumbledore 
> ordered/asked Snape to kill him as part of an intelligence/covert 
> operation? His response was immediate and uncompromising -- being 
> ordered to do something, even if you are a soldier, policeman, or 
> member of a covert/intelligence organization, constitutes no defense 
> in western or international law to performing an illegal act, which 
> killing Dumbledore would most definitely be.  Once again, such a 
> factor might be accepted as a mitigating circumstance when it comes 
> to determination of punishment, but not certainly as having any 
> relevance or bearing on the question of guilt.
> <SNIP>
> He said that one of the most 
> bedrock principles of western military law is that orders to violate 
> the law of war (i.e. killing a non-legitimate target which 
> Dumbledore would be) are themselves a crime.  Therefore, if 
> Dumbledore did indeed order Snape to do that, Dumbledore would 
> himself be charged with the crime of issuing an illegal order.
> The fact that Dumbledore himself ... was the target would be
> immaterial.
> <SNIP>
> [H]e did say there were cases where covert operatives had claimed 
> that committing a crime was necessary to preserving their cover, 
> thus preserving their lives.  His response was unequivocal - no  
> defense. Although it is possible that such people might not be 
> prosecuted, that is a political question.
> <SNIP>
> 

I considered responding on OT, but the discussion began here.  So, to
try to make this on-topic, what your attorney is saying is that if
Dumbledore chose to die rather than fall into the hands of the enemy
and possibly reveal secrets under torture, he was guilty of at least
fomenting a crime.  Even if Dumbledore ordered Snape to eliminate him
to prevent the deaths or capture of others, among them the only one
with the power to defeat their enemy, in the eyes of military law, he
would be guilty of soliciting for a criminal purpose.  Even if
Dumbledore was already dying, if he begged Snape to act to spare him
and others from more suffering, Snape in so acting was guilty of
causing Dumbledore's death no matter how he chose to do it, even if he
threw him up into the air and let matters take their own course after
that -- even if he was following orders.  Fair enough, by military law.

But is military law the only rule, especially in the Potterverse,
where it hasn't featured prominently, that I remember?  What if
Dumbledore chose to give his life so others could live?  Dumbledore
would not have been the first such sacrifice in the books.  If this
was the case, then wouldn't Dumbledore have been a honorable man, on
balance, not guilty of criminally luring another into commiting
murder?  It's as if they were on a life raft, and the physically
weakest person realized the others could survive if they stopped
wasting provisions on him.  Wanting to spare them his painful death,
knowing they will try to save him, he asks the strongest to throw him
over the side.

And what of Snape, who, let's say following Dumbledore's orders as he
has been seen to do in the past, suffers a torn soul, almost universal
hatred, and probable death?  Is there an outside possibility he is
also an honorable man, subsuming his emotions and life to serve a
greater good, on the command of someone he respects and wishes to save
from suffering?

Legal niceties aside, what should Snape have done on the tower?  Legal
niceties aside, should Dumbledore have ordered Harry to force-feed him
what was, by all evidence, a lethal potion in the cave?  Shouldn't
Harry have just turned around and said, as his conscience may have
dictated, "Forget this -- you're wrong, there has to be another way."
Once committed, Harry had no other way out, because Dumbledore
insisted on pursuing his plan.

I do not think Snape had a way out, either.  I expect he will pay for
his action with his life, but that was the tragic part of his choice
all along.

Your attorney is indeed interesting.  But what an attorney will say
and what he or she can or will do may be two different things. 
Officially, attorneys will put a good face on the law, especially a
prosecutor in a high-profile position.  But what is the reality of
cases where the defense is "following orders"?  Without going into
enough detail to take this off-topic, I submit, Nuremberg
notwithstanding, that the outcomes of *actual* cases vary widely from
the theoretical ideals your attorney presented.

For that matter, what would a defense attorney say?  There are
soldiers for whom any killing is soul-shattering, yet they are
trained, sadly, to follow orders.  Who speaks for them?  And what if
the killing was in fact euthanasia, legal in many parts of the world,
and often only requiring the consent of a terminally ill adult?  But
this is the wizarding world, and may have its own laws on military
justice and euthanasia, and we just do not know what they are.

lealess