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Jonathan Hafetz

Hi, I'm Jonathan Hafetz Welcome to Law Film, a podcast that explores the rich connections between law and film. Law is critical to many films, even to those that are not obviously about the law. Film, meanwhile, tells us a lot about the law, especially how it's understood and perceived by society. In each episode, we'll examine a film that's noteworthy from a legal perspective.

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Jonathan Hafetz

In addition to being noteworthy in their own right, it's films. What legal concepts does the film explore? What does it get right about the law and what does it get wrong? Why is law important to understanding the film, and what does the film teach us about the law and the broader society and culture in which the law is embedded?

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Jonathan Hafetz

Both when the film was made and today. Today our film is Breaker Morant. In 1980, new wave Australian film directed by Bruce Banner. It's a fantastic film. It's adapted from a 1978 play by Ken, Kenneth Ross. It swept the Australian Film Institute Awards and has received international acclaim. It's also incredibly relevant today as it touches on issues of military justice, war crimes, patriotism and the rule of law.

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Jonathan Hafetz

And our guest today, we're fortunate to have Michelle parody. Michelle is a leading human rights lawyer and national security scholar. He's won high profile cases around the globe, including some of the landmark cases to rise out of the Guantanamo Bay. Working for the US Department of Defense, a military commission, defense council. He also teaches classes on national security law, international law, the constitution and the laws of war.

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Jonathan Hafetz

He's appeared on and written for major television and print media. And he's most recently the author of the critically acclaimed Last Mission to Tokyo, published by Simon Schuster in 2020, about war crimes trials in the Pacific after World War Two. Michelle is a fellow at the Center on National Security and the Institute, National Institute for Military Justice.

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Jonathan Hafetz

He received a doctorate from Oxford University, where he was a Campion Scholar, and he received his law degree from Fordham Law School in New York. Michelle is also a partner at Curtis Malay, and Michelle is an expert on war crimes and is really a perfect guest as we dive into this film. Breaker Morant. So I'll just give a brief recap of the film, and then, Michelle and I will proceed to discuss, the issues that it raises.

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Jonathan Hafetz

So if you haven't seen Breaker Morant, I highly, highly recommend it. It's based on a true story, and it's set in the middle of 1902. It concerns the court martial of three Australian officers Lieutenant Harry Breaker Morant, Peter Handcock, and George Whitten. They served in the Bushveld Carbine years, the BBC during the Second Boer War, in South Africa in from 1899 to 1902.

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Jonathan Hafetz

And as you may know, this war was fought between the British Empire and two more republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State, over the Empire's control in South Africa. All three men were charged with executing Boer soldiers and murdering a German missionary. It's one of the first war crimes prosecutions, in British military history at the time.

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Jonathan Hafetz

For some context, the British forces uneasily occupied most of Boer territory, but had difficulty winning an outright victory because of the mobile Boer guerilla forces. Their organization or their group, the Bushveld carbine years. The BBC was formed by the British military to counter the irregular or forces. So here you have a context which at the time was was relatively new, but was now familiar to audiences today, where you had the army of a powerful state, nation, the British Empire, fighting a determined resistance that used guerrilla tactics.

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Jonathan Hafetz

And so this provides a lot of the context for the film. There's also an important, personal element, as the, British officers were avenging the murder of a popular officer, Captain Hunt in the case. So there's multiple narratives that are going on. And the way they see the film is shown is it's, it's done through flashback.

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Jonathan Hafetz

It's two different events in the trial and some amazing trial scenes at the court martial, and they're all skillfully interwoven. Now there'll be a spoiler alert here, and we're going to discuss the end of the film, during our conversation. So, in case you haven't seen it, you might want to pause now and come back and listen after, the men were all ultimately convicted.

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Jonathan Hafetz

Two. Morant and Hopkins were shot. One witness was sentenced to life. Although, as we'll discuss, he was later released after serving three years and wrote a book about the trial, which is one of the main sources of information that we have today. About it. So. That's the that's the main, points about the story. But now let's we're going to jump in and bring in Michel to the conversation and, to start it off, Michel.

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Jonathan Hafetz

When you when you first saw this movie, break up around, what was your biggest takeaway impression?

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Michel Paradis

So I first saw this movie, pretty early on in my tenure in the Defense Department, Military Commission, defense organization. Where we represent the Guantanamo detainees in and, the military commissions and, like a lot of stories about war crimes trials, the there seem to be recurring themes that, you know, resonate whether or not these trials are in, you know, the Boer War in World War Two, or in Guantanamo.

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Michel Paradis

And so that's what jumped out to me. Most of all, in addition to just the amazing acting and the great storytelling that that sort of drives the movie forward, is that you have these really complicated stories at the end of the day, where the people on trial almost are never innocent and the question is, can you deny justice to the guilty and the sort of, you know, that's sort of always the debate in these war crimes trials, whether it again, 100 years ago or just this, you know, this past, past week in Guantanamo and it's I think always, you know, leaves you riveted, both in the terms of the storytelling, because, you

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Michel Paradis

know, the defendants inevitably become kind of anti-heroes, in the narrative that you would find yourself perversely rooting for even though they are guilty. But it also, you know, leaves you with really morally challenging questions about the justice, of prosecuting people for the wrong reasons, denying guilty people a fair trial. Does that actually result in a, in a verdict that you can, stand by and, you know, those recurring themes throughout history, are just on such brilliant display in break a brand, which is, you know, as a, again, just as a storytelling matter, an amazing movie because it somehow deftly and seamlessly weaves together really two different genres, right?

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Michel Paradis

Like you have the traditional courtroom drama that you would recognize from everything from, you know, Inherit the Wind all the way up through A Few Good Men, or, you know, a lot of, a lot of other Aaron Sorkin vehicles as well. On the one hand. But then it's intercut with these just, you know, magisterial, shots of the South African countryside and, you know, something that is, I would actually say is less of a war movie in the in the sort of John Wayne sense and more of a Western in the Clint Eastwood sense, where you know, the fighting is always done, you know, in these dusty planes at a distance.

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Michel Paradis

It's very, you know, mano a mano. There's no real set battle pieces. It's it's very much, again, a merging of the, of the sort of the genre of the trial movie, like My Cousin Vinny, combined with, you know, just the Western. So it's a great piece of filmmaking on top of just being really compelling in terms of the the underlying question to asks.

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Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah. Like how you, you sort of the Western element, it's it's interesting that the main you know, the lead character, Harry Moran, Breaker Moran is in fact, I mean, his name, the breaker comes from, he was a breaking master breaker. Horses. Yeah. Yeah, this is.

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Michel Paradis

Literally. Yeah.

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Jonathan Hafetz

I think. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, renowned for that. In addition to being, what's referred to as a Bush poet, he was a, a famous poet. And then the film ends with the, one of his, one of his poems. But but you're right. It really does combine those two things very well. Going back to something you said about the the moral questions and the legal questions, I think the that's that's exactly kind of what the film does.

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Jonathan Hafetz

It explores, both of those types of issues. And, one of the themes is this this is a new kind of war. And so, Breaker Morant tells, George, the young lieutenant, the codefendant, he says, yeah, George, it's a new kind of war, a new war for a new century. It's I suppose it's the first time the enemy hasn't been in uniform.

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Jonathan Hafetz

They're farmers, people from small towns, and they shoot at us from houses and paddocks. Some of them are women, some of them are children, and some of them are missionaries. And I'll add, one of the charges is that they killed a German missionary. So how does this idea of a new war play into either the legal or the moral issues in the film?

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Michel Paradis

So movie is very much, you know, unembarrassed about making, you know, Morant and the Bushveld. Colmenares, the heroes of the story and and their lawyer. Right. Certainly the the heroic, sort of fighter for justice throughout, throughout the story. And I think is part of that. There is a, you know, a, an effort to, you know, justify their actions not simply as, you know, comparatively.

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Michel Paradis

Okay, but actually, like, the right thing. Right? There's a there's a kind of an Australian pride. And one of the major themes in the movie is this tension between the the British imperial system and the quasi sort of British colonial status, the Commonwealth status of the Australians, who are, you know, seeking prestige within the overall imperial imperial regime and how the British are all too happy to let the Australians do this kind of dirty work.

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Michel Paradis

That's necessary to get things done. But then our, you know, sort of two faced and hypocritical in condemning it in order to preserve their, the, the, their sort of self-image as the, the noble, just world empire. And so I think that's certainly the, the intent of it, right, is to justify their actions in, in murdering prisoners in, you know, executing, noncombatants.

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Michel Paradis

But I also think it works on another level, too. That is probably unintended, which is almost ironic because certainly in my experience in thinking about, you know, every war and every situation in which atrocities are committed by a side that no, no atrocities. Let me say it this way. No atrocities are ever committed or typically never committed by people who believe they are the bad guys in the story.

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Michel Paradis

They always have some sort of rationalization, some sort of, overarching theory, whether it's the, you know, pursuit of history, and the Soviet Union or the master race in Nazi Germany, that they view their actions as good in that light. And oftentimes that sort of self-righteousness is what leads people to commit the worst possible atrocities. And I, recurring in a lot of these situations are people saying, well, this is a new kind of war.

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Michel Paradis

And you see that kind of rationalization certainly in the Boer War. You saw that, certainly in the Second World War, where all sorts of just mass atrocities are justified on behalf of well, this is a total war. You know, whether or not it's the use of firebombing or the targeting of civilians. And then we saw it again in the war on terror, right?

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Michel Paradis

That we had to throw out the entire, sort of 20th century lessons learned because, well, this is a new war involving international terrorists who get to use the internet and modern communications and, you know, commit attacks against civilian infrastructure without wearing uniforms. And I just think that sense of, you know, everyone believes that the world is new because it always is, in a sense, in a very simple, cliche sense.

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Michel Paradis

And people, you know, I think are very quick to justify what can't be justified on the grounds that, well, the world has changed. And so even though I don't think the writer of Breakroom Rant intended the line that way, I always I thought that line just jumped right out at me too, because it is inevitably the rationalized option that someone who has done something that they know is wrong, inevitably will grab for in war to justify what they've done.

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Jonathan Hafetz

Here's how defense counsel explains this notion that it's a new kind of war justifies the defendant's actions.

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Breaker Morant Dialogue

No one denies the admirable fighting qualities of the wars, nor in general, the sense of honor. However, those bullies fighting in the Northern Transvaal in commando groups are outlaws, renegades, often without any recognized form of control, addicted to the wrecking of trains, the looting of farms. Lord Kitchener himself recognizes the unorthodox nature of this warfare when he formed a special squad to deal with it.

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Breaker Morant Dialogue

The Bushveld Campaign is how, when the rules and customs of war are departed from by oneself, one must expect the same sort of behavior from the other.

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Jonathan Hafetz

And what's what's also interesting. There's another level here too, I think, because there there's their legal defense is also that they were essentially following orders. You know, much is made at the at the court martial proceeding by their counsel. About that these orders what do do, for example, to not take any prisoners. Right. And if you found a soldier that was wearing, the uniform of or the clothing of, any British officer, they should be shot.

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Jonathan Hafetz

Right. So but the idea was, take no prisoners so that that in shooting these, shooting the civilians at least, or they started shooting the soldiers, the Boer soldiers that break them around. He and his co-defendants were just following orders. Here's how counsel describes the defense. In closing.

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Breaker Morant Dialogue

Officers of the common is should be, and up until now have been given the widest possible discretion in their treatment of the enemy. Now, I don't ask for proclamations condoning distasteful methods of war. But I do say that we must take for granted that it does happen. Let's not give our officers hazy, vague instructions about what they may and may not do.

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Breaker Morant Dialogue

Let's not reprimand them, on the one hand, for hampering the column with prisoners, and at another time, and another place, hold them up as murderers. For obeying orders.

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Jonathan Hafetz

So what do you make of that defense? In the film?

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Michel Paradis

Yeah. And so it's an interesting break because this is pre.

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Michel Paradis

Nuremberg, right. You always have to kind of watch for this is one of the things you kind of have to do if you're sleeping in this stuff, like you and I are, is you always have to watch this film thinking, okay, this is 1901. What was the state of this law in 1901? Because that, you know, just following orders of the traditional Nuremberg defense that wasn't, that was rejected at Nuremberg on legal grounds and was rejected in, you know, the Calley case, as a defense to the Me Lai massacre.

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Michel Paradis

Following orders, that, you know, to commit grave atrocities or clear violations of, you know, international humanitarian law, the law of war, as they called it. Then, is is not a defense. You have to disobey those orders. But what was interesting, obviously, in the Breaking Moran case, is, you know, that principle, I don't think was as well established at the turn of the 20th century as it certainly came to be at the end of the 20th century.

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Michel Paradis

And that, I think, also led the British to instead of just taking a, you know, sort of clear moral line like we did at Nuremberg. Right? Yes. That may have been your orders, but you violated the law. There was this, you know, again, kind of corrupt element of in the trial where the British were, in essence, you know, scapegoating these men for what were British policies to take no prisoners and therefore could not admit that order had ever been given.

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Michel Paradis

So they couldn't take sort of the bright line, you know, legal moral line saying, no, you cannot use this as a defense because the orders are flagrantly unlawful. They had to essentially engage on whether or not these orders had ever even been given in the first place, because to admit that the British had given these orders a would have obviously, you know, implicated themselves in the war crimes.

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Michel Paradis

But I think, just as importantly, if not more so, would have defeated the whole purpose of the trial, which was to essentially burnish Great Britain's reputation towards the end of the war. As a way of coming to a settlement that was political, that, you know, preserved Britain's credibility and prestige, not only, with the South Africans, but also with Europeans.

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Michel Paradis

Right. Because one of the things, you mentioned, that's actually a big undercurrent in, in the movie and of the story, in the story in real life, is that the missionary that is killed, the civilian missionary who was assassinated by one of the, by one of the defendants, was a German citizen. So all of a sudden, the this was a diplomatic matter where the Germans and the Kaiser were essentially launching diplomatic protests against Great Britain, for the conduct of its soldiers in, in fighting this war and killing Germans and that that had diplomatic not just embarrassment implications, but it actually, you know, the Germans were even suggesting, well, we're now

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Michel Paradis

going to start funding the Bauhaus, against Great Britain and, you know, leading to a, again, a much larger, sort of military diplomatic conflict between Great Britain and Germany. And so Great Britain needed to essentially distance itself, from some of the policies that it sort of unambiguously had put in place. And so, you know, couldn't even acknowledge, what we came to understand in cases like, again, Calley or at Nuremberg, that superior orders is just not a defense to certain massive atrocities or certain severe atrocities, like those that were being carried out.

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Jonathan Hafetz

Now, you mentioned the corruption, and I think that's or that element is, is very powerful the way that the men were, putting aside the legal merits of, of a, of a following orders defense the way that they were deliberately, hung out to dry for larger, for, you know, for the larger interests, strategic interests of England, they set up this force.

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Jonathan Hafetz

The Bushveld carbon is to counter the, the guerrilla forces, that the or the girl campaign the boys were waging. They sort of instruct and encourage them to be ruthless. And then when it came time, to kind of pull back, to deal with this diplomatic incident over the German missionary to reach a diplomatic resolution to the war, they didn't want Germany to come in.

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Jonathan Hafetz

They were also worried about Germany competing for, the rich, diamond and gold in South Africa. They decided to make an example of the man. I think that's that's very powerful. And there's a great moment when they try to, prove that they were that these orders had been issued. They, the Defense Council tries to call Lord Kitchener the the head British military officer in South Africa.

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Jonathan Hafetz

And they actually are able to get the have the request made. But but Kitchener's the part he's no he's no longer there. So he sends in he sends in like a second in command. But, it's got that political element hangs over the trial do you think is, is that something that's unique to break room around, or is that is that something that's present in all or many war crimes trials, this larger kind of political element?

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Michel Paradis

I think it's what I think it's what makes Breaker Morant such a great movie. Is that it? It's sort of really in a very clear, specific, small story, but big way. Unpacks, a problem, a theme that you see in almost every war crimes prosecution that's been brought, even the ones that I think are successful in that history has, you know, held up as examples of, you know, the progress of justice in times of war, like Nuremberg, are replete with examples of essentially political interference in the proceedings, or at least ulterior motives in in what charges are brought, who gets charged and how they get charged.

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Michel Paradis

And how the case gets prosecuted that, you know, invariably, always I think, make certainly the rule of law minded people cringe because the rule of law is supposed to be neutral, right? The very word trial is, is a word essentially borrowed, you know, from scientific thinking. It's a it's a test. It's a is this person guilty?

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Michel Paradis

Do is this person, has this person done something prohibited by the law? And the whole purpose of the trial is to actually test that proposition. And so when you have these, ulterior motives, where the where the, the validating, aspects of a trial and it's political sort of implications are allowed to overcome the fair testing of the guilt of the accused.

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Michel Paradis

You inevitably, get these real again, as I said in the very beginning, real problems are concerns about are you framing a guilty man? And you know, the the parallels, the analogies. Just jump out at you. So, you know, the Abu Ghraib trial, I think is probably one of the closer examples I can think of, of something like, you know, the dynamics at play in Breaker Morant, where no one, in the United States military above the rank of, I want to say sergeant, just regular sergeant, which is about the lowest ranking noncommissioned officer you can have, were prosecuted at all for widespread, notorious prisoner abuse that led to the deaths

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Michel Paradis

of detainees in, in Iraq. And there was, again, a lot of, you know, a fairly consistent effort to say, well, these were just bad apples. These people weren't doing what, you know, certainly in lots of Senate investigations subsequently have revealed to be, you know, they weren't actually carrying out the policy of the United States. And that's exactly what they were doing.

00;24;18;22 - 00;24;39;27

Michel Paradis

But they were expendable because they were low enough on the totem pole. There were very what they had done was itself objectively horrible. And so it gave, you know, the notoriety of the Abu Ghraib photographs, gave the Bush administration at that time, you know, reason to find scapegoats to say, well, no, no, this is not consistent with what our policies were.

00;24;39;27 - 00;24;59;27

Michel Paradis

When I think the people certainly the defendants in the Abu Ghraib cases had, until their photographs ended up being circulated all around the world, certainly believed that they were carrying out the policies of the United States and were given every encouragement and indication to believe that they were correct in thinking they were doing what their superiors wanted them to do.

00;24;59;29 - 00;25;19;04

Michel Paradis

And so, yeah, I think I think Breaker Morant is, you know, the whole idea of a corrupt trial is a corrupt trial, a trial at all. And does it provide justice even if the, the verdict is sort of accidentally correct in terms of that, you know, in both in Breaking Morant and in the Abu Ghraib cases, they were guilty.

00;25;19;07 - 00;25;49;03

Michel Paradis

But to the extent the trial is driven by and controlled by and distorted by ulterior motives that are fundamentally political, you know, I think it does give people, you know, room for pause as to whether or not you know, this, how how are we to understand this trial, as you know, within our history, as emblematic of justice, you know, as it did was justice served and I, I don't I think the fact that we even have to ask that question in a lot of these cases certainly suggest the answer.

00;25;49;03 - 00;25;56;23

Michel Paradis

Very well. You know, and that's what, again, I think just so beautifully dramatized and break around.

00;25;56;25 - 00;26;22;02

Jonathan Hafetz

It really is. And it really does resonate, as you said, with, the way with Abu Ghraib, where, senior officials, those who were responsible for implementing policy, devising and implementing policies, you know, essentially, to go to the dark side is a former vice president. Cheney said those those people, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, who approved the memos?

00;26;22;04 - 00;26;50;14

Jonathan Hafetz

No consequences. But, you know, the other the sort of people were, who were the low level individuals were the ones who were you were prosecuted. It's not that they shouldn't have been prosecuted. You're saying I think, but it's it's it's very incomplete. And and it does prompt the question of whether justice was served. And now, on the on the trial itself, what did you make of the court martial you've, seen many, civilian and military trials, and this is back.

00;26;50;14 - 00;27;11;08

Jonathan Hafetz

You know, this is 100, plus years ago now, right? Early 19, early 20 century. And it was pretty primitive, right? You know, or in a sense of, not a lot of bells and whistles on the trial. What? What did you make of the actual courtroom? Trial and and the proceedings there?

00;27;11;11 - 00;27;13;13

Michel Paradis

Yeah. Plus the change.

00;27;13;16 - 00;27;15;11

Michel Paradis

The. Yeah, it's such a.

00;27;15;11 - 00;27;50;23

Michel Paradis

Good, it's such a good trial story, too, right? It's basically kind of a my Cousin Vinny story. Which I'm sure your listeners have watched, many times as I have where, you know, the trial process is clearly stacked against the defendants from the very beginning. And because it's a a military trial on top of all that, there is a certain ad hoc character where they're, you know, the guy who essentially plays the what's called the presiding officer but is essentially serving as the judge, you know, clearly has it in for the defendants from the beginning.

00;27;50;25 - 00;28;07;01

Michel Paradis

And so makes all sorts of ruling that, you know, sort of ruling inadmissible, the most obviously admissible or relevant evidence, and allowing all sorts of dubious evidence in from the prosecution in order to get to the, the ultimate result.

00;28;07;03 - 00;28;08;15

Michel Paradis

It's but it's.

00;28;08;17 - 00;28;33;15

Michel Paradis

I think there are a couple of interesting tropes to, for, you know, thinking about trials and particularly trials on films and what kind of trials really, resonate and, and sort of, sort of like open up the public perception of what the justice system is there to do. And one of the themes that I had forgotten about until I watched the movie again, but which is very My Cousin Vinny, it's very A Few Good Men.

00;28;33;18 - 00;28;53;14

Michel Paradis

It even comes up, actually, in, the book I wrote, which is about a war crimes trial after World War two. Last mission to Tokyo, which is the defense lawyer in these stories, invariably is not actually a trial lawyer of any seriousness. Right here, I think they said he was a solicitor. All right. He was there.

00;28;53;14 - 00;29;12;23

Michel Paradis

And the joke that one of the defendants, I think breaking rights as is. Well, then you'll be able to do my will after I'm execution. And, you know, and same thing in A Few Good Men. You know, the Tom cruise character had never conducted a trial. The same thing was true. As I said in Last Mission to Tokyo.

00;29;12;27 - 00;29;37;05

Michel Paradis

This is obviously a famously fun plot point in, My Cousin Vinny and that aspect of the, of the sort of presentation of American justice I find fascinating that it keeps a recurring, but but there's such a romantic attachment to it, and I think it's because, particularly in these stories where the defendants are something of an anti-hero, right?

00;29;37;05 - 00;29;43;02

Michel Paradis

Where the defendants, in a sense, are guilty, not My Cousin Vinny, but in a lot of these others as well, that there is.

00;29;43;02 - 00;29;44;08

Michel Paradis

This.

00;29;44;10 - 00;30;23;17

Michel Paradis

I think, folk belief, and desire that the, the purpose of the trial is to get to the bottom of it. Right, is to get to the truth of it. And so having essentially a pure lawyer, who's not versed in kind of all the devilish tricks that a defense lawyer might pull, to get a guilty person, you know, off on a technicality, as it's often, framed in sort of colloquial speak, is the idea that you have this sort of, like, pure soul, who doesn't know all of these parlor tricks is only there to get to the truth and to the justice of the matter that it's this romantic, even idea,

00;30;23;19 - 00;30;57;10

Michel Paradis

that this, that this, that this innocent can go into the woods and fight on behalf of, you know, good against evil. That lends itself to a kind of, you know, drama in these, in these, in these stories, particularly because invariably, these completely green, inexperienced, unqualified defense lawyers, are given all the best lines. Have every opportunity to sort of, unpack the truth, to conduct these withering cross-examinations of incredible sophistication.

00;30;57;12 - 00;31;25;11

Michel Paradis

You know, again, like geniuses, right? To get, like, the romantic genius. But I do think it just speaks to this sort of, you know, this sort of folk belief in the justice system that at its best, it is there to, establish truth and justice and that it's not dictated by all the things that we certainly fear and cynically, sometimes believe that it's driven by is, you know, the, sophistication how much, how good your lawyers can be, right?

00;31;25;11 - 00;31;35;13

Michel Paradis

How much can you pay for your defense lawyers? And, and rather, you know, sort of focusing on these, you know, again, just the genuine, earnest pursuit of truth.

00;31;35;15 - 00;31;59;10

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah. It's it's great you focus on the defense. Well, I mean, he's an amazing character. It's Major Thomas. It is the official, official name. It's played by, Australian actor Jack Thompson. And he's I mean, kind of already comes in and he says, country town solicitor. Right. There's the joke about doing the wills and he's never been in a never had a criminal case, maybe never had any kind of probably never any kind of trial.

00;31;59;13 - 00;32;40;04

Jonathan Hafetz

But he's he's incredibly skill to right. And even though there's no experience and they also know. Right. He's given like no time to prepare. You know, he comes in, he's basically he's like 24 hours notice, I think, or something. And he's basically defending three men in a capital trial. But it's a very powerful, and skilled defense in his cross-examination and which witnesses to to call and even and how he handles, I guess the one factual issue in the case, was whether they, the men had actually killed the German, missionary, that that was disputed factually, the the execution of the soldiers was more of a legal defense, but,

00;32;40;07 - 00;33;09;24

Jonathan Hafetz

kind of incredible, the like the underdog attorney comes in and, and, and does this powerful job, as you said, he's given all these, amazing, amazing lines where he tries to, you know, justify, what they've done and, and brings in, you know, very powerfully a lot of the equities that you, that you mentioned in terms of the political climate and the pressure that the men were essentially carrying out, a larger policy.

00;33;09;24 - 00;33;16;09

Jonathan Hafetz

And yet they were left holding, holding, holding the bag. Any anything that particular did. Well.

00;33;16;09 - 00;33;18;10

Michel Paradis

And like I, it's actually on that I'd be interested in.

00;33;18;10 - 00;33;21;12

Michel Paradis

Your thoughts on this too. Right. Because the, you know.

00;33;21;15 - 00;33;22;05

Michel Paradis

The one of the.

00;33;22;05 - 00;33;49;15

Michel Paradis

Reasons why you would want a defense lawyer and this is just like basic storytelling, but. Right, one of the reasons why a defense lawyer who's completely green, right, who's in their first, this is their first case, and it's a total underdog story. Why do you want that? Why why that character is always great. And obviously just pops up all the time in so many different, sort of, legal dramas is that it gives the entry, there's an entry point for the audience, right?

00;33;49;15 - 00;34;06;25

Michel Paradis

Because typically the audience are not going to be sophisticated lawyers as well. And so you have this, you know, you have the the defense lawyer who doesn't know anything, sort of figuring it out along the way and finding the truth along the way gives, you know, it creates a natural protagonist, for the audience to feel like they're going on that same journey.

00;34;06;27 - 00;34;35;01

Michel Paradis

But here's like, something I, I don't know the answer to is why? Why do you think it's always a defense lawyer? Right. There's no underdog story involving a prosecutor. At least that comes to mind. You might have, like, really sophisticated, like, mano a mano, you know, where where, like the defense lawyers, like, the best in the biz and the prosecutor is, you know, and also going to be, you know, going up against them, you know, whether or not it's, you know, like the O.J. Simpson story or something like that.

00;34;35;03 - 00;34;35;15

Michel Paradis

But you.

00;34;35;15 - 00;34;36;15

Jonathan Hafetz

Never.

00;34;36;17 - 00;34;47;25

Michel Paradis

I, I can't think of a story in which the prosecutor is presented as an underdog. Can you again, why do you think the defense lawyer is always the underdog in these stories?

00;34;47;27 - 00;35;19;08

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, I was going to think I was going to go to O.J., which is, you know, in some sense a high powered defense. And I you know, I think it's for that kind of, you know, the narrative purpose and the idea of the power of the state, the or the, you know, the government in that it does have that bias, though, or not bias, but it does have that slant where it's the defense, it's the underdog as opposed to the prosecutor who's being, you know, small town prosecutor who's being outmatched or outgunned by this massive, highly funded defense.

00;35;19;13 - 00;35;23;11

Jonathan Hafetz

I, you know, I go back, I wonder if any of the maybe the corporate malfeasance.

00;35;23;11 - 00;35;48;15

Michel Paradis

Like a civil action sort of stories. Yeah. Like the plaintiffs, maybe. Right. Where exactly? Like a plaintiff in a civil case is the underdog against, like, the big evil corporation. That's the defendant. And maybe in cop stories, too, right? You get cop stories where the cop is clearly the underdog against and typically like the system, right. Or a massive organized crime outfit or some sort of, sort of overbearing sort of force or antagonist, but I don't know.

00;35;48;15 - 00;36;07;04

Michel Paradis

I think it's interesting and breaking Moran, it's sort of like a, you know, an archetype of this where the defense lawyer is the underdog, and the defense is the underdog against the system that is the prosecution. And so you get to have this kind of underdog story, kind of make the make the, the anti-hero defendants.

00;36;07;04 - 00;36;24;00

Michel Paradis

Right. These are war criminals. All right. That's sort of something to always just keep in mind, no matter how romantic they are, they are, at the end of the day, clearly war criminals. And but yet that gives the the lawyer essentially gives the, the audience an opening to to relate to them and to root for them.

00;36;24;03 - 00;36;25;16

Michel Paradis

In court.

00;36;25;19 - 00;36;52;14

Jonathan Hafetz

Right. Having that that, that imbalance. And as you say, they're working as there's actually no the record, the trial record does not exist anymore was never it's never been located. So it's kind of second hand accounts, including one written by, George Witt and the other the third defendant. But the accounts that I've read, other accounts are that they actually look at Morant and, the other defendants look worse than they did at the trial.

00;36;52;15 - 00;37;12;27

Jonathan Hafetz

Like the facts are actually worse than those that came out at the trial. So the narrative is presented in a way that's probably even more helpful to them than it was in, in in reality, did they get a fair trial? I mean, I can tick off some of the procedural issues they had, obstacles to calling witnesses, lack of time to repair, lack of an appeal, even.

00;37;12;27 - 00;37;19;11

Jonathan Hafetz

They they even refused a request for a stay of execution. I mean, so this was it. This was rough justice, right?

00;37;19;14 - 00;37;38;10

Michel Paradis

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I yeah, I, I wouldn't say that this was a fair trial. Again, they might be guilty, but that doesn't mean they got a fair trial. And I think those two things can be just in the same way that, you know, a guilty person can get a a genuinely, factually guilty person can be acquitted, in a fair trial.

00;37;38;13 - 00;37;43;22

Michel Paradis

You can have, you know, guilty people convicted in an unfair trial as well.

00;37;43;25 - 00;37;46;24

Michel Paradis

And yeah, it's, you know, but because it's hard, right?

00;37;46;26 - 00;38;09;04

Michel Paradis

Like, they are guilty and, you know, whether or not you're a fan of the actual death penalty, which is what they ultimately get, you know, and it is, you know, pretty hard to say. Well, they should have been, you know, fully acquitted, particularly because and again, spoiler alert here, but, you know, when it comes to the, the death of the, the, missionary, you know, the the defense lawyer is not in on it, to be clear.

00;38;09;04 - 00;38;33;21

Michel Paradis

And there make it very clear that he's he's kept in the dark, but they basically, you know, their whole case for why they didn't kill the missionary is built on perjury. Pretty obvious perjury as well. Like rank, deliberate perjury. And so, you know, they're full of dirty tricks and in their own right. But yeah, I, you know, you can't say that it was a fair trial because it got it.

00;38;33;26 - 00;38;49;17

Michel Paradis

It started with the conclusion it got to that conclusion as quickly and roughly as possible. And I don't know that there was ever really, you know, a test, a trial of their guilt, as opposed to a procedure or a proceeding, designed to establish their guilt.

00;38;49;19 - 00;39;07;00

Jonathan Hafetz

In a rough sense, maybe. Yeah, they did get their story heard, but it it, you know, from a modern perspective, you said it looks, it looks very, very dated. I mean, interestingly, they did seem to get some traction. The defense even seemed to get some traction on, convincing some of the, of the officers who were hearing the case.

00;39;07;00 - 00;39;27;21

Jonathan Hafetz

Ultimately, it didn't affect the outcome, but, there was there's a scene, outside the courtroom where they there was noted how this was kind of troubling that a number of the British officers were troubled. You know, they he clearly got their conscience kind of pinning everything on these three officers when they were acting as part of this larger, larger policy.

00;39;27;21 - 00;39;42;03

Jonathan Hafetz

One what other defense argument, I guess, and it wasn't clearly spelled out, but I'd love to get your thoughts on it was what about the law of reprisals? Does that play into, the case and the arguments? So yeah.

00;39;42;03 - 00;39;43;16

Michel Paradis

I thought that was interesting.

00;39;43;19 - 00;40;03;29

Michel Paradis

They don't develop it a whole lot. Because certainly, you know, in my there's really very little space. I think most international legal scholars would say for the law of reprisals today, but historically that existed, and, you know, very early on in the trial, they talk about how the Boers were essentially systematically violating the law of war themselves.

00;40;03;29 - 00;40;47;22

Michel Paradis

Right? They were they were not wearing uniforms. They were, using civilian positions and committing all sorts of perfidious attacks, as a way of, you know, frustrating the British. Sort of operations. And so, in essence, the justification, if you will, that for some of the tactics that were used, including killing prisoners, was based on the idea of reprisals, so that in order to deter and reprisals, just, you know, for your listeners who aren't sipping on this, you know, the theory of the reprisal, in sort of very traditional law of war is that when your enemy engages in conduct that violates the law of war, you have the sort

00;40;47;22 - 00;41;27;11

Michel Paradis

of concomitant, you know, right? Or, you know, privilege is probably a better way to say it, to take measures that would also violate the law of war as a way of essentially deterring, and punishing your adversary for violating the law of war. And so the classic example of reprisals are, are reprisals against prisoners, so that if, you know, sort of a more famous, example from the American experience, that would have been relevant at the turn of the 20th century was, the Ulysses S Grant and Sherman, became incredibly, frustrated and, by the Confederate use of what we would now call land mines.

00;41;27;11 - 00;41;47;07

Michel Paradis

They called them torpedoes back then, but these were basically just land mines. As they were proceeding, marching through the south, Sherman was marching through the South and the, basically, the Union Army announced that it would do two things. One is that it would start shooting. I think it was going to start shooting, Confederate prisoners.

00;41;47;09 - 00;42;07;25

Michel Paradis

If they know if they continued to sort of plant these landmines, and it also used the tactic of essentially marching Confederate prisoners at the front of the army so that they would be the ones to step on landmines as opposed to the Union Army. And that's a, you know, a sort of traditional reprisal that would almost certainly be unlawful today.

00;42;07;25 - 00;42;38;08

Michel Paradis

Just to be clear, but in the 19th and early 20th century, that was still sort of something that was understood precisely because you didn't have any real, conception of the war crimes trial. Right. That's that's a very modern thing. Brick. And Moran is, you know, itself a very unusual example of a war crimes trial. You don't really get things that look like war crimes trials, even in the United States, which was very much at the vanguard of this practice until sort of after the Civil War.

00;42;38;08 - 00;43;07;18

Michel Paradis

But really, during the Philippine Insurrection, is the first time the United States engages in what we would recognize today as war crimes trials. So the law of war was essentially enforced through, the system of reprisals. And so, yeah, I think from a purely legal standpoint, again, moving back in time, not looking at the law as it is today, but the law as it is then certainly all of the, you know, the killing of prisoners was at least theoretically justifiable as a as a reprisal of war.

00;43;07;20 - 00;43;33;08

Michel Paradis

That but the the major legal difficulty, if you don't mind my geeking out about that, with how that worked itself out in break in is the, reprisals are announced. Right? The traditional practice would be that you are violating the law, law of war in this way. And therefore, we are going to start doing X in retaliation until you stop violating the law of war.

00;43;33;08 - 00;43;53;17

Michel Paradis

Right? So it's not revenge in the, in the, sort of colloquial sense. It's meant to be, a corrective. So, you know, when the Germans were engaging in unrestricted submarine warfare in the First World War, the British basically announced, a policy of reprisal against German prisoners, who were captured. If if the Germans continue.

00;43;53;17 - 00;44;22;06

Michel Paradis

Right. And so the whole point was that Germany could stop engaging in unrestricted submarine warfare, and then the reprisals would not take place. And here, you know, the major difficulty is that the, quote unquote, reprisals were all being done on the down low, right? There was no public acknowledgment. There was no sort of declaration that we are going to start executing, Boer prisoners who are either, you know, acting perfidious or, who we capture, in retaliation for these particular Boer tactics that we would like you to stop.

00;44;22;08 - 00;44;39;14

Michel Paradis

They basically just said, start killing these guys, take no prisoners. And that itself is a war crime, which is the, you know, the declaring of no quarter. So it was an interesting legal issue that kind of they start they flirted with it, particularly at the beginning of the trial. You know, I think it was like like the superior orders defense.

00;44;39;18 - 00;44;52;10

Michel Paradis

It was a defense or an issue that the British government actually couldn't accept in the context of that trial, precisely because the British government wanted to deny that it had ever done or ordered these things, in the first place.

00;44;52;12 - 00;45;25;05

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah. It's a super interesting, analysis of how it plays out in the film. And and just to add one, one thing, which is that there was evidence here that it was, that it was done in revenge. Right? There was a suggestion, at least with respect to the, missionary who they, I think blamed for who was responsible for partly responsible for the killing of their, beloved, respected, Captain Hunt, that they were they were avenging Hunt's death so that there was, the aspect of a of a revenge killing as opposed to, a legal reprisal.

00;45;25;08 - 00;45;26;07

Michel Paradis

Yeah, absolutely.

00;45;26;07 - 00;45;27;14

Michel Paradis

And, you know, and that that.

00;45;27;14 - 00;45;59;15

Michel Paradis

Actually has very direct echoes to the Me Lai case as well. You know, if people ever get a chance to dig into the actual background of history of the me like this, the what basically precipitated it was I can't remember the, the young man's name, but there was a, I think a young sort of very popular, enlisted, in Charlie Company, who was killed, in, like, a sneak attack by the Viet, by the Viet Cong in Vietnam.

00;45;59;17 - 00;46;31;20

Michel Paradis

And this just had, like, a really devastating effect on the, on the, on on the US Army personnel who had sort of known and, you know, sort of had great affection for this young man. And so that was what, you know, in, in the sort of the story of My Lai triggered Captain Medina to tell, Lieutenant Kelly that, you know, this was essentially their going to essentially undertake a free fire operation, that all of the people in these various villages were going to be treated as or assumed to be combatants and communists.

00;46;31;22 - 00;46;58;04

Michel Paradis

And so when Calley and his forces, you know, arrived in what they then called pink ville, but we now call me Lai, and they found only, you know, women and, children and old, old people, you know, they were yes. On the one hand, operating under these orders from Captain Medina to take no prisoners. But they were also sort of hot blooded, you know, there to to avenge, the death of their fallen brother, which had only happened, I think, a couple days before the massacre.

00;46;58;04 - 00;47;23;29

Michel Paradis

And so this the these kinds of, you know, reprisals in the in the simple sense, right? Just revenge. We see them, we see them a lot. And it's it's kind of, it's it's own sort of story that I think reminds certainly reminds me. And I think should remind most people that as much as we, you know, at the academic level or the high level, think about war in a very organized way.

00;47;24;01 - 00;47;44;18

Michel Paradis

You know, in particular, as lawyers, we think about law, you know, the law of war and sort of in these very sort of elements of crimes and procedural ways, a lot of war for those who fight. It is a very personal experience, where the cause, the broader cause and context for which they are fighting is, is typically going to be at best abstract and potentially even irrelevant.

00;47;44;18 - 00;48;08;26

Michel Paradis

And at the end of the day, these are human beings who are in this incredibly violent, dangerous, you know, horrifying situation day after day. And then, you know, when when certain things happen, like the loss of a, you know, of a blood comrade in arms, you know, they have a very human response to it that we would recognize in, you know, literature going back through all the time, you know, whether or not it's The Iliad.

00;48;08;28 - 00;48;30;00

Michel Paradis

And Achilles avenging the death of Patroclus or, you know, the, the cycles of revenge and Romeo and Juliet, or just in gangland killings that we see, you know, on the streets of, you know, Chicago and Los Angeles and New York, and Baltimore, every day where it's, you know, individual it's, you know, even though there's a sort of overarching organization to the violence.

00;48;30;02 - 00;48;35;07

Michel Paradis

A lot of why people do what they do is really quite personal in motivation.

00;48;35;09 - 00;49;09;01

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah. I think the defense, council captures that kind of perfectly. That sentiment was the end of his closing, you know, where he says, we cannot hope to judge such men unless we ourselves have been submitted to the same pressures, the provocations as these men whose actions are on trial. So our homes in, on exactly the point on the sentiment that you that that you are describing in terms of how he pitches it to to the to the audience, here's how defense counsel explains the impact war has on those fighting it.

00;49;09;03 - 00;49;42;09

Breaker Morant Dialogue

The fact of the matter is that war changes men as late as the barbarities of war are seldom committed by abnormal men. The tragedy of war is that these horrors are committed by normal men in abnormal situations, situations in which the ebb and flow of everyday life have departed and have been replaced by constant round fear and anger.

00;49;42;12 - 00;50;07;19

Jonathan Hafetz

But it's interesting too. You mentioned me like massacre it. I hadn't thought of it before, but given the timing, of the film in 1980, it's, you know, it's that's really one of the closer, relevant precedents or example. That is a particularly us focused experience. Right. But it and this is, I think is made in the context of, you know, it's the Australian New Wave.

00;50;07;19 - 00;50;31;10

Jonathan Hafetz

It's, Australian pride reviving a controversial but, widely revered, figure breaker. Moran. But it it's interesting. It does resonate in the, in that context, 1980. You know, we're just a few years outside of, the Vietnam War. So it's interesting in terms of the context there.

00;50;31;13 - 00;50;53;21

Michel Paradis

Yeah, not unlike, certainly in the American context, like the movie Patton, you know, comes out of the Vietnam era, right? It's a it's a technically a movie about world War two, but it's also a kind of, you know, it's clearly a response to the broader political context that, you know, it's basically looking to history to understand the present, as all great movies do.

00;50;53;23 - 00;50;56;14

Michel Paradis

And, you know, but from like, I think, you know, kind.

00;50;56;14 - 00;50;57;14

Michel Paradis

Of.

00;50;57;17 - 00;51;14;16

Michel Paradis

It's not a, a bleeding heart perspective. Right? It is part of this sort of almost rising tide of Australian nationalism, and a desire to sort of establish a strong Australian identity that you certainly saw, on the rise in the 1970s and 80s.

00;51;14;19 - 00;51;41;15

Jonathan Hafetz

And one of the other interesting things is what happens after. Right. They were sentenced to death. Morant and Hancock were shot the next day that that movie ends. This powerful scene of their, execution in the countryside, you know, refuses the blindfold. Right? It's, you know, great scene, beautifully shot with the younger sort of, you know, more inept, inexperienced of the three, has a sentence commuted to life.

00;51;41;15 - 00;52;04;16

Jonathan Hafetz

So he receives a life sentence. But as we it's revealed in the, in the, you know, at the end of the film, the film tells us that he was released, he only served three years, and then he was, he was released, and he ended up, writing a book, Scapegoats of Empire, which is one of the key sources about, what happened.

00;52;04;20 - 00;52;24;05

Jonathan Hafetz

Obviously, Whitman has his perspective, but but how about this idea that, someone who was so vilified and in the heat of the moment and the passion and the political imperatives, right, that they're going to get these three guys and when they they get but they haven't said like imprisonment. But all of a sudden, three years later, thing is shifted.

00;52;24;05 - 00;52;33;13

Jonathan Hafetz

He's out. Is this something we see in? And what do you make of this is is something we see in other, war crimes trials in history?

00;52;33;15 - 00;53;09;23

Michel Paradis

Oh, yeah. And it's it's almost the rule of war crimes trials that if you can survive the death penalty, you will, regardless of what your sentence is, you'll be out within about ten years. At most in many cases. And this was true, you know, I think. Yeah, certainly, obviously in the Boer War cases. But throughout the Second World War, you had these, you know, war crimes trials, you know, not only at Nuremberg and the sort of famous Tokyo trial, which was sort of the Nuremberg trial of the East, international military Tribunal for the Far East, but lots of lesser, war crimes trials, you know, conducted essentially all

00;53;09;23 - 00;53;39;13

Michel Paradis

around the Pacific and Europe by Australians, by the Americans, by the Dutch, by the British. And, and yeah, like a lot of death penalty, a lot of death sentences, I should say, were imposed. But for those who didn't, get executed and were typically sentenced to, you know, extreme like life, like, like, like in, this case, like a break or in life sentences, at hard labor, you know, political tides turned very quickly at the end of a war.

00;53;39;15 - 00;54;00;10

Michel Paradis

And, you know, and it certainly in the context of the Cold War and the restoration, let's say you're just in Japan of the, Japanese Republic as an independent country. And the end of the war there within about, by 19, I want to say by 1955, if I remember the dates correctly, all of the war criminals who had not been executed were released.

00;54;00;10 - 00;54;41;12

Michel Paradis

All of them. And and I think that does go to these kind of ulterior motives that you see, particularly in war crimes trials where the, you know, the desire to particularly to punish an enemy or to make a certain kind of statement in the, in the context, you know, of the hostilities of the war in the heat of the moment, either in the midst of the war, or immediately thereafter, the, you know, tempers amazingly quickly, and historical memories move on incredibly quickly so that the people who are believed to be, you know, the worst of the worst, who can never be released, are within a fairly short period

00;54;41;12 - 00;55;07;05

Michel Paradis

of time in terms of even a human lifespan. No longer a priority for anybody. And so, yeah, it's a very, very common story that, you know, the political tides turn. People sort of think with cooler heads about what was done, particularly in the heat of the moment of an immediate, you know, the immediate aftermath of a war, or during it and, and, yeah, so a lot of these sentences that seem very severe at the time end up turning out to be only a couple of years.

00;55;07;07 - 00;55;24;15

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah. And the politics change, too, right. So Japan's perfect example, where, you know, World War Two very quickly shifts even towards the end of the war itself. You know, within a year you were in the heat of the Cold War. And Japan is critical to the U.S., Cold War alliance and that, US security in the Pacific.

00;55;24;20 - 00;55;48;01

Jonathan Hafetz

And so Japan is now. Right, not the enemy, but a critical ally. And I don't think there's a I mean, maybe there's a better example, but certainly an excellent example is, Kishi. Right. The, he was a, imprisoned. There's a class A war criminal in Japan. And then he was, not only was he ultimately, never charged or convicted, but he became the prime minister of Japan.

00;55;48;04 - 00;56;08;09

Jonathan Hafetz

And later, you know, he's the maternal grandfather of the late, Shinzo Abe, who was also prime minister. It's maternal, maternal grandfather of Abe. So he's a perfect example. The politics changed so much that this person who was a war criminal ends up being a. You know, the prime minister. So I don't I wouldn't case he's not the prime it but he's you know, he's out in three years.

00;56;08;09 - 00;56;26;00

Jonathan Hafetz

You write a book and he lives. So I think it's yeah, it's you've just got to survive the heat of the moment and the the death penalty and then, you know, things, things can change in a in a different way than they can in a normal, I guess, civilian criminal trial, partly because there is this political backdrop.

00;56;26;02 - 00;56;49;29

Michel Paradis

Yeah, precisely because the system is essentially, you know, and I don't necessarily mean corrupt pejoratively in this particular instance. But yeah, there is a certain corruption of the draw process, or at least a political element to the, trial process that I think can have a very corrupting influence. It's maybe a better way to say it, but that also has, you know, potentially ameliorated, effects for the accused, who ultimately do get convicted.

00;56;50;01 - 00;57;07;17

Jonathan Hafetz

So just to, to wrap up, if there's any other points you want to make about the film, but if not, just, if you want to just leave us, if there's one thing to tell, a law student, lawyer or anyone who cares about the film in law, why should they see this? Why should they see this?

00;57;07;19 - 00;57;09;06

Jonathan Hafetz

In my view, great movie.

00;57;09;08 - 00;57;10;11

Michel Paradis

Yeah. Well, so in addition.

00;57;10;11 - 00;57;13;11

Michel Paradis

To just being, again, a great way to spend two hours,

00;57;13;14 - 00;57;15;28

Michel Paradis

I would say that the so the, the last scene.

00;57;15;28 - 00;57;40;14

Michel Paradis

In the movie is probably one of the greatest closing scenes of any movie, which is the execution of Barry Cameron and his his one lieutenant. And the last line, actually, of the movie, I think, you know, it comes off perfectly as just, you know, like any good Western line, where breakers, sitting there waiting to be shot and he just shouts out, shoot straight, you bastards.

00;57;40;14 - 00;58;06;06

Michel Paradis

Don't make a mess of it. And then in that very moment, the firing squad, you know, kills them both dead. And I again, there's just such, it's such a great line to have in a Western to begin with. But I think it also has, you know, a much broader thematic relevance to the, you know, the really important themes that Breaker Morant unpacks, not just with respect to to justice, but to war.

00;58;06;08 - 00;58;43;11

Michel Paradis

It's that, you know, like Nietzsche said, you know, when we fight monsters, we must, you know, endeavor mightily to not become monsters ourselves. And the whole, I think, dramatic tension, if in any indeed the moral tension, Breaker Morant is, you know, a country like Great Britain who has, you know, a very strong rule of law tradition and most importantly, believes itself to have a very strong rule of law tradition that it's trying to uphold, is, you know, getting into this dirty war, in South Africa where, you know, they mentioned it very, very briefly in the movie, but it's, you know, it's creating some of the first concentration camps that end up

00;58;43;11 - 00;59;25;18

Michel Paradis

becoming models, for the concentration camps that we see later in the 20th century. We, they're engaging in, you know, essentially, terrorism, I think is what we would call it today, in response to what they view as essentially a terrorist organization. And, when caught doing that, they're essentially forced to cut corners, to say the least, in their own criminal justice standards, in order to justify and essentially cover up, their, they're sort of own, failings, as a, a society that believes itself to essentially be liberal, to be, you know, on the right side of history, to be advancing, the cause of humanity.

00;59;25;20 - 00;59;45;00

Michel Paradis

And, you know, in a sense, just, to borrow the line. Right? They're not they're not shooting straight. And by not shooting straight, they're making a mess of it. And so I think the movie just has so many, again, in addition to being just, you know, two hours that will go by very, very quickly just has so many great sort of lessons that that are hard to chew on.

00;59;45;03 - 00;59;58;13

Michel Paradis

But that you find yourself thinking about for, you know, weeks, months, even years later, just because they're it's such an, you know, these are such important, difficult issues that that are very rarely dealt with with such sophistication, in such a good movie.

00;59;58;16 - 01;00;18;08

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah. I couldn't agree more. And there's another great line that is being let off for execution. Break them around. Yeah. This is what becomes of empire building, which in many ways encapsulates kind of what you just said about the movie, its message, that and its message today. As well as, I think a shot, across the bow or retrospectively from Australia to UK.

01;00;18;11 - 01;00;19;22

Jonathan Hafetz

And so,

01;00;19;24 - 01;00;20;23

Michel Paradis

In 1980.

01;00;20;25 - 01;00;49;22

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, exactly. So, well, wonderful. Michel, it's been such a pleasure to have you on. Your show is amazing scholar of the law of war and practitioner of his, who actually litigated, many of the most important cases coming out of the war on terror and Guantanamo Bay. And if you haven't yet, I encourage you strongly to check out his book, Last Mission to Tokyo, about the war crimes trial in the Pacific after World War two.

01;00;49;25 - 01;00;58;10

Jonathan Hafetz

And, of course, the sea Breaker Morant, if you haven't seen it. We've been privileged to have Michelle on today. So thank you very much for joining us, Michelle.

01;00;58;13 - 01;01;03;12

Michel Paradis

Oh my pleasure. And I would say just to your audience, because I had to look it up again to watch it for this podcast.

01;01;03;14 - 01;01;05;03

Michel Paradis

It's actually pretty widely available.

01;01;05;03 - 01;01;12;08

Michel Paradis

It's on HBO Max right now, as well as Prime for free, so you don't even have to pay for it. It's, it's available to stream.

01;01;12;15 - 01;01;21;29

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah. Easy. Easy to find. So check it out. It's, it's definitely well worth the two hours. You won't be. You won't be disappointed. Okay. Yourself. Thanks again. Yeah.

01;01;21;29 - 01;01;23;17

Michel Paradis

Thank you. Great to be on.