Don,
What's happening here is that people are reacting from the viewpoint of the modern military concept of 'lawful command'. Many forget that this is a very recent invention - it was made up out of whole cloth for the Nuremberg and later trials of Germans defending themselves with the claim of 'just following orders'. And is, IMHO, a valid principle on which the acts of soldiers should be judged. It's also an extremely _fuzzy_ principle in application - the legality of many actions has to be tested in a court of law, which isn't practical when you're on ops. A really nice nasty example is the "Duty of Care" towards minors imposed by many jurisdictions these days, which, taken literally, would make combat operations in the presence of a civilian population impossible. Or not. TTBOMK, it's never been tested, although exiting, probably less stringent, military law protections for civilians have been. In any case, one thing that clearly _would_ be an unlawful command is one relating to the abuse or killing of POWs [one of the 'just obeying orders' situations]; that's what's at the backs of many minds when they say that Thirsk should not have surrendered his prisoners.
The problem with that position is twofold:
First, does the concept of lawful command even exist on Safehold? Almost certainly not, given what we see in HFQ. OTOH, it is clearly bubbling away beneath the surface, also given what we see in HFQ: people in the AoG deciding that they have been given orders that shouldn't be obeyed and acting accordingly.
Second, is the order to hand the prisoners to the Inquisition unlawful? On that, I think the situation is very clear indeed: no, it is not. On Safehold, Church law holds pride of place. In fact, I'm pretty sure that there _is_ no national law in the areas addressed in the Writ. The Writ defines not just the legal, but the moral standards by which Thirsk and Dohlar must be judged - and on neither ground do they have a leg to stand on when interfering in the Church's treatment of heretics. That's why they were reduced to pragmatic arguments, and why the fanatics hold those arguments in contempt.
Anybody saying that Thirsk should not have done what he did is demanding that he apply _their_ standards to the situation, not his own. People do that all the time, of course. It's really difficult to acknowledge that one's own standards may by other than complete and universal. Or, even worse, that you are misunderstanding and misapplying them!
What's really tearing Thirsk up, and a lot of his Navy with him, is the realisation that the Charisians are _not_ in reality heretics, by any objective evaluation of the Writ. That the Church is acting unjustly. And that, to jump to another issue, is why Sarmouth handed them the hot potato. They are now face to face with the application of that same injustice to the provably innocent. [Charis isn't provably innocent: the definition of heresy is, after all, the province of the Church]
n7axw wrote:I have a somewhat different view of the situation than what has been presented here...
Does anyone seriously believe that the Manthyr's fate was the doing of anyone but the inquisition or that anyone in Dohlar could have prevented the second group of prisoners from being turned over short of putting themselves and their families at risk?
Well, they shouldn't have turned them over, you say. But the normal state of affairs on Safehold wouldn't be that Dohlar is sovereign and free to call its own shots. Mother Church has always had authority and has been deferred to and the inquisition is Mother Church's enforcement arm.
Now Safehold is in the midst of Jihad in which one of the primary issues is the Church's authority. Dohlar has been fighting to uphold that authority. Now how could Dohlar refuse to hand over the prisoners without putting themselves in the same camp as the heretics?
Bottom line is that the inquisition is responsible. It had the authority. It had the power to force the turn over of the prisoners. The only way that can change is for Dohlar to withdraw from the Jihad and get rid of of the inquisitors. In that context it would be a truly revolutionary move. In fact Charis didn't do it until she was attacked and faced with the threat of having their homes burned over their heads. Same with Siddarmark.
Without a collective decision on the part of Dohlar to withdraw from the Jihad, change its relationship to the church, and get rid of the inquisition, no individual is going to be able to intervene between the inquisition and the prisoners without placing himself and his family at risk. In fact unless events intervene, Thirsk is facing a trip to Zion for simply opposing the decision verbally.
Forcing that collective decision on Dohlar's part is the allies real war aim rather than punishing Dohlar. It is possible that the decision will be forced by military threat. Or perhaps it will be necessary for military force to be applied by Hanth and/or the ICN. I suspect that how it turns out will depend on whether or not Thirsk and possibly Ahlverez decide to act and if they can do so successfully.
Don
