I have to agree with Todd. The other fallacy, contained in the excerpt, is the red herring. You say something to the effect of "how can spammers get harsher sentences than war criminals".

There are 2 problems here. International law and U.S. law are different, carry different sentences for different crimes etc. Spammers are in a whole different type of legal system than war criminals facing an international tribunal.

The other issue is burden of proof and direct involvement. The spammer's crime is well documentented and traceable. We can tell exactly how many emails were sent, how they were sent, who sent them, and who they were sent to.

With war crimes there can be some doubt about how much involvement the accused had in the actual criminal actions. It's possible for a rogue general to commit atrocities without his leader knowing it. When that leader goes on trial for war crimes, it's possible he'll be found guilty of simply not controlling his general. I could realistically see him doing 5-10 for this. The general who cut people's arms off himself, would probably get a stiffer sentence.

It's apples and oranges man. Without the details of both individual cases, it's harder to say who deserves a stiffer sentence. For all we know the war crime you are talking about could be concerning an individual looting a mom and pop store in a village.

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