Is there such a creature as a good war criminal? You don’t have to have an IQ over 160 to figure that one out. Of course not. Ethically that question shouldn’t even be asked. People whose actions make a mockery of international laws and conventions should be held to account whatever their nationality or lofty chair they happen to occupy.
However, if that were, indeed, the case an extraterrestrial (ET) researching our planet would be forgiven for believing Africans are the only humans capable of committing crimes against humanity when the International Criminal Court’s investigations and prosecutions have been limited to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Central African Republic, Sudan, Kenya, Libya, Cote d’Ivoire and Mali.
When digging deeper, ET would have cause for surprise to discover that our world’s most powerful nations apparently do not produce war criminals as even UN Special Tribunals and Special Courts have focused on Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, Lebanon, Cambodia and East Timor. And if our visiting ET were blessed with a sense of moral judgment, it would be shocked to learn that big powers not only permit alleged war criminals to walk free but, in some cases, they are treated with respectful deference.
That is until he learns about the principles of ‘Might is Right’ and Victor’s Justice, defined loosely as “a situation in which an entity partakes in carrying out ‘justice’ on its own basis of applying rules to judge what is right or wrong for their own forces and for those of the former enemy.” If the mass killing of innocent civilians is one of the standards by which an alleged war criminal is judged and was applied, then a host of respected historical figures might have landed behind bars or at the end of a rope.
The World War II bombing of the German city of Dresden—a center of culture dubbed Florence-on-the Elbe considered militarily insignificant—that took place under Winston Churchill’s watch, is a case in point. British and American Air Forces dropped 3,900 tons of explosives destroying 39 sq. kilometers of the city center resulting in over 25,000 fatalities. Nevertheless, Churchill was lauded as a hero.
Likewise, the US Air Force’s devastation of most Japanese cities and the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, condemning over 240,000 Japanese civilians to instant incineration or protracted painful deaths from radiation burns, leukemia and other related illnesses, were hailed by sections of the American public. A 1945 Fortune Magazine poll found that a large minority of Americans were disappointed that more atomic bombs hadn’t been unleashed on Japan.
The lives of more than two million Vietnamese were snuffed out during America’s wars of choice in Indo-China along with up to 300,000 Cambodians and 200,000 Laotians. Declassified documents highlighted in the Los Angeles Times show that while the Pentagon had detailed horrific accounts of crimes against humanity, including torture, committed by US troops, the perpetrators largely got away with a rap on the knuckles.
Okay, so that was then, things have changed nowadays, you might think. Humankind has evolved. Crimes can no longer be hidden; they show up in the media or, thanks to an army of civilian reporters armed with mobile phones, they are recorded for all to see on the Internet. Moreover, there are whistle-blowers like Julian Assange dedicated to ensuring they’re no longer swept away from public gaze.
Enhanced communications and technological advances may have forced us to remove our rose-colored spectacles. We all have an idea of the atrocities committed in Syria that would have passed virtually unnoticed during Hafez Al-Assad’s day, a time when dictators could get away with massacring, mutilating and torturing. Many are outraged at the executions and dismemberment there, frequently involving children, and are correct in demanding an end to the killing. But where was our outrage over the 500,000 Iraqi children who died because of UN-imposed sanctions on Iraq, unfairly so when Saddam Hussein destroyed his WMD programs and stocks in the early 1990s?
Where was our fury over Bush and Blair’s invasion and occupation of that country on cooked-up pretexts and blatant lies? Up to a million dead for no good reason but rather than being made to apologize the two main orchestrators have published autobiographies prettifying the truth and fattening their pockets on the speech circuit or with corporate directorships. We the people, tend to accept their seeming natural impunity as par for the course because they have been elevated beyond the reach of justice, without noticing the hypocrisy in our thinking.
South African Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu is not of that ilk. In an op-ed published in The Observer, he calls for George W. Bush and Tony Blair to be made to answer to the International Criminal Court in The Hague for their roles in the Iraq War, which, he says, has polarized and destabilized the world more than any other. Illustrating his distaste for the smooth-talking former British prime minister, the archbishop pulled out of a South African leadership conference at which both men were due to speak. The archbishop’s call is destined to go unheeded. Justice, especially international justice, isn’t applicable to what you’ve done but upon who you are, what influential friends you might have and the color of your passport.
Linda S. Heard is a British specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She welcomes feedback and can be contacted by email at heardonthegrapevines@yahoo.co.uk.
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No war criminals on winning side
Posted on September 6, 2012 by Linda S. Heard
Is there such a creature as a good war criminal? You don’t have to have an IQ over 160 to figure that one out. Of course not. Ethically that question shouldn’t even be asked. People whose actions make a mockery of international laws and conventions should be held to account whatever their nationality or lofty chair they happen to occupy.
However, if that were, indeed, the case an extraterrestrial (ET) researching our planet would be forgiven for believing Africans are the only humans capable of committing crimes against humanity when the International Criminal Court’s investigations and prosecutions have been limited to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Central African Republic, Sudan, Kenya, Libya, Cote d’Ivoire and Mali.
When digging deeper, ET would have cause for surprise to discover that our world’s most powerful nations apparently do not produce war criminals as even UN Special Tribunals and Special Courts have focused on Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, Lebanon, Cambodia and East Timor. And if our visiting ET were blessed with a sense of moral judgment, it would be shocked to learn that big powers not only permit alleged war criminals to walk free but, in some cases, they are treated with respectful deference.
That is until he learns about the principles of ‘Might is Right’ and Victor’s Justice, defined loosely as “a situation in which an entity partakes in carrying out ‘justice’ on its own basis of applying rules to judge what is right or wrong for their own forces and for those of the former enemy.” If the mass killing of innocent civilians is one of the standards by which an alleged war criminal is judged and was applied, then a host of respected historical figures might have landed behind bars or at the end of a rope.
The World War II bombing of the German city of Dresden—a center of culture dubbed Florence-on-the Elbe considered militarily insignificant—that took place under Winston Churchill’s watch, is a case in point. British and American Air Forces dropped 3,900 tons of explosives destroying 39 sq. kilometers of the city center resulting in over 25,000 fatalities. Nevertheless, Churchill was lauded as a hero.
Likewise, the US Air Force’s devastation of most Japanese cities and the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, condemning over 240,000 Japanese civilians to instant incineration or protracted painful deaths from radiation burns, leukemia and other related illnesses, were hailed by sections of the American public. A 1945 Fortune Magazine poll found that a large minority of Americans were disappointed that more atomic bombs hadn’t been unleashed on Japan.
The lives of more than two million Vietnamese were snuffed out during America’s wars of choice in Indo-China along with up to 300,000 Cambodians and 200,000 Laotians. Declassified documents highlighted in the Los Angeles Times show that while the Pentagon had detailed horrific accounts of crimes against humanity, including torture, committed by US troops, the perpetrators largely got away with a rap on the knuckles.
Okay, so that was then, things have changed nowadays, you might think. Humankind has evolved. Crimes can no longer be hidden; they show up in the media or, thanks to an army of civilian reporters armed with mobile phones, they are recorded for all to see on the Internet. Moreover, there are whistle-blowers like Julian Assange dedicated to ensuring they’re no longer swept away from public gaze.
Enhanced communications and technological advances may have forced us to remove our rose-colored spectacles. We all have an idea of the atrocities committed in Syria that would have passed virtually unnoticed during Hafez Al-Assad’s day, a time when dictators could get away with massacring, mutilating and torturing. Many are outraged at the executions and dismemberment there, frequently involving children, and are correct in demanding an end to the killing. But where was our outrage over the 500,000 Iraqi children who died because of UN-imposed sanctions on Iraq, unfairly so when Saddam Hussein destroyed his WMD programs and stocks in the early 1990s?
Where was our fury over Bush and Blair’s invasion and occupation of that country on cooked-up pretexts and blatant lies? Up to a million dead for no good reason but rather than being made to apologize the two main orchestrators have published autobiographies prettifying the truth and fattening their pockets on the speech circuit or with corporate directorships. We the people, tend to accept their seeming natural impunity as par for the course because they have been elevated beyond the reach of justice, without noticing the hypocrisy in our thinking.
South African Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu is not of that ilk. In an op-ed published in The Observer, he calls for George W. Bush and Tony Blair to be made to answer to the International Criminal Court in The Hague for their roles in the Iraq War, which, he says, has polarized and destabilized the world more than any other. Illustrating his distaste for the smooth-talking former British prime minister, the archbishop pulled out of a South African leadership conference at which both men were due to speak. The archbishop’s call is destined to go unheeded. Justice, especially international justice, isn’t applicable to what you’ve done but upon who you are, what influential friends you might have and the color of your passport.
Linda S. Heard is a British specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She welcomes feedback and can be contacted by email at heardonthegrapevines@yahoo.co.uk.