War crimes and criminals

[headquarters]

The recent arrest of Ratko Mladic and the assassination of Bin laden have got me thinking. War is hell and every side is guilty of war crimes, it would be unavoidable in a war the scale of the twilight conflict. It can be even argued that using WMDs like nuclear weapons is in itself a crime.

Of course it is. Nukes against civilian population centers are cold blooded war crimes of the worst sort. ( I f they are to try Ratko Mladic for orchestrating the siege of Sarajevo where thousands perished from sniper fire, artllery and starvation but at the same time would let him of if he used a tactical nuclear weapon against it...)

In my humble opinion the hunt for war criminals would depend largely on how these individuals were affiliated with existing powerbases. Look at Ratko MNladic for instance - he is a hero to the nationalists in Serbia and they are a group to be reckoned with politically there. ( Or have been depending on how you see it). Its a poorly hidden secret that the secret services in Serbia knew his whereabouts and could have gotten him years ago.

Much the same in T2K I believe. The Russians are not going to give up " The Hero of Kaliscz" - or "The Butcher of Kaliscz" as Nato affiliates call him. And Vice Versa. But take countries that have had occupation and civil war - the winning faction would be out for blood and tracking down its adversaries on the pretext of war crimes - or actual charges - and individuals with a grievance would probably be looking high and low for the ones believed culpable to deliever some justice.

[headquarters]

indeed

I'll have to email the player of Major Po and get him to contribute to this thread. His character was an expert in the application of war crimes. Even more than just being a hobby, almost a semi-professional war criminal

Comes to think of it General Pain would have extensive experience in this area too.

Kind of an ethical conundrum for the GM - the player who engages in ..war crimes..(WTF)

General Pain certainly doled out his share before buying the ticket a few sessions back.- ( And thus cheating the GMs already made up MilGov Warcrimes tribunal of a lengthy and juicy trial with many implications..that would have been a good session though - the trial of General Pain. Probably would have ended in a court room shooting though - General Pain didnt have a lot of faith in legal process )

[Rockwolf66]

I could totally see something like the warcrime in the prologue of Tom Kratman's "Countdown: The Liberators" happening in some parts of the TW2K world.

Basically a US Special Forces Officer leading a local warlord group finds out that a local tribe has kidnapped several americans and are going to torture and murder then. In responce he has the warlord group under his control capture the enemy tribes home village and after torturing the information out of the locals finds that the american's were burned alive. He then asks the warlord under his control to kill every male in the village and sell the women into slavery. As there are no witnesses insted of being charged with warcrimes he's discharged.

[Rainbow Six]

Personally I rather doubt there would be many post War prosecutions in a properly appointed court of law, for a number of reasons, many of which have already been put forward. Whilst I think the most pertinent one is that the War has no clear winner, to get a proper prosecution one would need evidence, witnesses, etc. Unlike the Balkan Wars (for example) every move both sides make is not going to be covered by 24 Hour news media after November 1997, so atrocities are not going to be recorded on film (covertly or otherwise). People will move around, disappear, die, etc, etc. So even if a Government had the will to do so I just don't see there being the capability for some time to have "proper" prosecutions.

Vigilante justice and kangaroo courts are, of course, a completely different matter altogether. Might Governments send out "snatch squads" to kidnap suspected war criminals and bring them in front of some sort of military tribunal that would administer swift and summary justice without regard for the rule of Law I think there would be occasions where they probably would, (and I think this would be an excellent scenario for a campaign).

[95th Rifleman]

I know Israel is a bit of a touchy subject (I for one can not stand how they treat palestinians) but I have to say i always rspected how they went about going after war criminals.

This may be the way things go, individual governments operating black-op snatch squads to get the worst offenders.

Reading through the responses I have to (sadly) agree that allot would come down to a case of "Don't go after General smithski and we won't go after general smith" as every naion will have blood on their hands. I can see marauder leaders ending up as political scape goats to save political face.

[Mohoender]

I can see marauder leaders ending up as political scape goats to save political face.

Or politicians to justify/reinforce a certain level of legitimacy to the marauder leaders who just took over their places.

[MajorPo]

Ah war crimes, is there really such a thing Some truly shocking and disturbing things happen in armed conflict, most notably the killing of people. We may like to think that there is a noble purpose to war and it can somehow be fought like a gentlemen's agreement.

I think this 'pretended civility' collectively makes a society feel better about sending out it's armed citizens to murder groups of armed citizen of another society. We like to call these groups armies and dress them all the same so we don't have to think of them as people.

Once the war is done and we have no more distractions, we sit back and think about what happened, and find fault with the way our enemy played their part. If they didn't follow our 'moral code' (whether or not it was the same as their own) we call them criminals and if we are the victors and in a place to do anything about it, we prosecute them. This again supports our sense of moral superiority and makes us collectively feel better about all the murder and destruction commited by our own citizens.

Basically I think war crimes are all a load of self-serving nonsense. War is about the application of lethal force to ensure victory. I don't believe there is anything worse you can do to a person than kill them, so whether you torture them to death or shoot them in the head it all means the same thing in the end. Is there really a 'good' death, I'd say no.

[95th Rifleman]

Ah war crimes, is there really such a thing Some truly shocking and disturbing things happen in armed conflict, most notably the killing of people. We may like to think that there is a noble purpose to war and it can somehow be fought like a gentlemen's agreement.

I think this 'pretended civility' collectively makes a society feel better about sending out it's armed citizens to murder groups of armed citizen of another society. We like to call these groups armies and dress them all the same so we don't have to think of them as people.

Once the war is done and we have no more distractions, we sit back and think about what happened, and find fault with the way our enemy played their part. If they didn't follow our 'moral code' (whether or not it was the same as their own) we call them criminals and if we are the victors and in a place to do anything about it, we prosecute them. This again supports our sense of moral superiority and makes us collectively feel better about all the murder and destruction commited by our own citizens.

Basically I think war crimes are all a load of self-serving nonsense. War is about the application of lethal force to ensure victory. I don't believe there is anything worse you can do to a person than kill them, so whether you torture them to death or shoot them in the head it all means the same thing in the end. Is there really a 'good' death, I'd say no.

I'm inclined to agree to a certain extent.

I'm always struck by the hypocrisy of the Nuremburg trials. Many people who study the second world war and who are British, Australian or new Zealander share a sense of disgust as we happily hanged the Nazis but let the japanese war criminals make deals with America to get out of how they treated our POWs.

The biggest issue, as stated, is the lack of a clear winner. My own nation, Britain, has a long and distinguished history of glory, honour and good conduct in war. We have this reputaion because we tend to win and kill any poor bastard that disagrees with us. We pioneered biological warfare in the 18the century French and Indian wars, we invented concentration camps in the Boer war and we developed a taste for rape and pillaging during the Indian mutiny which was quietly ignored.

America is another good example. The American government has always made much of the moral highground, claiming to be fighting for freedom and democracy. yet they have conveniantly opted out of any international agreements that would subject American soldiers to international war crimes tribunals. American war crimes are well documented in Vietnam and there was a case of US marines raping a civilian in iraq and calling in an airstrike to try and cover the crime.

The simple fact is you can not ask a human being to throw away every thing he has been taught from childhood regarding violence and killing and expect him to only kill the people you want him to.

[Caradhras]

I have to agree with MajorPo. The way nations try to formalise mass killing and make it seem like a civilised act with War, then have trials of officers of the losing side. It is kind of ridiculous.

Which part of taking a life is ok and which is a crime Reasonable force Because they started it Of course it is a knotty problem but I do feel it is very conveniently used to paint good guys and bad guys.

It is similar to something I hear that winds me up - when people say 'That War wasnt legal' WTH When was it ever 'legal' to go to War Because a group of countries say it is ok, so it is

I will stop now before I rant more

[dragoon500ly]

Of course it is. Nukes against civilian population centers are cold blooded war crimes of the worst sort.

Now I do not want to start a flame war, I am simply intrested in other peoples take on this.

On one hand, I agree with that nuking civilian population centers, would certainly count as a cold blooded war crime, on the other hand, only one nation has used nukes in a war.

The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaka were horrific, and certainly are, in modern times, at best questionable actions. But at the time, the twin bombings were considered to have been the key to convincing the Japanese to finally sue for peace.

Now, the US was preparing for the massive invasions of Japan and were adjusting to the new methods of fighting that Japan had demonstrated on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Of special concern was the large numbers of combatants that Japan had in the southern islands, the program of intensive fortifications, the large number of kamikazes ready for the invasion force and Magic intercepts where the Japanese were talking about shifting the kamikaze attacks from warships and on to the transports. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were concerned about the heavy losses that the military would be facing. Its of intrest that the JCS briefs from that period do not make any claim of "Millions of Allied losses" (this is a post war claim that used to excuse the bombings), they simply estimated losses, based on the two most recent campaigns as being in the vinicity of 600,000 total (dead, wounded and missing). Japanese losses were estimated to range up to over one million (again, dead, wound and missing and including estimated civilian losses).

It is against this backdrop of the Japanese willingness to fight to the last soldier, of their new tactics of multiple, deeply dug-in positions and the horrors suffered by the Navy by the kamikaze attacks that Truman made his decision.

So, the question is, was President Truman a war criminal Or did he make the hardest decision that any nation's leader ever had to face

[Fusilier]

So, the question is, was President Truman a war criminal Or did he make the hardest decision that any nation's leader ever had to face

I would answer 'yes' and 'yes'. I agree it probably saved many lives and shortened the war, but it doesn't negate the fact that it still constituted a war crime by definition. I believe that one doesn't necessarily cancel out the other, as it were.

I recommend 2003 documentary "Fog of War", with Macnamara discussing the use of the atomic bombs...

Why was it necessary to drop the nuclear bomb if LeMay was burning up Japan And he went on from Tokyo to firebomb other cities. 58% of Yokohama. Yokohama is roughly the size of Cleveland. 58% of Cleveland destroyed. Tokyo is roughly the size of New York. 51% percent of New York destroyed. 99% of the equivalent of Chattanooga, which was Toyama. 40% of the equivalent of Los Angeles, which was Nagoya. This was all done before the dropping of the nuclear bomb, which by the way was dropped by LeMay's command. Proportionality should be a guideline in war. Killing 50% to 90% of the people of 67 Japanese cities and then bombing them with two nuclear bombs is not proportional, in the minds of some people, to the objectives we were trying to achieve.

LeMay said, "If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals." And I think he's right. He, and I'd say I, were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win

[Raellus]

The Allies' strategic bombing campaign against Axis cities was, by definition, terrorism. Between Germany and Japan, nearly a million civilians were killed and many more wounded or displaced. Yet, since the Allies won the war, no Allied political or military leader was taken to task for ordering cities to be levelled.


As for the "there's no such things as crimes in war" argument, I don't buy it at all. That's the worst kind of moral relativism. There is such thing as fair play. Wantonly massacring civilians, shooting unarmed prisoners who've already surrendered, or rape are simply not acceptable or necessary behaviors, even in the organized insanity that we call war. Resorting to such amoral, unethical behaviors lowers human beings beneath wild animals. Shrugging and saying "c'est le guerre" doesn't justify, in any way, torture, murder, rape, etc. True, war offers the psychopath a much less restrained environment in which to conduct his/her pyschopathic behaviors, but does that make those behaviors acceptable Most of the civilized world would argue that it does not.

[Mahatatain]

The Allies' strategic bombing campaign against Axis cities was, by definition, terrorism. Between Germany and Japan, nearly a million civilians were killed and many more wounded or displaced. Yet, since the Allies won the war, no Allied political or military leader was taken to task for ordering cities to be levelled.

There was a lot of controversy when a statue to "Bomber" Harris was erected in the UK. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomber_Harris#Postwar

[dragoon500ly]

And this is the crux of the arguement for the two bombings. We consider such an action, today, to be a such a horrendous action that it constitutes a war crime.

But at the time, it was considered the decisive blow that forced Japan to realize that it faced utter destruction. It gave the peace party and the emperor the leverage needed to surrender.

I've been able to listen to various living history tapes made by veterans of the Pacific War. In the over one thousand tapes that I've heard, not one single soldier, sailor, marine or airman has ever condemned the nuclear bombings, the most common sentiment is that it ended the war and allowed them to return to their lives.

In studying military history, one of the maxims is that to acheive victory, it is first necessary to destroy the enemies will and means to resist.

So is it a war crime to use every means at your disposal to destroy the enemies will to fight

And just where do you draw the line. No Nukes No Chems No Bios No shooting the enemy soldier with rounds that inflict undue suffering

[Raellus]

So is it a war crime to use every means at your disposal to destroy the enemies will to fight

If it means deliberately targetting civilians, then yes.

The bombing of German cities, if anything, only increased the German military's will to resist. It didn't prompt a single popular uprisings against the regime. One could easily argue that the terror bombing of Axis cities was a costly failure as it did not break their will to fight. It resulted in hundreds of thousands of dead civilians and bomber crew casualties were staggering as well.