Quote:
Originally Posted by Legbreaker
Yes, given a few years (minimum) of recovery, there would be some effort made to find and punish war criminals. However, it's likely to be a lot harder than post WWII due to the extreme level of destruction.
|
Maybe not. Some countries have decided that pursuing and prosecuting war criminals will only lead to more instability and increase the potential for renewed bloodshed. Liberia, is the example that springs to mind. Certain murderous commanders on all sides of the '90s and early '00s conflict where pretty much granted amnesty. It's not uncommon for a former fighter/rapist to be recognized by one of his victims on the street.
After the widespread breakdown of central authority/civilization in Europe during the Twilight War, the line between legitimate combatant and war criminal would be rather blurred. As many have pointed out, one man's marauder is another man's freedom fighter. Just look at the pro-Mladic riots that have occured in Serbia since the arrest and deportation of a man most Europeans consider a war criminal (for the record, so do I). This is 15 years after a regional war. The Twilight War would dwarf the Yugoslav wars in scope, scale, and brutality. Identifying and labelling war criminals after such a war could rouse a lot of demons that many people might just want to forget completely about. I think the last thing many European nations would want to do is reopen old wounds or fracture tenuous political alliances. I'm not sure going after war criminals would be such a good idea for a continent just emerging from amounted to a second feudal period. There's no Marshall Plan on the way either to help stabilize things. In the interest of national reconciliation, pardons or blanket amnesties might be the norm. I think only the most notorious, violent, equal opportunity marauder captains would be fair game for labelling and prosecution as "war criminals". Some local commander who might have gotten overzealous on an anti-marauder sweep would likely be forgiven if he seemed contrite enough. Some partisan leader or feudal militia captain who killed captured gov. troops would likely get a pass as well. This might seem really cynical, but I'm just not sure Europeans 10-25 years after the TW would be invested in war crimes prosecutions. Hell, I bet a lot of survivors who fought in some army, militia, warband, etc. would have some moments that they wouldn't be proud to recount in public.
Politically speaking, who are the bad guys that need to be punished? There are no Nazi aggressors. Is the German military taken to task? How about the Soviets or the Americans? Didn't they both unleash weapons of mass destruction all across Europe and other parts of the world? What about the company commander that ordered a village wiped out for aiding and abedding enemy forces? Where do you start and where do you end. The scale of the crimes against humanity in the TW is truly massive. I'm not sure how much documentation would have been kept/survived the nuclear exchanges and the breakdown of civilization that followed. For that matter, how many eye-witnesses to attrocities would have survived and/or be willing to come forward?
I think a lot of people would jbe willing to say "let's try to forget about what happened and just move forward".