Quote:
Originally Posted by dragoon500ly
One of the objections to the War Crimes Tribunals is that they tried to place the blame for carrying out orders to commit war crimes squarely on the shoulders of the military officers involved. After all, they should have realized that these were illegal orders and refused to carry them out (this is the simple version).
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This is the really simple version and the one āf those advocating full scale blind revenge. The idea of war crimes always existed in a way or another as you always had some type of rules of engagement. Then, it evolved through the first half of the 20th century to reach the idea of war crime as we understand it today only after ww2 when everyone basically had enough. Very understandable when you think that humanity had destroyed almost 100 million lives in no more than 30 years.
When it comes to trials, most have not prosecuted soldiers but leaders and still do. Then, those sentenced to death or heavily condemned are generally linked to crime against humanity.
When it comes to Japan, trials have exclusively been carried on high ranking leaders and this is only fair. Japan had not ratified the geneva convention of 1929 and, therefore, you had no legal ground to prosecute officers or soldiers who only carried orders within the limits of their state laws and international laws binding their state.
The PRC wished to do it, of course, but was deprive of its right to do it by the KMT (first hand) and by the western world which didn't recognized it as a state before 1972. Then, it was kind of late.
Still most war crimes remain unpunished as it is the case for rapes. There is numerous evidence of rapes by allied and soviet troops in Germany and Japan. Most (if not all) unpunished. Some sources even give a high number for rapes by US troops in France (40.000). Then, a friend of mine (who had since died) had done his military service in Germany. In the town next to his base (near the French border), a woman's statue was showing her fist in anger toward France. According to his testimony. French troops which had entered the town in 1945, conducted mass murder and rape there.
Most war crime will remain unpunished and it will remain so for a long time.
One last thing, Bin Laden has never been guilty of war crime. If he had been taken alive he should have been prosecuted for terrorism and crime against humanity.