War crimes and criminals

[Targan]

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.

[headquarters]

Originally Posted by Targan

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 pålayer 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]

Originally Posted by 95th Rifleman

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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.

[headquarters]

While certainly see some of the points made here ( I could go one up and say that in the future -hopefully - war it self will be judged as organized crime ) , I have to refer to the present or any gaming timeline built upon the present - meaning :

The rule of law is never an absolute in any circumstance. While in peace time in a country with due legal process and a fairly non corrupted police force, you can hope to approach justice and fairness, but it is far from ensured. The impact of laws and what society do to uphold them is more of a moderator on crime than an efficient cure. In war time its plain for all to see that the rule of law is weak and almost non existent - its hardly a moderator at all. But it is present .And it does protect some - some victims that would otherwise perish in war crimes, and even some perpetrators that are reigned in by the nagging sensation that this isnt right -or that they wont get away with it. ( A bit philosophical that one - protecting a warcriminals humanity from himself..)

I for one see a huge difference in torturing a man to death instead of a quick killing. I see a huge difference in being under threat of prosecution for atrocities against civilians -wheras with no laws I could just chain alot of babies to my tanks and have at `em - let them return fire at their leisure...

Granted - trying Japanese prison camp commanders for war crimes because they starved,mistreated and tortured thousands of Yanks to death seems a bit off when Curtis LeMay who came up with the firebombing campaigns like Operation Meeting House killed ten times as many civilians in Tokyo alone-not to mention the other major cities.

I however like to think that lives are spared on a general basis due to the attempts to govern a base and ugly ritual like war by introducing rule of law.

You make some good points Po - but I feel you oversimplify.

(all my words in the spirit of a friendly debate on an interesting subject - state sponsored and legally sanctioned killing - a.k.a war)

Originally Posted by 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.