War crimes and criminals

[95th Rifleman]

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.

Ok, fast forward to post exchange, things are starting to get organised, countries have moved from the "oh shit, oh shit, oh shit" stage and have established industry and legitimacy. Would there be an interest in hunting down war criminals/ If so, who would do it and why? Would it be purely political, for the pursuit of justice or motivated by vengeance?

I'm always looking for new angles to base T2K games and this strikes me as an interesting one, setting up a game where the PCs are hunting a known war criminal.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by 95th Rifleman

I'm always looking for new angles to base T2K games and this strikes me as an interesting one, setting up a game where the PCs are hunting a known war criminal.

Or the hunted.....

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.

Overal, this sounds like a good Merc concept.

[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.

[Raellus]

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".

[Targan]

Its rare, after a war, for soldiers on the winning side to be tried for war crimes. Just sayin'.

[Legbreaker]

The problem with T2K compared to other wars is that there is no winner writing the history. All sides involved will have scores to settle in the years afterward.
As for living and letting live, even today there are nazi hunters seeking out and bringing to trial WWII war criminals, even though the vast majority would have to have died of old age by now.

The efforts to catch, try and punish war criminals may not be made by the international community as a whole, but it will happen. It could be carried out by a coallition of countries, a single country, an organisation or even individuals. As long as somebody can remember being wronged, retribution will be sought.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by Targan

Its rare, after a war, for soldiers on the winning side to be tried for war crimes. Just sayin'.

Exactly. I was going to come back and make this point but you beat me to it.

In the TW, there's really no clear-cut winner or loser. Usually, the winners dictate the terms, decide what war crimes are, and determine who should be prosecuted as such.

How are Poles going to get their hands on German, or Soviet/Russian, or American "war criminals"? They're not. I don't see any scenarios where exchanges/extraditions would be made. Each country pretty much looks after its own. I can see local attempts made to prosecute "local", native war criminals but I don't see any Nuremberg Trials or Hague tribunals after the Twilight War.

[Legbreaker]

So how is it that the Israeli's have managed to get their hands on some many over the decades?
It may not be easy, or guilt even all that clear cut, but there will still be somebody doing the chasing.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

So how is it that the Israeli's have managed to get their hands on some many over the decades?

That's easy. In many cases they ignore international law and the laws of other countries and just do as they like.

Before anyone gets on their high horse I'm no anti-semite. I'm highly critical of the policies of the Israeli government but I have absolutely no issue with the Jewish people.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

So how is it that the Israeli's have managed to get their hands on some many over the decades?
It may not be easy, or guilt even all that clear cut, but there will still be somebody doing the chasing.

That's a good point. There might be small-scale prosecutions, post-TW. But it's not quite the same thing. What's Argentina going to do if a couple of Mossad agents kidnap a former Nazi living incognito in Buenos Aires? They can complain, but that's about it. Is Germany going to complain? Not likely.

Now imagine what would happen if some post-TW Poles somehow captured a Russian or German living in his home country? The repercussions could be severe. I'm not sure the risks would be worth it. Such actions would likely increase tension and could lead to renewed hostilities. Preserving peace and stability might trump pursuing/punishing war criminals.

Perhaps the countries of Europe would get together and work something out but, really, when has that sort of thing ever worked (well)?

[Legbreaker]

Repercussions be damned - at least that's the way many people may be thinking. Just look at how many loonies there are out there in everyday society protesting against this or that and happy to be arrested for it. Look at the people who like to disrupt WTO meetings for example - their actions may have servious impact on global relations, but that doesn't stop them from being a pain in the posterior.
While ever there are people who believe somebody has been or is being wronged, there will be people willing to do whatever it takes, rightly or wrongly and damn the political fallout!

[Raellus]

Yeah, but look at how reluctant everyone in Europe was to stand up to Hitler until '39. Why? No one wanted another world war. Appeasement was the product of war weariness resulting from the human, material, and financial costs of the "Great War". It traumatized the hell out of Europe and no one wanted to rock the boat for two decades after it ended. Imagine how traumatized people/nations would be by the Twilight War/WWIII.

Yes, there are individual citizens and small groups of radicals who just won't give a toss about that sort of thing. They might take matters into their own hands and you may see some vigilantism (or terrorism) related to wreaking vengeance on war criminals. But I really don't think you'd see governments pursuing war crimes prosecutions with much fervor.

[Legbreaker]

It really depends on which way the political wind is blowing and who's going to gain the most out of it. France for example may be willing to pursue some who came into contact with their citizens either on the Rhine, or when somebody was caught nosing about where they shouldn't have been - who's going to want to argue with what is the post WWWIII superpower?

Twenty five years later the political landscape may be completely different with a big general push to find any potential criminals. It may even be the government of the day bringing their own citizens to trial if it's in their political interests.

[Targan]

T:2300 shows that, like WWI, the Twilight War completely failed to be The War to End All Wars. Admittedly large-scale hostilities between the major powers fizzled out after 2001 (and I don't have the 2300 books here at work with me to check) but there were some really nasty regional wars in the century after the Twilight War ended. I recall that South America had its own really vicious series of wars.

And then things really kicked off all over again once the Stutterwarp faster-than-light drive was invented - a rare element called tantalum was a key requirement of the Stutterwarp drive and many countries went to war over the very finite deposits on earth. In the medium term those countries which had access to tantalum became major space faring powers while those without had to either ally themselves to those that did or resign themselves to being terrestrial nobodies (I say medium term because in the longer term terrestrial tantalum deposits became irrelevent in the face of the vast resources available in space).

In the CONUS MilGov and CivGov finally reunited in 2020. I suspect they would not have sought to prosecute one another's war criminals, in the spirit of detente and reconciliation (and political expediency of course). I'm sure however that any New America notables in custody would have been mercilessly punished.

[Mohoender]

IMO, after the Twilight war nobody would be prosecuted for war crimes as there is no winning side and as it would be more than complicated to find clear charges. Moreover, how could you charge your former ennemy for war crimes when you commited exactly the same crime? The use of nukes to the level of T2K is a war crime in itself. I would love to see the result of a war crime case where a government (which had dropped several Mt of nukes on others) would accuse one of, for exemple, privateeering or piracy.

Recall the case of the Admiral Donitz which was not found guilty because of his decision concerning submarine warfare as the USA had conducted the same kind of dirty war with their own submarines.

However, I would think that people could be charged with "crime against humanity" as Ratko Mladic is. Mass murder of civilians is a much better case. I can perfectly see a renewed US governement prosecuting former members of New America as it will add to their legitimacy. It will also be needed to avoid further chaos as you'll find criminal hunters such as Simon Wiesenthal. If they can't bring these people to court, this will quickly turn to bloodshed and cold revenge.

[headquarters]

Originally Posted by 95th Rifleman

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]

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.

[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]

Originally Posted by headquarters

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]

Originally Posted by dragoon500ly

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by dragoon500ly

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.