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those are all war crimes but the victors never get prosecuted.

throwanem 1y ago
Best not to lose a war. Having started it, doubly so. Signed, a Mississippi son.
lenerdenator 1y ago
Most war criminals don't get meaningfully prosecuted, victor or defeated. International law is more of a series of suggestions and norms than an actual set of codes one must operate by lest they spend time in prison. Nations have the ability to dodge them, so they do. It's that way from war crimes to counterfeiting to freedom of navigation on the high seas. Is it right? No. Should we do better? Yeah. Is rehashing something that happened in 1945 going to do anything for today? Not at all, unless we're going to start rehashing other things along the way, like the status of Imperial Japanese commanders in war dead shrines and a lot of other things.
nelox 1y ago
No, the firebombing of cities (e.g. Dresden, Tokyo) and the use of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not legally considered war crimes under international law as it stood, which is why they could not have been and were not prosecuted.
- Synaesthesia 1y ago
  They are horrendous war crimes. The only reason they aren't called as such is we were the victors. The conduct of the allies in WW2 was atrocious.
  - bigDinosaur 1y ago
    What's the moral lesson: if we have a WW3, don't target civilians? What if our enemies are doing exactly that without compunction? What if civilians and military infrastructure are colocated? What if those civilians simply want us all to die and will work to any ends for that result (e.g. they may have been effectively brainwashed as the allies were indeed preparing for with Japan)? It's not that the answers are morally good, but rather if you're already in a world war then the ethical part (diplomacy) has already failed and it's just going to be the degree of horrific things, not their absence, that we have to plan for.
    - Synaesthesia 1y ago
      Targeting civilians is a war crime. No excuse for that. Targeting civilians in places like Tokyo or Dresden didn't even help the war cause much. The Soviet Union defeated the Nazis without mass bombings of German cities. Yes war is the supreme crime and what we should avoid in the first place. Still there are different ways you can conduct war. A nuclear exchange would necessarily target civilians and be unlike anything before in history. It's a nightmare scenario that has to be opposed at all cost.
      - defrost 1y ago
        > The Soviet Union defeated the Nazis without mass bombings of German cities. In our shared reality(?) the Soviet Union defeated the Nazi's in parallel with the mass bombing of industrial areas, factories, ports, dams, and general war making infrastructure, much of which was within German cities. The Soviet Union defeated an increasingly under supplied resource starved German military.
      - throw0101d 1y ago
        > Targeting civilians is a war crime. No excuse for that. What does "civilian" mean when it comes to Imperial Japan? * https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/there-are-no-civilians-japan https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/there-are-no-... The official Japanese plan to defend against a US landing was to have children attack the invading US soldiers: * https://www.hiroshimapeacemedia.jp/?p=141048 https://www.hiroshimapeacemedia.jp/?p=141048 * https://apjjf.org/mark-ealey/1689/article https://apjjf.org/mark-ealey/1689/article * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall#Operation_Ketsugō https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall#Operation_K...
      - bigDinosaur 1y ago
        Unfortunately in total war situations the line between civilian and not is blurred and not just blurred by the aggressor (as a sibling comment has pointed out). That doesn't really justify anything though, I agree, and something like a nuclear war targeting civilians is just terminal for civilisation.
      - 1y ago
  - throw0101d 1y ago
    > They are horrendous war crimes. The only reason they aren't called as such is we were the victors. Who says they aren't called it? LeMay, for one, recognized it. * https://iro.uiowa.edu/esploro/outputs/undergraduate/If-We-Had-Lost-The-War/9984109954602771 https://iro.uiowa.edu/esploro/outputs/undergraduate/If-We-Ha... There is a paradox called “logical insanity.” The novel Catch 22 deals with this irony: basically, the idea was that the war was killing thousands daily, so in order to end it as fast as possible, they planned to be as brutal as possible. But what were alternatives? Drop the bomb somewhere 'harmless': how would that convince the War Cabinet of anything? The point of all weapons is to harm to convince the enemy to stop and re-evaluate their costs. Blockade and starve the Japanese out? Possibly millions dead. Invasion? The Japanese leadership thought that up to 20M of their own people would perish trying to repel the US landings. And that's just the Japanese numbers: what about all the peoples that were still living under Japanese rule in Manchuria, Korea, etc? And what about the American lives, which were Truman et al's first responsibility?
    - throwanem 1y ago
      If you're going to rip off one of Dan Carlin's show titles this way, be so courteous as to provide the reference. It's pretty good, as so is a lot of his stuff, him hailing from back when podcasts were still delivered synchronously via terrestrial broadcast. https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-42-blitz-logical-insanity/ https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-42-blitz-...
throw0101d 1y ago
> those are all war crimes but the victors never get prosecuted. Neither did (some of) the losers in the case of Japan * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 * https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)02682-5/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
to11mtm 1y ago
No, but interestingly at least one case of Allies doing a 'war crime' was used as a defense in the Nuremberg Trials; Karl Dönitz was convicted of unrestricted Submarine warfare, however since both Britain and the US were doing the same, they more or less let it slide.

Best not to lose a war. Having started it, doubly so. Signed, a Mississippi son.

Most war criminals don't get meaningfully prosecuted, victor or defeated. International law is more of a series of suggestions and norms than an actual set of codes one must operate by lest they spend time in prison. Nations have the ability to dodge them, so they do. It's that way from war crimes to counterfeiting to freedom of navigation on the high seas. Is it right? No. Should we do better? Yeah. Is rehashing something that happened in 1945 going to do anything for today? Not at all, unless we're going to start rehashing other things along the way, like the status of Imperial Japanese commanders in war dead shrines and a lot of other things.

nelox 1y ago

No, the firebombing of cities (e.g. Dresden, Tokyo) and the use of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not legally considered war crimes under international law as it stood, which is why they could not have been and were not prosecuted.

Synaesthesia 1y ago
They are horrendous war crimes. The only reason they aren't called as such is we were the victors. The conduct of the allies in WW2 was atrocious.
- bigDinosaur 1y ago
  What's the moral lesson: if we have a WW3, don't target civilians? What if our enemies are doing exactly that without compunction? What if civilians and military infrastructure are colocated? What if those civilians simply want us all to die and will work to any ends for that result (e.g. they may have been effectively brainwashed as the allies were indeed preparing for with Japan)? It's not that the answers are morally good, but rather if you're already in a world war then the ethical part (diplomacy) has already failed and it's just going to be the degree of horrific things, not their absence, that we have to plan for.
  - Synaesthesia 1y ago
    Targeting civilians is a war crime. No excuse for that. Targeting civilians in places like Tokyo or Dresden didn't even help the war cause much. The Soviet Union defeated the Nazis without mass bombings of German cities. Yes war is the supreme crime and what we should avoid in the first place. Still there are different ways you can conduct war. A nuclear exchange would necessarily target civilians and be unlike anything before in history. It's a nightmare scenario that has to be opposed at all cost.
    - defrost 1y ago
      > The Soviet Union defeated the Nazis without mass bombings of German cities. In our shared reality(?) the Soviet Union defeated the Nazi's in parallel with the mass bombing of industrial areas, factories, ports, dams, and general war making infrastructure, much of which was within German cities. The Soviet Union defeated an increasingly under supplied resource starved German military.
    - throw0101d 1y ago
      > Targeting civilians is a war crime. No excuse for that. What does "civilian" mean when it comes to Imperial Japan? * https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/there-are-no-civilians-japan https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/there-are-no-... The official Japanese plan to defend against a US landing was to have children attack the invading US soldiers: * https://www.hiroshimapeacemedia.jp/?p=141048 https://www.hiroshimapeacemedia.jp/?p=141048 * https://apjjf.org/mark-ealey/1689/article https://apjjf.org/mark-ealey/1689/article * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall#Operation_Ketsugō https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall#Operation_K...
    - bigDinosaur 1y ago
      Unfortunately in total war situations the line between civilian and not is blurred and not just blurred by the aggressor (as a sibling comment has pointed out). That doesn't really justify anything though, I agree, and something like a nuclear war targeting civilians is just terminal for civilisation.
    - 1y ago
- throw0101d 1y ago
  > They are horrendous war crimes. The only reason they aren't called as such is we were the victors. Who says they aren't called it? LeMay, for one, recognized it. * https://iro.uiowa.edu/esploro/outputs/undergraduate/If-We-Had-Lost-The-War/9984109954602771 https://iro.uiowa.edu/esploro/outputs/undergraduate/If-We-Ha... There is a paradox called “logical insanity.” The novel Catch 22 deals with this irony: basically, the idea was that the war was killing thousands daily, so in order to end it as fast as possible, they planned to be as brutal as possible. But what were alternatives? Drop the bomb somewhere 'harmless': how would that convince the War Cabinet of anything? The point of all weapons is to harm to convince the enemy to stop and re-evaluate their costs. Blockade and starve the Japanese out? Possibly millions dead. Invasion? The Japanese leadership thought that up to 20M of their own people would perish trying to repel the US landings. And that's just the Japanese numbers: what about all the peoples that were still living under Japanese rule in Manchuria, Korea, etc? And what about the American lives, which were Truman et al's first responsibility?
  - throwanem 1y ago
    If you're going to rip off one of Dan Carlin's show titles this way, be so courteous as to provide the reference. It's pretty good, as so is a lot of his stuff, him hailing from back when podcasts were still delivered synchronously via terrestrial broadcast. https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-42-blitz-logical-insanity/ https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-42-blitz-...

throw0101d 1y ago

> those are all war crimes but the victors never get prosecuted. Neither did (some of) the losers in the case of Japan * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 * https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)02682-5/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

to11mtm 1y ago

No, but interestingly at least one case of Allies doing a 'war crime' was used as a defense in the Nuremberg Trials; Karl Dönitz was convicted of unrestricted Submarine warfare, however since both Britain and the US were doing the same, they more or less let it slide.