manfredzhang wrote: ↑02 Jun 2021 15:23
Well, you brought that into the discussion, I am assuming you endorsed/supported this standard and will defend it.
And I have hard time to understand why people here are so much into rejecting the so called whataboutism.
You have a standard. Shouldn’t that apply to everyone? You can not hold this standard to Japan and Germany only accusing them committing crimes (Nanking incident, Holocaust) while at the same time ignore the UK and US were doing similar things (bombed cities, nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki). Can you? If so, this is not a standard, this is Cherry Picking or Victor’s Justice.
The problem with this argument is that the British Empire and the US - although committing war crimes themselves - the scale of these war crimes were nowhere near the crimes of Nazi Germany and the Japanese empire. The actual war crimes committed by the Allies included mass rapes of civilians, mistreatment of POWs and deliberate shooting on bailed out pilots.
Bombing cities, thus deliberate targeting of civilians, was an interwar doctrine, which every nation applied. It did not make it nice or right, and probably contributed to most of the material and cultural loss of the continent, but at the time it was seen as a justifiable tool of war. However hard it is for me to write it, because my ancestors houses were destroyed to the ground and relatives and friends of our family were maimed and killed.
Nuking cities - without knowing the long-term effects of low-level radiation - is a special kind of problem, because we simply know more than the decision makers back then. At the time, it was seen as an extremely powerful bomb, which also made the invasion of the Japanese islands unnecessary.
In my opinion, by far the worst crime the Allies have committed happened in Central-Eastern Europe, where the expulsion of 12-15 millions of Germans happened with immeasurable loss of life, material wealth and where the expulsed were subjected to extreme levels of abuse. But it is also true that the Nazis started to evacuate the lands without sufficient means, which greatly contributed to the high losses.
By no stretch of imagination were the Allies - including the western Allies - some kind of angels.
But again, these crimes were not on the scale of the crimes of the Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire.
manfredzhang wrote: ↑02 Jun 2021 15:23
Talking about Rome Statute of the ICC, firstly, it was established in 1998, more than half century after the conclusion of WWII. What’s the purpose to judge historical event with modern standards? Shouldn’t all Americans be tried for their ancestors’ crimes of human trafficking and mass killing of Native Indians?
Present day Americans' ancestors are overwhelmingly immigrants after slavery was abolished, and the said human trafficking was not simply done by local slavers but by slave merchants, whom never even lived under the US. Also, by now, "Americans" is a term that includes people from various backgrounds, including the descendants of slaves, slave masters, immigrants, indians, etc. Thus a present day American official represents and serves all citizens, and should not "apologize" for these crimes, because it would mean that the government does not represent those who were ill-affected by these measures.
"Everything remained theory and hypothesis. On paper, in his plans, in his head, he juggled with Geschwaders and Divisions, while in reality there were really only makeshift squadrons at his disposal."