war crimes

The revival framework god only apply to the losers. If we had a 3rd war you are saying all countries would abide by the carousel weapon treaties. Not one single country would. It's life and death and anything goes.

I'm not saying that people would abide by the laws, but the law would still be applicable and could at a later date bring people to trial. If this would ever happen, is another question though.
 
With your scenario then back in WW2 i'm not really sure what would have happened

These days there are actually ROE (Rules of engagement) that we MUST abide by, and everyone does.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_engagement

Read that. ROE are literally drilled into every single serving person over and over until everyone understands exactly what is allowed and what isn't.

ROE can differ slightly from place to place i.e the ROE are obviously different for england and afghanistan.

But ROE is just policy set by government to guide troops on how they want them to act within a conflict, it isn't law. The Law Of Armed Conflict is ultimately the underlying Law that we adhere to and what our country should essentially uphold. Above and beyond all this though lies the inherent right to self defence, which means, if you believe you are at threat you may legally retaliate with reasonable force. Hence the "War on Terror" in Afghanistan being labelled a self-defence strategy by the US, making the occupation completely legal.

/Tangent. Just wanted to clear that up because some people think ROE is law but it isn't, it's just guidance.
 
didn't the japanese (as a country) say they would never get involved in war again?

Japan like Germany did have to alter its national ability to defend itself and also the control over what it could do however both have considerably relaxed those over the years and Japan has some pretty tasty stuff these days from a military point of view. After living there for a short period I really do not believe they would never get in a war again.
 
Antony Beevor's: The Fall of Berlin 1945 addresses this period very well and it is quite disturbing what went on from both sides.

How hard a read is it? Could you pick it up, dip into it and then leave it for a bit or do you really have to keep on top of it?
 
How hard a read is it? Could you pick it up, dip into it and then leave it for a bit or do you really have to keep on top of it?

I find all his books the most approachable. And I guess you could quite easily go through it a chapter at the time. It would also go in some way to answering the post above but I do not have it to hand as I always use the library as I am a cheapskate!
 
I find all his books the most approachable. And I guess you could quite easily go through it a chapter at the time. It would also go in some way to answering the post above but I do not have it to hand as I always use the library as I am a cheapskate!

Cheers. Looks like an interesting, if harrowing, read. I'm a history fan, but not up for reading masses of dry text so will give this a go. Just ordered a copy.
Started speaking about international law, then rape and ends up with me buying a book. This forum is good. :)
 
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Just read the Nanking Massacre page... truly horrendous, how you could do that to another human being is... just a disturbing idea in itself.
 
i just imagined due to the age of most of the people, maybe they would have?

If I remember from the book it was quite hidden because the areas it occurred in were effectively soviet governed after the war so it was not till the collapse of the soviet union the scale became apparent. Something like that anyway but I am sure there were accounts by both parties to the fact it happened.
 
Just read the Nanking Massacre page... truly horrendous, how you could do that to another human being is... just a disturbing idea in itself.

One interesting thing from that incident is that the US gunboat Panay was attacked by Japanese forces this being quite a few years before the attack on Pearl Harbour. That the Americans then stated Pearl Harbour was completely out of the blue does come as a bit of a shock! And let's not forget it was the unforeseen aspect that contributed to the wave of anti-Japanese feeling in America that led them to be able to prosecute that front far more aggressively than they were doing in Europe.
 
The Allied bombing of Dresden is most definitely a war crime as was the cabinet decision to bomb all of Germany's cities whether or not they had any strategic significance, factories or rail yards that transferred troops to the fronts.

Anyone wanting to know of the Russian rape of German women should read Antony Beevor's 'Berlin'. Oops, already mentioned. It is one of those books that is easy to get into and hard to put down.
 
Just read a bit on the Unit 731 as well. I'm sure we were far from perfect, the Russians particularly, but is there any evidence of Britain / America employing brutality like this?
 
Or a more recent incident that nobody has even mentioned yet, the horrific actions of the Serbs & Croats in Bosnia, highly organised ethnic cleansing and genocide less than 20 years ago.
 
Or a more recent incident that nobody has even mentioned yet, the horrific actions of the Serbs & Croats in Bosnia, highly organised ethnic cleansing and genocide less than 20 years ago.

Without wanting to play 'genocide top trumps', the Rwandan Genocide of 1994 saw the killing of 850,000 in around 100 days, based on identity and appearance. Hopefully the words said after WW2, "Never Again", can be reiterated nowadays and mean something, but I doubt it.
 
War crimes are pointless, the war is over, 100s 100s 10,000s 100,000s 1,000,000s Dead

They remind me of the mafia trails, banging up peopel that made millions, killed a lot of people, to please the living, show of force, bullet to the head, job done.

Konoe Suicide
Hilter Suicide
Mussolini Murdered

Churchill stroke age 90
Stalin died in his sleep in his 70s
Roosevelt ill still took on the japs and Nazis 63 years old

War crimes just get the cowards.
 
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