Talk:War crimes

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Comment

"brutally" raping seems redundant. Thorvelden (talk)

Yes, the sentence needs "And that's terrible." tacked on the end, just in case anyone fails to get that it is - David Gerard (talk) 23:15, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

The intro should be: "War crimes are committed by the victor against the defeated. And that's terrible." - David Gerard (talk) 23:18, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Could we please move the stuff about the Nuremburg Trials to its own article? Röstigraben (talk) 23:42, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

The Nuremburg trials are relevant. The article is supposed to shed light on the hypocrisy and smugness of the victors, and the Soviet Union are an important case in point. It threatened the legitimacy of Nuremburg to have the Soviets as co-prosecutors, due to their comparable crimes against humanity. MarcusCicero (talk) 10:23, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

As they say, "true dat". If we had an article on the Nuremburg Trials, that would cover the specifics of that event itself. If you want to discuss the morality of the concept of war crimes or potential hypocrisy or the "written by the victor" sort of thing, I think it's still very relevant here. From what I understand, we do have an agreed standard for what a War Crime is, just a less than consistent track record in recognising and punishing it. ^sshole 10:33, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that the article currently does a good job at exposing the "hypocrisy and smugness of the victors" at the expense of mentioning any of the actual German war crimes that led to the persecution. Seriously, parts of the first paragraph sound exactly like the stuff you find on German neo-Nazi websites. I dont think it's intentional, but it certainly gives the impression of relativizing the German war crimes. These parts don't add much to the substance of the article regarding the definition of war crimes and how they're dealt with, and if we add even more material for clarification, it'll further distract from the main topic. Of course it'll always be the victors who persecute the losers, simply because there's no easy way to get to the heads of sovereign states unless they've been beaten in a war or otherwise fallen from power. Something along these lines could stay in the article, with a link to a discussion of the Nuremberg trials as a specific example. Röstigraben (talk) 12:01, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

The intention certainly isn't to trivialise the Nazi crimes. But Nuremburg has been compromised by a nation who murdered 20 million of its own people in concentration camps, and who raped most of Eastern Europe. This is not to say that 'war crimes' do not exist, though it is important to point out that it is only ever the losers of history who get prosecuted for it. MarcusCicero (talk) 12:32, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

It may not be the intention, but it's certainly the effect. It reads like an attempt to define the concept iof "war crimes" away - David Gerard (talk) 12:43, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Its important to take into account the moral authority of prosecutors. A smartarse would point out that war itself is a crime. MarcusCicero (talk) 12:50, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Right now, it exclusively addresses the moral authority of the prosecutors, while accurately, if somewhat inconsistently arguing that these concerns don't cast a doubt over the results of the trials. But there's not a single mention of Auschwitz, Coventry, Stalingrad...a list that could be expanded at will. The Germans started the war as far as Europe is concerned, and no other party showed as little concern for human lives during the conflict, yet the article is completely silent about that. Adding these points would reduce the ambiguity, but then 80-90% of the article would deal with Nuremburg. So I suggest we move that stuff to its own article, expand it, and keep this one as a definition while linking to the new page as a prominent example. Röstigraben (talk) 14:27, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I admire your persistance. I agree with your analysis and will assist where possible. MarcusCicero (talk) 14:39, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

It was actually pretty well dealt with in an episode of the West Wing, believe it or not. MarcusCicero (talk) 10:36, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I really need to start watching that. Is there anything it hasn't dealt with quite well? ^sshole 10:44, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

History?

Think this should mention how attitudes to making the first shot, plunder/rape have changed over time (Better angels of our nature has some good material). A lot of stuff was seen far less harshly before the Hague Convention.

Also might mention

• that who started (or _really_ started it) a war is irrelevant (see the outbreak of WW1 which has filled libraries with historians trying to exculpate their favourite countries)
• that consequences of moral accusations can have poor outcomes (see Franco-German enmity in the past or current Korean-Japanese conflict stirred for political reasons).

There has lately been a book "In praise of Forgetting" on this subject.

• the MyLay massacre (since it was the first notorious massacre committed under modern war crime laws).^{— Unsigned, by: 193.62.251.21 / talk / contribs}

On talk pages, please sign your comments using four tildes (~~~~) or by clicking on the sign button: on the toolbar above the edit panel. (You can indent successive talk page comments using one more colon (:) for each line.) Thank you.--JorisEnter (talk) 22:14, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

ISIL war crimes?

The examples of war crimes given seem odd. No doubt that some US soldiers have committed atrocities, but what about the ones recently conducted by ISIL? Or the crimes by partisans and militias in Iraq? The scale of these compared to the recent ones committed by westerners isn't even comparable.^{— Unsigned, by: 45.49.131.170 / talk / contribs}

russian invasion of ukraine

as an example of recent war crimes, feel like its jumping the gun. nothing as afar as i know has yet been confirmed or been fully investigated. until then its little more than propagandising, whatever the truth of the matter turns out to be AMassiveGay (talk) 21:12, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

The evidence so far is pretty overwhelming and damning.[1] OSINT has come a long way in this age of information. 130.76.112.19 (talk) 03:55, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

no doubt the evidence is overwhelming. eye witness testimony and grisly photos of mass graves and the like is not the same as any kind of investigation into what actually has occurred. as far as i know investigations are currently on going into many of these atrocities we are jumping the gun no matter how convinced we may be right now. there is no hurry to add an example on this wiki. failure to include them at this time is not letting anyone of the hook. we are not a news site needing the latest stories and update. we can avoid knee jerk reactions and wait for the fuller picture of things. and this is list of examples that is not meant to be exhaustive not in particular need of new additions this latest example or otherwise.

being too keen to highlight russian war crimes risks getting important facts wrong. nothing is highlighted to anyone if our mistakes look like propaganda and its all dismissed out of hand - even obvious war crimes. wheels are in motion but at the moment war crimes in the ukraine are still a matter of opinion. AMassiveGay (talk) 11:39, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

According to the Wikipedia article War crimes in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine a vast number of international organizations think its worth investigating. Also there are numerous international news sites reporting the same thing.

I agree that, from a purely legal standpoint, you can't say "X is guilty of Y" until such time that a court has ruled that to be the case. But, in the real world, do you really think it may all be a misunderstanding and that Russia perhaps isn't doing all this stuff?Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 14:36, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

i very much doubt there has been any misunderstandings and russia has committed and is committing war crimes in ukraine. photos of bombed out apartment buildings, charred corpses littering the streets, bloodied civilians ranging from the new born babys to grandmothers plastering every news media outlet make it very difficult to feel anything but outrage at what is must plain for to see as savage war crimes committed by brutal russian troops waging an unjust war of agrression against its neighbour. eye witnessing testimony makes it all the more harrowing. but the chaos of war makes nothing news reports from the from front a certainty. since before the invasions we've kind of been primed to belief every report of russian atrocities no matter how how vague to be probably true. im happy declaring russian atrocites are unambiguously war crimes when i talking my flat mate or in discussion down the pub. not so confident that i would declare the same on wiki that aims to factually describe them as such indisputably. why would any one take my opinion of them as worth anything? its just as easy to state russian is has been accused of crimes, with photograhs of corpses strewn across the streets appearing to have been bound before being shot, eye witness testimony reporting rape and civilians excuted by russian troops. russia deny that war rimes have taken place, have staged, or committed by the ukraine to frame russia. we could then note organisatiions investigating claims, and the unlikehood of anyone will be brought to icc to answer for any crimes. the facts should speak for themselves. we should not to lay blame or make judgements over blame. report the judgement of notable organisations or figures not report our own judgement as fact or anything but opinion.

we are, of at least i am, complaining about articles telling me what i should be thinking instead of letting facts speak for themselves by arguing the toss the inclusion of possible, probable even, russian war crimes in ukraine presented as definitely war crimes, to a list of examples of 'recent violations' mostly so vague in their description no one i doubt anyone would be care whatever this inclusion is telling. i could have gone bitched about this on specific articles i could mention that read like propaganda pieces, but my incoherent rambling landed here. id prefer to be informed not preached too. especially as its too the already converted in most casesAMassiveGay (talk) 18:11, 12 April 2022 (UTC)