Please help me...thesis trouble

[fudgebo]

Hello, I was hoping for some help here. I?m currently finishing my maters in military history and strategic studies and my thesis is on war crimes. During my research on the topic I slowly came to the realisation that war crime trials are mere show trials, acts of hypocrisy. Ever since the holocaust and ww2 the idea of a war crime has come into being and as a result war crimes usually follow wars now a days? here?s my problem, for example on the same day the London charter was signed (the document signed by the allied nations to try the Germans for war crimes, like bombing of civilian targets, aggressive war fare and genocide) the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, and 15000 Algerians were massacred by the French government. Now I?m not saying the Nazis were innocent?far from it, but you can?t condemn someone for a crime that you committed your self.
Another factor is that up until the 1990?s only Nazis were tried, what about all he atrocities carried out across the globe, in Africa, China, Russia all were ignored, war crimes are a western invention for western concerns, and it?s a little sickening. The help I need is do I go with this thread in my thesis or do I say that war crimes are necessary and legitimate as international law.
Also im not trying to start a flame war I just want to know is there anyone else who agrees with me.

 

[Amethyst Wind]

You're surprised that all governments are bad? Just because we aren't taught about this stuff in school doesn't mean it didn't happen.

History's written by the winners, kid.

 

[fudgebo]

Yeah Victors justice an all that, but ive always been an advocate of law, international law especialy, the ICC has over 100 member countries but not America, damn hypocrisy. And not all governments are bad or else we wouldnt have humanitaarian aid, or a UN.

 

[New Troll]

This reminds me of something I was thinking earlier today. Star Wars was playing on TV and I started thinking about all the people fighting for the Empire and how they were just normal soldiers fighting for thier country/ government/ empire. Since they're portrayed as the bad guys in the movies, does that make them evil? By all means no. Also reminded me of the movie Clerks, where Randal is discussing all the innocent workers, just trying to do thier job on the Death Star when it was blown up for the second time. Were they evil just because they were working for the bad guys? Again, not at all.

So now, when two enemies go to war, one (usualy the victor) is generaly considered the good guys and the other (generaly the vanquished), the bad. But lets say I go fight for my country somewhere like Iraq because my government says I need to, and we lose. Am I a bad guy then? God I hope not. But someone has to be or else why are we fighting in the first place. Why?

In conclusion, unless is obvious self-defense, I deem everyone in a war the bad guy, but not necessarily evil. Everyone's fighting for something that they don't need to be fighting for. And everyone's commiting a crime against humanity.

With that said, if my country told me to they needed me to go fight for them, I would. I will avoid war as much as I can, but I am not afraid to kill or die for what I hope to be a good cause. My country.

Course I'm hoping that day never has to come.

 

[fudgebo]

Yeah but do i mention the evident problems in my thesis or should i ignore them?
Love that scene in clerks btw.

 

[New Troll]

Dpends on your professor. If he's a stickler for the written word, don't. If he enjoys an active/ creative mind, then by all means put your true thoughts/ feelings into it.

I've had professors I could truly be myself with, and several who to pass thier class I had to conform to thier ideas/ beliefs. I defintely feel I learned more from the previous, but some teachers don't care so much about free thinking/ self learning.

 

[fudgebo]

Yeah see in Ireland in a history essay you cant say "i" or "me" i have to turn the essay in the direction i want through sources and research, my prof is cool, but he hates biased work.

 

[TomL]

Dear fudgebo,

Personally, I feel you should definitely include an account of bias. "Victor's Justice" etc. have evidently contributed to who war justice applies to - I have always felt that war crimes is just a way of punishing the loser of a war. It seems very silly for a country to win a war and then systematically eliminate a large amount of soldiers on the basis of war crimes, so I can see the logic behind protecting soldiers (although, I also recognize that the entrenched nature of many military institutions makes punishing soldiers very hard). That said, I don't feel your logic (French killing 15000 Algerians on the same day as signing the London Accord, therefore French should not sign London Accord) is valid: although killing 15,000 Algerians is definitely morally wrong, and there is great hipocrisy, at least some justice is meted out, rather than none - (in my mind) that would be equivalent to saying (for example) that America, dropping bombs on Japan, and therefore committing a heinous moral crime on civilians, has no right to try criminals at home because it has lost its moral authority (and let's not go there!). War crime trials have moral and pragmatic motivators.

Cheers,
Tom

 

[Yoshi_egg80]

This reminds me of something I was thinking earlier today. Star Wars was playing on TV and I started thinking about all the people fighting for the Empire and how they were just normal soldiers fighting for thier country/ government/ empire. Since they're portrayed as the bad guys in the movies, does that make them evil? By all means no. Also reminded me of the movie Clerks, where Randal is discussing all the innocent workers, just trying to do thier job on the Death Star when it was blown up for the second time. Were they evil just because they were working for the bad guys? Again, not at all.

So now, when two enemies go to war, one (usualy the victor) is generaly considered the good guys and the other (generaly the vanquished), the bad. But lets say I go fight for my country somewhere like Iraq because my government says I need to, and we lose. Am I a bad guy then? God I hope not. But someone has to be or else why are we fighting in the first place. Why?

In conclusion, unless is obvious self-defense, I deem everyone in a war the bad guy, but not necessarily evil. Everyone's fighting for something that they don't need to be fighting for. And everyone's commiting a crime against humanity.

With that said, if my country told me to they needed me to go fight for them, I would. I will avoid war as much as I can, but I am not afraid to kill or die for what I hope to be a good cause. My country.

Course I'm hoping that day never has to come.

Of course people won't kill the enemies if you humanize them. Sad truth of war is the real problem is with the people up top in power and force their "minions" to do the real fighting/dying for them *sigh* where is a death note when you need .

 

[JRCB]

The winner writes the history books, so the opinion is skewed. The winner punishes the loser for the same crimes that they committed, but the winner won, so they do as they see fit.

 

[Irishhoodlum]

Would there be War Crime trials in a -say- perfect society? No. But would there be War in an also perfect society? No.

I'd say the best we could do right now is establish a protocol for War (The Geneva Convention in our case), and have both sides follow it. Failing to do so on either part would ideally lead to a trial of the offender no matter whose side he, she or they participated on. They're necessary as long as the Judge(s)/Jury are unbiased, both sides are required to follow the rules, and then offenders from both sides are prosecuted. Needless to say it hasn't worked like that up until now, and I don't see it happening anytime soon.

The winner has the power, and they're unlikely to use it to cripple themselves.

 

[dmase]

Teachers like having students that think about the material and don't just copy information down using different sentences so i would say go for it. It doesn't need to be a major part of your thesis unless you want to make it more than a few paragraphs in your paper. I'm sure your professor/teacher mentioned that fact while he was teaching so think back to how much infasis he put on that subject.

equation for good grade: A=agreeing with your teacher+include only relavent info+put together in an intellectual format+agree with your teacher

 

[fudgebo]

Dear fudgebo,

Personally, I feel you should definitely include an account of bias. "Victor's Justice" etc. have evidently contributed to who war justice applies to - I have always felt that war crimes is just a way of punishing the loser of a war. It seems very silly for a country to win a war and then systematically eliminate a large amount of soldiers on the basis of war crimes, so I can see the logic behind protecting soldiers (although, I also recognize that the entrenched nature of many military institutions makes punishing soldiers very hard). That said, I don't feel your logic (French killing 15000 Algerians on the same day as signing the London Accord, therefore French should not sign London Accord) is valid: although killing 15,000 Algerians is definitely morally wrong, and there is great hipocrisy, at least some justice is meted out, rather than none - (in my mind) that would be equivalent to saying (for example) that America, dropping bombs on Japan, and therefore committing a heinous moral crime on civilians, has no right to try criminals at home because it has lost its moral authority (and let's not go there!). War crime trials have moral and pragmatic motivators.

Cheers,
Tom

Ok I?ll agree with that but what about the French collaborators, many of whom were in the upper echelons of society, who out right volunteered to help the Nazis round up Jewish people to be shipped off to "labour camps" its about time the accusing finger swung back once and a while.Or why not use those moral motivators to do more work in Africa? Thanks though all this debate is great material for my work.

 

[TomL]

You'll know a lot more about this than me, but are the French collaborators committing war crimes or civilian offences? (I am just reminded of civilian offences such as inciting violence, providing support to militia groups etc.) Also, I guess a reason for prosecuting war crimes is to reinforce the narrative that was established to go to war - so, to reinforce that the prosecutors have the moral upper hand, so it would be quite counter-productive to take large amounts of people to court, especially if this would be destabilising or enhance a class divide. Then again (thinking the My Lai massacre), hopefully such war crimes are also prosecuted to reinforce the 'rules of war' and a moral superiority of one side. Whether or not prosecuting only one side of a war is justified is questionable - I suppose it all goes back to the concept of the "Will of God" and that whoever won the war believes they have moral prerogative. But then again, I guess war crimes are also established to prosecute the upper command, who do not face the same risks as soldiers on the ground, and to deal with feelings of anger at the protective effects of surrender, especially to orchestrators of great violence.

In Africa, I guess that the reasons war crimes are not prosecuted is twofold; firstly, because doing so would be extremely destablizing, especially without popular support; and secondly because without popular support logistic problems of locating and detaining war criminals may become very difficult (also thinking Serbia).

I guess you've probably encountered a lot of what we're all discussing in your studies anyway =).