Are you serious? The Enola Gay crew - who specifically had to fly a mission with a profile and characteristics different than that of any other crew, and had to wear special goggles, etc. - didn’t know what they were going to unleash? :smack:
Noone save physicists had any idea about what this bomb could do.
Firebombing pilots: “We only knew we were dropping napalm and magnesium M-69s, we didn’t know they could burn people?”
You’re wrong. Freaking sci-fi authors knew how terrible atomic bombs would be decades before they were invented. You really think the guys who dropped it thought… what? That it was a big rock? That it might blow up a building? What do you believe they thought about this bombing mission that reporters came out to see take off?
I just quoted the pilot of the Enola Gay saying it worked “perfectly as planned”. What do you think the plan was?
Col Tibbits had been working with the Manhattan project for months. They had already detonated one in New Mexico so it’s not like the bombs capabilities were theoretical. They knew the power of each of the bombs and the crews were briefed on it.
Do you really think it would be a good idea to not let the crew know what was about to happen?
[QUOTE=DrCube;20068656The point is, all sides in WWII participated in the mass murder of civilians. That’s why they didn’t prosecute those types of war crimes. Why is this one guy who killed 44 people worse than the thousands who killed many more and got promotions, medals and military funerals in return? The only difference is which side he was on.[/QUOTE]
Wrong. It has been explained that, while the explosions and aftermath killed possibly hundreds of thousands of people, the atomic bombs significantly hastened the end of the war and ultimately saved the lives of possibly millions. For further elucidation and cites on this point, see the thread “What if Japan hadn’t surrendered?”.
Please explain how the killing of millions of Jewish people, or the retribution killing of 44 people in Władysławin and Chłaniów hastened the end of the war and/or ultimately saved lives. With cites, please.
Here is a cite about how the crew of the Enola Gay felt. Mental Floss
I didn’t see “unless you think it’s a good idea” in the definition of “war crimes” I posted a few pages ago.
I won’t because I didn’t make those claims. And stop conflating the guy in the OP with the Holocaust. I’ve made it clear all along that genocide is different. That’s not what we’re talking about.
But when you compare 44 dead civilians in a Polish village with millions of civilians dead from Allied bombing campaigns, you have to be willfully missing the point not to understand the reason someone might question why the perpetrator of the former is a war criminal but the perpetrators of the latter are heroes.
I’ve seen nothing to suggest that Karcoc is being persecuted while authorities doubt whether they have the right man. Evidence appears to be very strong that he’s their guy.
And if that’s truly the case, there won’t be a trial. Reminder: this thread was started to ask the question of whether there is some kind of practical statute of limitations beyond which we shouldn’t bother pursuing the perpetrators of horrendous war crimes. No one has suggested accusation is 100% proof of guilt.
Here’s what Robert Janicki, of the Polish war crimes commission had to say (here he’s responding to complaints that authorities dragged their feet on bringing a case):
*"Mr. Janicki acknowledged the criticisms, but said it took time to assemble evidence. “It’s incredibly difficult to gather the necessary evidence to put someone on trial today,” he said. “It requires international cooperation, and it takes years to reconcile all the efforts. But it doesn’t mean that it’s not worth pursuing.”
“Some say that it’s too late to hunt the criminals down, but I don’t think it is,” he added. “The case of Michael K. proves that. Besides, try telling it’s too late to a woman who as a girl was hiding in a field, watching her parents being executed.”*
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/14/world/europe/poland-michael-karcoc-extradition.html?_r=0
I don’t get the sense that he’s heedlessly trying to throw someone’s innocent dear old Dad in the clink, but YMMV.
I never suggested that there should be a statute of limitations. I think it’s wrong to go after someone who is basically a vegetable. As the prosecutor said he’s spent a lot of time and resources going after this guy and now it seems that he feels he has to follow up on that regardless of the situation. He says he’s 100% sure about the guy but all prosecutors would say the same very few will say that they’re 50% sure the accused did it. Especially when the primary evidence against the guy seems to be the testimony of a private who was interrogated by the soviets in the 60s which doesn’t seem to be the most solid evidence.
Also I would guess there is a high likelihood of him dying or experiencing serious medical issues as a result of traveling to Poland and the stress of the trial which is one of the reasons that the Germans gave up on him. Really the only ones who would be punished in the end will be the man’s family and certainly they did nothing in WWII.
It’s not what was mentioned earlier in this thread : no certainty that he’s the right man, no certainty that his unit was even present in this area.
I already answered about this : a fair trial seems impossible after 70 years. There definitely should be a statute of limitations.
And you’re the one who started using an appeal to emotion : “what if the victim was your daughter?” . A common argument, but irrelevant, because first it’s countered by “what if the accused was your mother?”, and second because even if you really , really want to avenge the crime, you should still want to have the right guy. And I contend that you can’t achieve this certainty after 70 years.
Except that you said that even if he’s not aware, he should still be tried “pour encourager les autres”, so you argued for a trial whether or not he’s able to defend himself.
So, you think that this man will be able surmount the incredible difficulty of gathering evidences for his defense, will receive international cooperation to mount it, will have years to reconcile all the efforts?All that while suffering from Alzheimer? Or rather that he’ll have to try to defend himself without any serious ability to search for exculpatory evidences, which are likely not to exist anymore anyway, and while he doesn’t even really understand the process?
And do you realize the human cost for a man this age to go through such a trial (once again, don’t assume he’s guilty when consider this. Assume he’s innocent)?
You don’t know that. You can’t decide what should be done by first making the assumption that the accused is guilty. Nor by imagining he has killed your own daughter. Nor by assuming he’s faking. You have to decide if it’s sensible, just and reasonable while not knowing whether he’s innocent or guilty. And preferably, you should even give more consideration to the possibility that he’s innocent, because we favour letting the guilty free over punishing the innocent.
So, if this man is innocent, does he have a serious shot at defending himself 70 years after the facts, when the prosecution itself admits that it’s incredibly difficult to gather evidences about what happened at this time?
And also, since what people who had relatives victimized would think seems relevant to you :
The only relative of mine who died during WWII was a great-uncle KIA in 1940. But it’s not because nobody gave a try at killing others. My grandfather was on a “to arrest and hang on the spot” list. He lived because this day he went to fish early. His colleagues weren’t so lucky. None of the german soldiers who did the hanging were ever prosecuted.
My father was denounced, and suspected he knew who had denounced him. This person was never prosecuted. He was sentenced for anti-nationalist activity. The judge who sentenced him went to have a regular career after the war. After a first escape, he was eventually deported to Gross Rosen for sabotage. I’m pretty certain that very few, if any, of the people involved in his deportation were ever tried. Even the camp commander got away with it.
So, if anything, I’ve probably more emotional stakes in this issue than you do.
To address a few inaccuracies:
The Polish Commission on war crimes has displayed no such uncertainty.
"Polish prosecutors’ decision to seek his extradition came four years after The Associated Press published a story establishing that he commanded the unit, based on wartime documents, testimony from other members of the unit and his own Ukrainian-language memoir. The story also established he lied to American immigration officials to get into the U.S. a few years after the war. A second report uncovered evidence that Karkoc himself ordered his men to attack the village.’
http://www.week.com/story/34899940/steps-left-before-minnesota-man-could-face-war-crime-charges
Nope, never said any such thing. My position is that it’s worthwhile to pursue those complicit in genocide without regard to how long they’ve gotten away with their crimes.
it’s questionable whether your family’s experiences qualify you to make decisions on how others should feel.
Pause for irony to sink in.
I in no way believe that every act of killing in a declared war is a crime. You apparently do. Here is where we will have to agree to disagree, because there can be no reconciliation of those views.
I think it’s safe to assume that when he “lied to American immigration officials” (as clearly stated in the OP’s link), he wasn’t claiming that the check was in the mail or that his penis was eight inches long.
“Nothing costs more and yields less benefit than revenge.”
– Winston Churchill
Sure. But there are any number of other things he could have lied about that are irrelevant to his wartime activities. People are denied entry to the US every day for reasons unrelated to war crimes.
Now that guy was a war criminal.
I don’t buy the argument that “Atrocities that hasten the end of a war are not atrocities.” By this logic, if a Nazi massacre of millions of Allied civilians had persuaded the Allies to surrender and thus bring a swift end to World War II and further bloodshed, would that make the Nazi massacre no longer a massacre?
Seems to me like matters are proceeding as they should. If he is mentally capable of understanding why he is being tried, and, if found guilty, punished, then he should be tried. If not, then not. He has already been found mentally incompetent by one group of doctors, but it can’t do any harm to double check.