It actually does. Remember, NATO is just an expansion of the same “allies” that fought WW2. It also contains most of the founding members of the UN and a healthy share of the permanent security council members.
Those countries don’t get charged with war crimes. Ever. The aforementioned bombings of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshina and Nagasaki are just accepted as fact of life - but if any other nation did such a thing, it’d have been a war crime. Bush’s invasion of Iraq was a war crime (illegal hostile aggression). The multitudes of atrocities committed by Coalition forces against Iraq, Afghanistan and in the greater War on Terror also constitute numerous war crimes, but as NATO members they’re immune to all such trivial accusations.
In practical reality, the phrase “war crime” only applies to the enemies of NATO. Well, only applies to countries too weak to defend themselves from NATO, since China and Russia are also immune from any serious prosecution. What’s the UN or ICC gonna do about it? Cry?
When they say “history is written by the winners” that definitely includes who is considered a “war criminal” and who is a “hero who saved the earth.” So far, NATO has been top dog. Frustrating fact of life.
The soviet union was certainly fighting on the same side (an ally, little A), but like Nationalist China, was never part of the same apparatus as “the west.” Intelligence and cooperation between the Soviets and “the west” vs between members of “the west” demonstrates this clearly. The Soviets and Chinese were allies of circumstance. *Certainly *called Allies (big A) in propaganda, but neither the Soviets nor “the west” were ever under the impression that this was anything more than a marriage of convenience. Poor nationalist China was kinda along for the ride, despite ostensibly representing everything “the west” stood for.
Remember also, there was a very real effort by the Soviets to marry the Axis in the same way they ultimately wound up wedding the “the west,” culminating in the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, which was signed after the anticomintern pact, reflecting the dramatically changed stance of both the Axis (at least ostensibly - let’s not kid ourselves and think Hitler had a change of heart) and the Soviets (who had needless to say “disliked” the surrounding powers entering such a pact). The Soviets only abandoned this attempt after the Axis invaded them en-masse.
Aaand don’t forget, they invaded and annexed part of Allied Poland!
So, yeah you can call the Soviets and Nationalist China members of the Allies and be technically correct after 1941, but for all practical purposes the Allies of WW2 were one faction, the Axis another, the Soviets a third, and China a really unfortunate minor party.
For another example of the clear distinction in terms of cooperation, Japan and the Soviets spent almost the entirety of the war in a state of non-aggression. The soviets only attacked Japan’s so-called Co-Prosperity sphere (really, Korea/Manchuria) after Japan was eliminated as a practical fighting force to prevent the Allies from having it.
Realpolitic is messy, as I have implied over and over. In practical terms, the Soviets were not Allies in the same way that the British Empire, French and Americans were.
“War crimes” apply to states waging war. I am not a state actor, therefore my use of hollow point bullets is not a war crime.
I recall issuing “no quarter” declarations to my brothers.
And I have made gas attacks, preferably SBD cropdusting.
But seriously, shooting a fellow citizen is a big step. I don’t think any order was issued at Kent State, it was a frightened idiot and scared, undertrained and undisciplined reservists who panicked. Soldiers are not substitutes for police.
“But here’s the rub: War. Crimes. Only. Matter. When. Prosecuting. NATO. Enemies.”
Well… except of course for when prosecuting countries before NATO existed, who in some cases committed war crimes against countries that aren’t in NATO, or in the case of countries that were our allies in World War II but aren’t in NATO (which includes a lot more countries than the Soviet Union or China) or the Yugoslavian defendants who didn’t fight against NATO, and on and on. OR war crimes trials before World War II. They didn’t invent the idea in 1949.
I think you strongly misunderstood what you quoted.
For one, my whole post summarizes to “calling this a warcrime is naive and pointless.” So I’m confused when you then turn around and argue you aren’t committing a war crime… which has either nothing to do with my point, or just reinforces what I was saying - if it isn’t a warcrime (and we both agree legally it isn’t), then calling it one isn’t going to be particularly convincing, and even if it was a warcrime, that accusation carries no weight against the US (or, again, any NATO member, or perhaps more pointedly, any US ally - what’re non-aligned nations gonna do, “sanction” aka not sell US dollars to… the country that prints them?).
And… I straight up say in the text you just quoted that warcrimes only apply to warfare. So we’re in agreement… what fault are you trying to find in what I said? The only thing I can think of is if you’re tying to make a moral argument saying that doing things so horrible that it would be a crime even if done against people who are actively trying trying to exterminate your entire population (as was very much the case in WW2) is a-okay because they aren’t shooting back…? That’s not how morality works, so I really hope that’s not the argument and you just misunderstood me.
Yes, I agree. That’s why, after calling the “warcrime” angle naive, I said talk to soldiers as people, and remind them that there is a very strong chance they will “have” to shoot their fellow citizens, or be involved in the shooting of their fellows.
Tense matters. I did not refer to all of history when making that statement (in the present continuous tense). I said war crimes only matter, as in right now, when prosecuting “rogue” states, aka anybody NATO doesn’t like atm. You’re quoting out of context something I said in reference to current events.
The charge of “warcrime” will only ever matter again in the USA when the US loses its military hegemony, its reserve currency status and is no longer part of the dominant power bloc on the planet. Until then, we tell you what right and wrong means, who’s a warcriminal (Hussein) and who isn’t (Bush). It’s totally unjust and immoral, but in the sad world of realpolitic, might makes right.
I don’t think there’s ever been a suggestion that an order was given to fire at the Kent State Shootings. The accounts between the soldiers and the students differed only in that some of the soldiers claimed that they had been fired upon first (by an unseen sniper) and the students who claimed that Sergeant Pryor began the shooting for no discernable reason.
I don’t know about sps49sd calling the reservists scared, undisciplined idiots, but they definitely were not sufficiently trained for riot patrol. They weren’t MPs, they were from two different combat arms units. The reason for military training is so that in situations where you are confused or undirected, you fall back on your training. if your training is to engage and destroy the enemy, then that’s what you do. There’s a very good reason soldiers shouldn’t be used as cops.
No, I want a cite for the shooting being some sort of panicked reaction. Forming a line a good distance away from the students, and then firing at them from that line, is not panic. Call it what you will, but it’s not that.