War crimes are a final insult of the victor over the vanquished. While the US was not victorious in Vietnam, neither were they defeated by the Vietnamese/USSR.
Don't think that war crime trials are about any sort of justice.
Wait, what? At the very end US Troops were evacuated from Saigon, and the city was taken over by the Viet Cong. That was the end of the Vietnam war. South Vietnam was reunified with North Vietnam. It's still a communist country.
I'm very sorry, but exactly how is that not complete and total defeat, except under ridiculous exceptions like, "it wasn't really a war because: Congress"? What a disservice to everyone that fought.
The war escalated to the point where LBJ could neither stop, nor continue without basically destroying his legacy (as well as humanitarian and social goals), so he just kept fighting.
Officials from all factions in (for one example) the Bosnian civil war have been tried by the ICTY. So unless all sides suffered "utter defeat", that is demonstrably untrue.
One could argue that prior to the establishment of modern tribunals starting with the ICTY (but also including the ICTR and ICC), that was the case. And there might be other reasons that the US, in particular, is difficult to hold accountable. But its pretty clear that it is no longer the case that "to be charged with war crimes requires utter defeat", or even mere defeat.
The US just left. They left with egg on their face and not looking so superpowery but neither Vietnam or the USSR were in a position to do anything to the US. The US lost, but the US was not vanquished. Actually they basically went home and life just continued on.
The Nuremburg Trials were possible because the Allies were in direct control of the territory of Nazi Germany and had removed it's government. Below someone brought up the various Yugoslav conflicts, but even then, they stopped and then started rounding up the former leaders because NATO basically made it happen. NATO did forceably end those wars.
[1] http://www.currentconcerns.ch/archive/2003/02/20030230.php [2] http://timewitnesses.org/english/~lothar.html
Don't think the Japanese and Germans are not guilty either.
And yes, I'm sure had we lost wwii we'd have been in for war crimes, such is the world.
The UK Bomber Command in WW2 had a strategy of "area bombing" - which was basically to hit the centre of German cities because they were easy to find and to hit at night. There were lots of euphemisms used e.g. "dehousing" - but everyone knew that it was a policy of targeting civilians.
Of course, the UK was on the winning side, so no war crimes trials.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War...
I can only assume (my father died several years ago) that he felt somewhat ashamed of his time in the war. I didn't appreciate the negativity surrounding the bombing campaigns until more recently when they opened the memorial in Hyde Park corner in London (http://www.rafbf.org/1794/bomber-command-memorial.html). It's difficult to appreciate this when you grow up watching films like the Dambusters and 633 Squadron and seeing these guys as heroes. Dads are always heroes.
The nature of war and sovereignty and the absence of international institutions has certainly led to that being a non-implausible perception of war crimes enforcement in the past, but I'm not sure that can be squared with the more recent situation demonstrated by ad hoc tribunals like ICTY and ICTR as well as the standing tribunals like the ICC.
> While the US was not victorious in Vietnam, neither were they defeated by the Vietnamese/USSR.
On the other hand, if you are posting from some alternate universe where that is true, the current experience in war crimes prosecutions might also be different there, too.
> 3. Later discovered nearly all of the food they destroyed were being used to support the local civilian population.
To be fair, there is no distinction between the food guerillas eat and the food everyone else eats. Destroying the crops that feed the guerillas means destroying all the crops, period.
It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive.
This was not an attempt to starve the civilian population.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aerial-herbicide-spray-mis...
With the benefit of 40+ years of hindsight, the use of Agent Orange was regrettable, no doubt.
However, I don't think it is responsible to compare the decision to use Agent Orange with the Holocaust.
The questions you should be asking are: What was the intent? What was known about AO at that time?
All wars are bad things, purportedly waged to avoid even worse things. But the Vietnam War had something especially bad about it, probably that same feature that made the US fight for 10 years, ruin the country it tried to protect, and effectively lose the case. One thing I remember from a historical book about that war is a general saying (approximately) "Do you think we will change the entire way our military functions just to win a frigging war?".
This kind of mindset definitely leads to both atrocities and losing. NB: applies to project management in general.
Sadly, most partially or fully engineered famines have never been prosecuted. Witness an Gorta Mór or Holodomor.
It's the effects of the accidental contamination that sicken me.
To liken this to the Holocaust is massively disrespectful to the Jewish people, Holocaust victims, and the Americans who fought in Vietnam.
So, I ask again, how is killing 85 % of all crops different?
That is comparing fundamentally different things based on a single non-essential concrete.
The most important point: Nazism was an evil fascist ideology that willfully killed millions. The United States has never been that way.
Secondarily, to give a concrete difference: The civillian death toll from Nazism was massively greater than the civillian death toll in Vietnam, even if you are extremely generous in figuring the latter (estimates range from 245,000 to 2 million, per Wikipedia).
I think the point was that both the Nazi-induced famine and the US-induced famine (and subsequent contamination) are both war crimes.
> The most important point: Nazism was an evil fascist ideology that willfully killed millions.
No doubt, but it seems that the non-fascist America doesn't seem have been, in this case, much more interested in sparing civilians.
Vietnam soldiers were a bunch of misguided young American cannon-fodder that didn't want to be there. Some of them were callous. It was not Nazi Germany.
Keep in mind also that men like Ernest Medina had a one-hour trial and was acquitted across the board, and William Calley was actually given a life sentence... very briefly, until the POTUS himself stepped in and changed it to house arrest, and shortly thereafter gave a full pardon. Meanwhile heroic men like Hugh Thompson were given senatorial censure and publicly hounded. Trying to paint the US portion of the horrors of the Vietnam war as merely the result of 'a few misguided conscripts' is, frankly, obscene. Hell, the journalists covering the war used to call the daily afternoon briefings from the military "The Five O'Clock Follies", due to the sheer amount of CYA bullshit in them.
Edit: Perhaps a question - who do you think is more callous: a soldier who rounds up 'undesirables' and puts them on a train to what they think will end up at a work camp somewhere; or a soldier who shoots unarmed, unthreatening civilians for either entertainment (door gunner) or some sense of revenge (My Lai massacre)? This is what I mean when I say similar callousness was involved.
From the article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange#Use_in_the_Vietnam...):
1. 20,000,000 U.S. gallons were sprayed
2. Military was told to destroy crops used to feed guerrillas.
3. Later discovered nearly all of the food they destroyed were being used to support the local civilian population.
4. In Quang Ngai province, 85% of the crop lands were scheduled to be destroyed in 1970 alone, leaving many to die from the famine.
I remember reading a book, Crimes Against Humanity, which said how Nazi leaders, especially those participated in the Holocaust were tried for their crimes. I cannot see how US Military leaders should not be tried for their actions in an international court.
And that's the thing. It annoys how easily the Americans are willing to criticize everyone else, and yet shift the blame away from themselves. If they weren't such a superpower, they wouldn't even be able to get away with all this.
This stuff sickens me