THIS WRITE UP DOES NOT CONDONE ATROCITIES BY ANY NATION IN ANY WAR-JUST AS TWO WRONGS DO NOT MAKE A RIGHT, THE AIM HERE IS TO SHOW THAT SINCE TIMES IMMEMORIAL, INTERPRETATION OF JUSTICE IS ALWAYS THE PRIVILEGE OF THE VICTORIOUS

''Is international justice merely a function of power?'' In other words, are war criminals simply those who happened to have lost the war? Is “victors' justice” mere window dressing : power in the guise of justice? Do victors never have war criminals with the same accountability and punishment--------

Ponder a 'while

On May 14, 1946, ten days after the opening of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (popularly known as the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal), Captain George Furness, a member of the defense counsel, cast serious doubt on the fairness of the Tribunal conducted by the victorious nations in World War II:

‘We say that regardless of the known integrity of the individual Members of this Tribunal they cannot, under the circumstances of their appointment, be impartial; that under such circumstances this trial, both in the present day and history, will never be free from substantial doubt as to its legality, fairness, and impartiality.''

Thus he implied that if the killing of combatants of the U.S. forces by Japanese forces during the Pearl Harbor attack was regarded as “murder,” by the same token the U.S. President, Harry S. Truman, and the U.S. Army Chief of Staff, George C. Marshall, ie, two of the American leaders ultimately responsible for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, could be accused of “murder” as well

---Punishment is not the same thing as vengeance. War crimes tribunals claim to deal out punishment for crimes committed. Vengeance is retaliation: you hurt me, I hurt you. Since World War II, the accusation of victor's justice has arisen in every subsequent conflict where war crimes prosecutions have been made. Examples of include the wars in the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Congo, Gaza and Afghanistan.

Sabra and Shatila: The unforgettable, unforgivable, massacre – 1982

Kahan Commission finds Sharon shared responsibility for massacre

The investigative Kahan Commission found the Israeli Defence Forces indirectly responsible for the massacre and that no Israeli was directly responsible for the events which occurred in the camps. The commission also asserted that Israel had indirect responsibility for the massacre since the I.D.F. held the area.Around mid-day on Thursday 16 September 1982, a unit of approximately 150 Israeli-allied-armed Phalangists (or that's what Israel claim) entered the first camp. For the next 40 hours members of the Phalangist militia raped, killed, and injured a large number of unarmed civilians, mostly children, women and elderly people inside the encircled and sealed camps. The estimate of victims varies between 700 (the official Israeli figure) to 3,500. The victims and survivors of the massacres have never been deemed entitled to a formal investigation of the tragedy, since Israel's Kahan Commission did not have a judicial mandate and was not backed up by legal force

ONE MANS HERO CAN BE ANOTHERS

NEMESIS-----

According to the Toronto Daily Star, March, 9th, 1968, "Former members of an illegal Israeli force which was given absolute freedom to slaughter Germans conceded that "More than 1,000 Nazi SS Officers died as a result of eating arsenic-impregnated bread introduced April, 13th, 1946, in an American-run prisoner-of-war camp near Nuremberg."

After the US victory (the battle for Remagen Bridge) Germans in the Rhineland surrendered en masse. Between April and July 1945, some 260,000 German prisoners-of-war were held under American guard in the boggy fields between Remagen and Sinzig. They were kept in the open air and their daily ration was one potato, a biscuit, a spoonful of vegetables and some water. Racked by disease, at least 1,200 died.

Malmedy Madness

Some SS troops under guard were shot by a 19-year-old U.S. machine gunner

In the aftermath of the Malmedy massacre, a written order from the HQ of the 328th U.S. Army Infantry Regiment, dated 21 December 1944, stated: No SS troops or paratroopers will be taken prisoner but will be shot on sight.^[ Major-General Raymond Hufft (U.S. Army) gave instructions to his troops not to take prisoners when they crossed the Rhine in 1945. "After the war, when he reflected on the war crimes he authorized, he admitted, 'if the Germans had won, I would have been on trial at Nuremberg instead of them.'' Stephen Ambrose related: "I've interviewed well over 1000 combat veterans. Only one of them said he shot a prisoner... Perhaps as many as one-third of the veterans...however, related incidents in which they saw other GIs shooting unarmed German prisoners who had their hands up.
Similarly, allied soldiers in Pacific and Asian theatres sometimes killed Japanese soldiers who were attempting to surrender or after they had surrendered. A social historian of the Pacific War, John W. Dower, states that "by the final years of the war against Japan, a truly vicious cycle had developed in which the Japanese reluctance to surrender had meshed horrifically with allied disinterest in taking prisoners

LITTLE KNOWN FACTS----

Vlasov's Army Ex-Soviet military volunteer in Germany

At Dachau, which was in the American zone of Germany, a shock force of American and Polish guards attempted to entrain a group of Russian prisoners from Vlasov's Army, who had refused to be repatriated under the new American ruling."All of these men refused to entrain," Robert Murphy wrote in his report of the incident. "They begged to be shot. They resisted entrainment by taking off their clothes and refusing to leave their quarters.... Tear-gas forced them out of the building into the snow where those who had cut and stabbed themselves fell exhausted and bleeding in the snow. Nine men hanged themselves and one had stabbed himself to death and one other who had stabbed himself subsequently died; while twenty others are still in hospital from self-inflicted wounds. The entrainment was finally effected of 368 men."

"The last operation of this kind in Germany took place at Plattling near Regensburg, where fifteen hundred men of Vlasov's Army had been interned by the Americans. In the early hours of February 24th, 1946, they were driven out of their huts wearing only their night-clothes, and handed over to the Russians in the forest near the Bavarian-Czech border. Before the train set off on its return journey, the American guards were horrified to see the bodies of Vlasov's men who had already committed suicide hanging in rows from trees, and when they returned to Plattling, even the German SS prisoners in the nearby POW camp jeered at them for what they had done." The Soviet government labeled all ROA soldiers (Vlasovtsy) as traitors. The ROA soldiers who were repatriated were tried and sentenced to detention in prison camps. Vlasov and several other leaders of the ROA were tried and hanged in Moscow on August 1, 1946.

Russian Liberation Army Mass grave of two generals and 187 unknown ROA soldiers

THE COUNTRY THAT LOST THE WAR IN 1945

German women lie dead on a street in Berlin in 1945 after they were brutally raped and murdered by -----------'victors'
Stalin : --''Does Djilas, who is himself a writer, not know what human suffering and the human heart are? Can't he understand it if a soldier who has crossed thousands of kilometers through blood and fire and death has fun with a woman or takes some trifle''

Millions of German soldiers were held as POWs. There was no real organizational structure to deal with this huge amount of people and hunger and all sorts of diseases were rife. In 1946 there were still many hundreds of thousands kept as forced labor and its estimated 2-4000 died a month (this is POWs of Western Allies ). The estimated number of death range from around 100.000 to 500 000.The Soviets captured 2.8 million Germans and between 300,000 and 1 million died in captivity.

May 22, 1944 Life Magazine Picture of the Week, "Arizona war worker writes her Navy boyfriend a thank-you-note for the Jap skull he sent her"

Skull of a dead Japanese soldier

Fire Bombing of Tokyo

According to one account "the M-69 (napalm firebombs) realeased 100-foot streams of fire upon detonating, and sent flames rampaging through densely packed wooden homes. Superheated air created a wind that sucked victims into the flames and fed the twisting infernos. Asphalt boiled in the 1,800 degree heat. With much of the fighting age male population at the war front, women, children, and the elderly struggled in vain to battle the flames or flee" One of General McArthur aides called it "one of the most ruthless and barbaric killings of noncombatants in all of history."

Charred remains of Japanese civilians after the March 10, 1945 firebombing of Tokyo. That night, some 300 U.S. B-29 bombers dropped 1,700 tons of incendiary bombs on the largest city in Japan, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 100,000 people -- the single deadliest air raid of World War II. (Koyo Ishikawa)

The high altitude bombing attacks using general purpose bombs were observed to be ineffective by USAAF leaders. Changing their tactics to expand the coverage and increase the damage, Curtis LeMay ordered the bombers to fly lower (4,500–8,000 ft, 1,400–2,400 m) and drop incendiary bombs to burn Japan's vulnerable wood-and-paper buildings. The first such raid was in February 1945 when 174 B-29s destroyed around one square mile (3 km²) of Tokyo. The next month, 334 B-29s took off to raid on the night of 9–10 March (Operation Meetinghouse), with 279 of them dropping around 1,700 tons of bombs. Fourteen B-29s were lost.Approximately 16 square miles (41 km2) of the city were destroyed and some 100,000 people are estimated to have died in the resulting firestorm, more immediate deaths than either of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The US Strategic Bombing Survey later estimated that nearly 88,000 people died in this one raid, 41,000
were injured, and over a million residents lost their homes. The Tokyo Fire Department estimated a higher toll: 97,000 killed and 125,000 wounded. General Le May, the man who planned and executed the bombings quoted "there are no innocent civilians, so it doesn't bother me so much to be killing innocent bystanders". He also commented on the fact that had the US lost the war, he fully expected to be tried as a war criminal.

The first such raid was in February 1945 when 174 B-29s destroyed around one square mile (3 km²) of Tokyo. The next month, 334 B-29s took off to raid on the night of 9–10 March (Operation Meetinghouse), with 279 of them dropping around 1,700 tons of bombs. Fourteen B-29s were lost.Approximately 16 square miles (41 km2) of the city were destroyed and some 100,000 people are estimated to have died in the resulting firestorm, more immediate deaths than either of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The US Strategic Bombing Survey later estimated that nearly 88,000 people died in this one raid, 41,000 were injured, and over a million
residents lost their homes.

.

Tokyo wasn't the only city to suffer such fate. Kobe, Yokohama, Osaka and many more were subjected to the same punishment as Tokyo, with casulaty rates.

Fire Bombing of Dresden Hamburg Cologne Nuremburg

to the industrial suburbs) was not justified

And then, beginning on the night of Feb. 13, the most beautiful city in Germany was suddenly set on fire from end to end, by a scientifically designed bombing pattern that swept away its architecture and roasted and melted and buried at least 40,000 of its citizens(should we count women , children and the infirm as military targets???). In four raids between 13 February and 15 February 1945, 1,300 heavy bombers of the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) dropped more than 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices on the city. The resulting firestorm destroyed 15 square miles (39 square kilometres) of the city centre and caused thousands of civilian casualties. In four raids between 13 February and 15 February 1945, 1,300 heavy bombers of the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) dropped more than 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices on the city. The resulting firestorm destroyed 15 square miles (39 square kilometres) of the city centre and caused thousands of civilian casualties

Hamburg firebombing

By weight, more bombs were dropped on the city of Berlin than were released on the whole of Great Britain during the entire war.

All German towns and cities above 50,000 population were from 50% to 80% destroyed. Hamburg was totally destroyed and 70,000 civilians died in the most appalling circumstances whilst Cologne was likewise turned into a moon-scape. As Hamburg burned the winds feeding the three mile high flames reached twice hurricane speed to exceed 150 miles per hour. Trees three feet in diameter on the outskirts of the city were sucked from the ground by the supernatural forces of these winds and hurled miles into the city-inferno, as were vehicles, men, women and children.

'They [the British Air Chiefs] argued that the desired result, of reducing German industrial production, would be more readily achieved if the homes of the workers in the factories were destroyed; if the workers were kept busy arranging for the burial of their wives and children, output might reasonably be expected to fall... It was concentrated on working class houses because, as Professor Lindemann maintained, a higher percentage of bloodshed per ton of explosives dropped could be expected from bombing houses built close together, rather than by bombing higher class houses surrounded by gardens.' 'Advance to Barbarism' ----------F.J.P. Veale.

1943: Katyn Forest Massacre

America and Britain-Silence was Golden : the Russians were Allies , What a pity!!??

On April 13, 1943, German radio announced the discovery of a mass grave in Katyn forest near Smolensk, where, it was alleged, Soviet security forces had carried out executions of thousands of Polish officers.The Soviet government continued to deny any responsibility until, under Gorbachev, it admitted that the executions had been ordered by Stalin and carried out by the NKVD. Official documents turned over to the Polish government in 1992 revealed that 4,443 Polish officers had been executed at Katyn and another 16,000 at other sites

Photos taken in 1943 by the Nazis, during their exhumations of the Polish dead from the Katyn forest sites where the NKVD had murdered them on orders from Stalin in 1940. The Americans and the British chose to keep their eyes closed

---------'And it is reasonable to suggest that there are sadists and thugs in every army. I know for a fact that many enemy prisoners were shot in WW1 simply because the British soldiers who were supposed to take them behind lines were exhausted and resentful: "shot whilst trying to escape" was their excuse. '--unquote

Indian soldiers examine
a captured German tank

Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

But was it as per the civilised rules of War-fare???? You judge--

''To shorten a war and to avoid more casualities, Atom Bombs can be used on civilians''--justification for bombing civilians.It can be invoked even today. nag4.jpg (63936 bytes)

Judge Pal of India

In his lone dissent, he refers to the trail as a ---''sham employment of legal process for the satisfaction of a thirst for revenge''

Judge Pal from India, was the only person among eleven judges who presided over the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, who made a historical comment on the atomic bombing, albeit briefly. In his dissenting judgment, he wrote ------ ''It would be sufficient for my present purpose to say that if any indiscriminate destruction of civilian life and property is still illegitimate in warfare, then, in the Pacific war, this decision to use the atom bomb is the only near approach to the directives of German Emperor during the first world war and of the Nazi leaders during the second world war. Nothing like this could be traced to the credit of the present accused''

Radha-Binod Pal

Monument (above) honouring Radha Binod Pal, at Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, Japan

Decades After War Trials, Japan Still Honors a Dissenting Judge

ATROCITIES ARE HAPPENING REGULARLY AS THE WORLD WAITS TO SEE WHICH SIDE IS WINNING

In the end , remember . Auschwitz was neither the first

nor the last--Every country on this Earth has an

Auschwitz to hide

LEBANON

On16-09-82, the Israeli army controlled West Beirut, sealed off the 2 Palestinian refugee camps Sabra and Shatila and fired shells at them. Later, the Israeli military command gave the Israeli-allied Lebanese Phalangist militia the green light to enter the refugee camps. For the next 40 hours the Phalangist militia raped, killed, and injured a large number of unarmed civilians, mostly children, women and elderly people

SABRA & SHATILA

SYRIA--Gas & Kill Your Own Citizens!!

A COLLECTIVE SILENCE???

Iraq-Afghanistan-Gaza

Iraq skeleton

Amiriyah shelter bombing was an aerial attack that killed more than 408 civilians on 13 February 1991 during the Persian Gulf War when an air-raid shelter ("Public Shelter No. 25"), also referred to as the Al Firdos C3 bunker by the U.S. military, in the Amiriyah neighborhood of Baghdad, Iraq, was destroyed by the U.S. Air Force with two laser-guided "smart bombs"

HIGH WAY OF DEATH