war crimes

• 
• SOURCE: TomDispatch
  5/25/2023
  

  Americans Still Fumble in the Dark for Facts on Torture

  by Karen J. Greenberg

  The persistent efforts of scholars and human rights advocates are chipping away at the secrecy surrouding America's use of torture under the banner of national security in the War on Terror. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  5/15/2023
  

  Henry Kissinger: A War Criminal Still at Large at 100

  by Greg Grandin

  Henry Kissinger was instrumental in Nixon's decision to undertake the illegal bombing of Cambodia. His foreign policy machinations also led him to push Nixon to the actions that led to Watergate and the president's downfall, though Kissinger has remained unaccountable. 

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• SOURCE: CBS
  4/30/2023
  

  As a Massachusetts Museum Exhibits Parts of "Hanoi Hilton," Survivors Reflect

  Salvaged remnants of the POW camp have been reconstructed by the American Heritage Museum in Massachusetts. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/17/2023
  

  My Father Gave Eichmann the Close-Up He Wanted

  The author's father directed the live telecast of Adolf Eichmann's trial in Jerusalem, using a cinematographical approach to raise the harrowing question of how a bureaucratic mediocrity could have engineered a genocide. The Israeli government's growing concern with the victims eclipsed this curiosity about the perpetrators. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/5/2023
  

  Can Japan-Korea Relations Resolve Historical Disputes?

  The government of South Korea has dropped its demand for Japanese companies to pay victims of forced labor during World War II. Many Koreans have called the concession a national humiliation, and some surviving victims say they won't accept compensation from Korean sources. 

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• SOURCE: Reuters
  1/3/2023
  

  Poland Claims Germany Refuses Participation in Talks for WWII Reparations

  Six million Poles, including three million Polish Jews, were killed during the second world war. Poland's nationalist government seeks to void agreements made under Communism to release Germany from liability. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  12/6/2022
  

  The Conventional Wisdom About War Crimes is Wrong

  by Brian Klaas

  Ideology can be seductive, and doesn't require monstrous people to incite monstrous acts. 

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• 8/7/2022
  

  Why Should War Criminals Operate with Impunity?

  by Lawrence Wittner

  When major military powers like Russia, China and the United States withhold participation in the International Criminal Court, it allows war criminals to do as they please. Leading a more stable international order means joining fully with the ICC. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  5/2/2022
  

  Distant Moments: Reviewing Joan Scott's "On the Judgment of History"

  by David A. Bell

  The belief in History as a force driving events toward greater enlightenment has long allowed people to punt on making judgment and taking action to future generations. Joan Scott's book examines the seductive power of this faith. 

• 
• SOURCE: Substack
  4/20/2022
  

  What Did We Do in Indochina? Robert Buzzanco Interviewed

  "There’s widespread politically useful misinformation about the war. And there’s also widespread liberal apologetics for the war."

• 
• 4/3/2022
  

  Can the US Credibly Condemn Russian Attacks on Civilians?

  by Paul Lovinger

  Are American military actions different from Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians and civilian infrastructure only in degree? 

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• 4/3/2022
  

  More War Crimes Will Follow in Ukraine

  by Fred Zilian

  To those who believed that war and war crimes in Europe in the 21st century had become unthinkable, Thucydides offers us a simple yet powerful statement: “War is a violent teacher.”

• 
• SOURCE: Mother Jones
  3/10/2022
  

  Russia Has a Long and Cruel Record of Attacking Hospitals

  by Leonard Rubenstein

  For a century and a half, international law has prohibited attacks on hospitals, and for as long, such attacks have continued, because of the lack of accountability, argues a scholar of healthcare during war.

• 
• SOURCE: Just Security
  3/9/2022
  

  How the Soviet Union Helped Establish the Crime of Aggressive War

  by Francine Hirsch

  Putin's claims to "denazify" Ukraine are an egregious affront to the historical role of the Soviet Union in establishing the Nuremberg tribunal, and its insistence in prosecuting aggressive war itself as a crime. 

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• 12/21/2021
  

  The U.S. Can Legally Intervene in the Ukraine Should Russia Invade

  by Anthony J. Colangelo

  The United States should seek to prevent war between Russian and Ukraine. But if the US intervenes, it's vital that it articulate a rationale that validates and strengthens international law. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Review of Books
  11/15/2021
  

  Should Germany Prosecute the Few Surviving Nazis?

  by David Motadel

  "Most of the perpetrators of the Holocaust have passed away, but German courts still have an opportunity to prosecute those who remain alive. It is the final chapter in the country’s long and not very successful history of ensuring justice for their victims."

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  5/26/2021
  

  The History the Japanese Government Is Trying to Erase

  by Chelsea Szendi Schieder

    An academic involved in the recent "comfort women" controversy while teaching in Japan warns "In failing to teach what the wartime state did, the Japanese government only emboldens the forces of misogyny and racism and cultivates new generations of violence."

• 
• SOURCE: The Baffler
  5/17/2021
  

  Narrative Napalm: Malcolm Gladwell's Apologia for American Butchery

  by Noah Kulwin

  Reviewer Noah Kulwin argues Malcolm Gladwell's book on the rise of American air power misrepresents the military history of World War II, wrongly elevates Curtis LeMay to the status of a heroic genius, and blithely passes over the vast carnage of incendiary and atomic bombings. 

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• SOURCE: History.com
  5/17/2021
  

  How the Shocking Use of Gas in World War I Led Nations to Ban It

  "In 1925, the League of Nations adopted the Geneva Protocol, which prohibited the use of chemical and biological agents in war, but did not stop nations from continuing to develop and stockpile such weapons."

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Review
  3/29/2021
  

  The Other Nuremberg Trials, Seventy-Five Years On

  by Erica X. Eisen

  The defense of capitalism during the Cold War meant that businesses and businessmen who collaborated in war crimes went unpunished.