War crimes. According to Wikipedia (2020), “a war crime is
an act that constitutes a serious violation of the laws of war that gives rise
to individual criminal responsibility.” I find the definition of war crime to
be petty and ironic, considering how do you essentially say that any killing,
harm or event in war is a crime. Isn’t taking the life, the bombing or killing
or another a crime? So how does one set apart war crimes from war? Who is to
say one violation is above another. Are we essentially defining “war crime” as
war? I believe that war is a serious violation of any human rights and to say
that there are laws that govern that one act is more serious or heinous than the
other, it is ethically and morally encumbersome.
Nick Turse tells the tale of a horrific massacre in My Lai
and how the onslaught was kept secret and hidden from society, until a brave
young man spoke up. Essentially, a “whistleblower,” shedding light on the
crimes, the unethical actions and events that took place behind closed doors.
The sickening, sad, and disturbing part of this ordeal as Nick Turse goes on to
depict is how over time, documentation of American war crimes went “missing,”
in other words, it was depicted to “never have happened.” As a healthcare professional
where my career is imposed on the concept, “if it’s not documented, it’s not
done,” it just goes to show that this view and concept is parallel in all
aspects of society. Therefore, to have “missing” or “no documentation” of such
events taking place, we are essentially saying, “it never happened.”
Another interesting fact that Turse pointed out on was the
extreme efforts that took place to expose the series of events take took place
during this unfortunate time in history and how laws and judicial systems are
currently set in place to prevent such events/actions from occurring again.
However, here we are again. We have a judicial system set in place to prevent “war
crimes” from occurring yet time and time again, we’ll have a president or
person of power pardon such events. In November of 2019, President Trump used his
Executive Clemency powers to pardon Army 1st Lt. Clint Lorance, Major
Matt Folsteyn and even restore chief petty officer rank SEAL Eddie Gallagher of
war crimes (Cox, 2019). Many military, judicial, academic and law enforcers are
now at a crossroad again, questioning, what defines war crimes, and how do we
handle them when you have the “commander in chief” breathing down your neck
telling you that it was not a crime and it did not happen and we need to accept the pardon was that was given by the president.
After reading Turse's book and with everything that is currently going on now with war crimes and pardons, do you think that it is ok to pardon war criminals? Is our legal system set up to punish war criminals or do you think that there are loop holes that needs more work?
Image: Protesters in a march marking the end of the Vietnam War carrying signs urging an amnesty for deserters and draft dodgers. (Photo by Peter Keegan/Getty Images)
Cox, M. (2019). Trump issued pardons in soldiers’ war crimes
cases. What now? Retrieved from ww.military.com/daily-news/2019/11/19/trump-issued-pardons-soldiers-war-crimes-cases-what-now.html
Turse, N. (2013). Kill anything that moves: The real American war in Vietnam: Macmillan.
Wikipedia. (2020, January 16). War Crime. Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crime
No comments:
Post a Comment