Are War Crimes Trials effective?

Stabilising the Middle East is absolutely vital and it was always going to be a massive task; black ops and CIA subversion could have done the job of toppling him but without the coalition military presence there'd be nothing in place to stop the next wave of lunatics (or insurgents) from filling the vacuum left by Hussein. I'll make the same point I made the last time this came up, we can fight terrorism in their back yard now, or in our back yards in ten years time - but we'll end up fighting it either way.

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Hussein never had any celebrated or proven connection with terrorism, and had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11 and furthermore, that event had nothing to do with England, Europe or Middle Eastern and central Asiatic politics.

Modern Middle Eastern politics entirely centres around the Persian Gulf, central Asiatic politics entirely centres around the Caspian Sea table, which actually is Russian property. The thing with Iran, activity in Afghanistan, blatant smokescreen over interests in the Caspian Sea. Iraq, blatant smokescreen over interests in the Persian Gulf. You don't need a slide rule to figure this out. If any of the claims about yankish-euroyank benevolence for the cultural well being of foreign nations were involved those armed forces were entirely on the wrong continent. They should've been in Africa sorting out their much worse problems instead.
The whole thing is big fat used car salesman wank and everybody capable of rubbing two brain cells together on the entire planet is utterly aware of this.
Hence universal protest from Detroit to Mongolia on this.

vanir said:

FYI more than a few Holocaust survivors have publicly stated they do not in any way support "Nazi hunting," for whatever that's worth.

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Yes
and the ones who didn't survive? Who speaks for them?

Nazi hunters - works for me

Colin1 said:

Yes
and the ones who didn't survive? Who speaks for them?

Nazi hunters - works for me

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I understand and fully appreciate this sentiment. It is in part admirable. However my personal contention, and it is nothing more than that, is that Holocaust victims deserve pre-eminence over my own sentimentalities for them. If surviving victims say, "No, don't do that," then I must say, okay, say the word and we handle this as you wish. This is my support for the victims.

vanir said:

...is that Holocaust victims deserve pre-eminence over my own sentimentalities for them. If surviving victims say, "No, don't do that," then I must say, okay...

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You couldn't apply that logic to any aspect of criminal law
Criminal law is, and needs to be, bifurcated from emotional response.
You could no more let a Nazi go than you could someone who murdered your wife who caught him breaking in, or a serial rapist of whom your daughter was a victim - you could be classified as the 'survivor' in either scenario.

This is the nature of the evidence-driven process that you alluded to in post #20.

vanir said:

I understand and fully appreciate this sentiment. It is in part admirable. However my personal contention, and it is nothing more than that, is that Holocaust victims deserve pre-eminence over my own sentimentalities for them. If surviving victims say, "No, don't do that," then I must say, okay, say the word and we handle this as you wish. This is my support for the victims.

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Maybe more than a few don't support it. I'm betting more than that do support it.

To my mind, the War Crimes trials had several reasons for their existence. Depending on how you look on it, is your answer.

To avenge the victims- to a certain extent, yes. But it depends on who is having the trials and the victims involved. The Nazis are obviously perpertators of the massacres of the Jews and they were, to some extent, hunted down. If nothing else, their ideology was invalidated. The problem with avenging the victims is domestic victims are rarely avenged (the Kuliks come to mind) where as international victims generally get their moment.

To prosecute the guilty- Generally not. Most of the time, these guys escape. Only when the trial gets to the level of a cause celebre' do the perps get tried. Cambodia and Rawanda come to mind immediately. They were important, until they dropped off the front page. Then, it became a back burner event for the UN.

To stop the event from happening again- Usually, no. Massacres just keep happening.

So, long and short, most war crimes trials are nice to look at, give the participants a "warm and fuzzy" (except if your in the dock) but don't change much.

But do create precedents - on which our legal system is built and modified.

MM

May 26 -2011

'Justice' as most-wanted war crimes fugitive Mladic arrested in Serbia - The Globe and Mail

MM

vanir said:

I understand and fully appreciate this sentiment. It is in part admirable. However my personal contention, and it is nothing more than that, is that Holocaust victims deserve pre-eminence over my own sentimentalities for them. If surviving victims say, "No, don't do that," then I must say, okay, say the word and we handle this as you wish. This is my support for the victims.

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What about the surviving victims who still want justice? Do you ignore their feelings, because of the "survivors" who want to live and let live? And what about the law? You can't pick and choose who gets prosecuted...