(August 7, 2022 at 12:41 pm)Jehanne Wrote: No one sees himself (or, herself?) as being a war criminal. Was President Harry S. Truman a war criminal? If the United States had lost World War II (say, by Japan having developed some secret super weapon), would HST been executed for "Crimes against Humanity"?? As we all know, it's the victors who write the history.
Victors write their own histories, to be sure, but make no mistake, so do the losers. It's just that many readers choose not to read narratives that challenge their own perspectives.
In war, all sides commit war crimes. Some do so as a matter of policy, some do so as a matter of small-unit leadership, and some do so as a matter of individual acts of rage or revenge. But all sides in, say WWII or Vietnam, committed atrocities. That's because in war, we not only seek to dehumanize our enemies, we also tend to dehumanize ourselves.
