Book: Operation Paperclip

Getting back to this book after a break, it's about the Nazi scientists transported to the U.S. after the war. It raises the dilemma, in many fields (aviation, rocketry, weaponry, plastics, biological and chemical warfare) Germany was way ahead of the rest of the world, and to preserve that knowledge or prevent its misuse it only makes sense to go after the scientists.

The larger issue of course is this: science is rarely pure. Anytime basic research is "applied" to some product it becomes a moral or political issue. The people who developed new nerve agents weren't the ones who created the gas chambers, but they were complicit. Should they have been tried for war crimes for doing what their country required of them? At what point does conscience overrule earning a living, or indeed risking your life in the case of the Reich?

Some fascinating moral dilemmas.

Quote :

There was another dramatic turning point in the Doctor's Trial, and that involved the case of Dr. Kurt Blome. Blome was admittedly the director of biological weapons research for the Reich, which was not itself a crime [...] but there were no documents showing Blome's actual guilt.

There was another element of Blome's defense that the prosecution was completely unprepared for, and that was Dr. Blome's wife, Bettina, a physician and bestselling author. Frau Blome meticulously researched experiments that were conducted by the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) [that] included malaria experiments on Terre Haute federal prison inmates. She also uncovered Dr. Walter Reed's famous nineteenth-century yellow fever research for the U.S. Army, in which volunteer human test subjects had died.

She probably could have also brought up the Tuskegee syphilis experiments, which began in 1932, had she known about them.

Funny, none of this made it into the Wikipedia article on the Doctor's Trial.

Einstein -- who left Germany in 1933 as soon as Hitler came to power -- and while he still could -- said any scientist who stayed and served the Reich did not deserve amnesty after the war.

But then he was Jewish, and pretty smart.

Should there be a statute of limitation on war crimes?

The Simon Weisenthal Center is still pursuing Nazis sixty years after the war. As the book "Operation Paperclip" makes clear, ALL of the Nazi scientists who came to the US to work for the Army or Navy or Air Force or NASA or Dow or GE became valuable additions to our brain power. They mostly lived exemplary lives and lived & died as loyal Americans.

Many took to their graves secrets about what they'd done during the war, secrets that were uncovered only recently with the declassification of many records. Many more records remain classified, many more secrets remain.

It does not diminish the crimes committed during a war, to forgive.

American soldiers committed some atrocities during the Vietnam war. Should they be prosecuted still, 45 years later? How would we feel if the SRV (Socialist Republic of Vietnam) opened a Truth & Reconciliation Commission and began requesting extraditions?

NoCoPilot wrote:

American soldiers committed some atrocities during the Vietnam war.  Should they be prosecuted still, 45 years later?  How would we feel if the SRV (Socialist Republic of Vietnam) opened a Truth & Reconciliation Commission and began requesting extraditions?

Atrocities are in the eye of the beholder (specifically, civilian beholders).

But to answer this question, it would suck big time.

It's a valid question.

Our more recent skirmishes in Iraq and Afghanistan have also led to allegations of improprieties -- in fact, it might be difficult to conduct any ground operation without a certain level of disregard for the inhabitants. If wars were conducted with absolute humanity, they'd, uh, never happen.

Not sayin' that would be a BAD thing.

War crimes are committed by those who start and prolong the wars: the politicians and the businessmen (if they can be told apart). It is they - and only they - who should be held responsible for shit that happens in their wars.

Meh, I don't think I'm willing to go that far.

Politicians start wars for many reasons. Unless you're really radical and consider ALL WARS to be criminal, I don't think you can hold politicians liable for everything that happens during the prosecution of an armed conflict. I mean, there are INDIVIDUAL war crimes, like Lte. Calley or Sgt. Hutchins. And there are INSTITUTIONAL war crimes like Buchenwald and drone strikes. There are rogue elements in any army, and there are poor command decisions.

Fog of war.

That's why I think a statute of limitations should be there, maybe 10 years.

I DO believe that ALL wars are criminal.

Yes, Calley was an asshole and never should have been given a command position. But the situation he found himself in never should have been created. Those who created the situation are ultimately responsible for Calley's actions. I am not condoning what Calley and his troops did, and it is unforgivable, but I do see it from a different perspective.

_Howard wrote:

I DO believe that ALL wars are criminal.

Even defensive wars?

As I said, "War crimes are committed by those who start and prolong the wars."

Responding to an invasion is not the same as starting a war. I did not think it necessary to note that difference.

Well then you very quickly get into grey areas. What about pre-emptive wars? What about wars to protect trade? What about wars to restore former borders?

You get my drift.

All criminal as you have described them.

Unsustainable. Under such a restriction another nation could annex your territory and you couldn't do anything about it.

Completely wrong. Another nation annexing your territory would be a criminal act of war to which you could legitimately respond.

Defensive military actions are not included in my statement that ALL wars are criminal. As I have repeated, those who START the wars are criminal. Just as all murder is criminal (by definition), but protecting one's self against the murder is not. Nor is prosecuting and punishing the murderer.

Attempted murder is also illegal.

Say a neighboring hostile state lobbed a few missiles into your Gaza Strip. Would you be justified in bombing the missile installation?

I would think so.

I have stated that a military response to an action initiated by another state would legitimize your reaction. But that reaction must be proportional to maintain legitimacy. You couldn't, for example,  drop an atomic bomb on the population center of that country for lobbing a few missiles at you.

When discussing murder, attempted or successful, keep in mind that not all homicide is murder. Murder is as defined by the state, not by the action.

_Howard wrote:

But that reaction must be proportional to maintain legitimacy.

The Iranian government sends letters containing anthrax to your congress. The letters are intercepted by the congressional mail service and nobody is hurt.

The Chinese government breaks into your banking system and steals records and identities. Nobody is technically "hurt" but their data is compromised.

Americans traveling in Chechnya are detained and imprisoned on suspicion of espionage. A quick trial before a judge finds them guilty and sentences them to death.

NoCoPilot wrote:

The Iranian government sends letters containing anthrax to your congress.  The letters are intercepted by the congressional mail service and nobody is hurt.

Kudos to the mail service. Of course, there are a select few letters that would have beneficial to the country had they gotten through.

NoCoPilot wrote:

The Chinese government breaks into your banking system and steals records and identities.  Nobody is technically "hurt" but their data is compromised.

That should be "their data are compromised."

NoCoPilot wrote:

Americans traveling in Chechnya are detained and imprisoned on suspicion of espionage.  A quick trial before a judge finds them guilty and sentences them to death.

Shitty defense lawyers can be found everywhere in the world.

All of these matters should be handled by negotiation, not by war.