Winners escape justice

Following World War II, many Nazi leaders were tried for war crimes. A victorious U.S. took the lead at the Nuremberg Trials. Many defendants were sentenced to death and others to life in prison.

Near the war’s end, atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Years later, U.S. soldiers slaughter countless Vietnamese civilians. (See “War without borders: The U.S. in Vietnam.”) By any objective accounting, U.S. leaders are responsible for massive war crimes.

So why has no tribunal taken Washington’s war criminals to court? The answer, I suspect, lies in the concept of “victor justice.”

Victor justice occurs when a powerful nation like the U.S. and its allies determine what war criminals are, and are not, held accountable. It is a hypocrisy best understood by what former U.S. Sen. William Fulbright called the arrogance of power.

The International Criminal Court is likely to dispense victor justice when it tries Ratko Mladic for war crimes committed during the Balkan wars (see Newsweek, June 6). Ironically, the U.S. recently committed war crimes with impunity in Iraq and now commits them in Libya and Afghanistan. Shamefully, many local and national peace groups remain ominously silent when it comes to denouncing this hypocrisy?

Richard Harger

Spokane Valley