FACT: I did not list any atrocities.
FACT: I called the people on the Axis side of WWII racist bastards. You disagree?
FACT: I dislike what the state of Israel is doing to the Palestinians. Does this make me unusual? I don’t think so.
FACT: The only list I did make out involved me imagining what a ninety year old man, Mr Scheungraber, might have to go through BEFORE he gets to trial.
FACT: I, to my knowledge, have never written about Indigenous Australians. There are other people out there who know a great deal more about this subject than I could ever know. Therefore I don’t attempt to get in on the action.
FACT: I probably know a little more about Indigenous North Americans than I do about Indigenous Australians. I am quite aware what they went through, thankfully such crimes are beyond my imagination.
FACT: The name is VENISE.
FACT: I did not mention compensation.
FACT. I even mentioned Winston Churchills attitude to war criminals.
FACT: I had the temerity to suggest that the allied war trials of WWII were an exercise in Public Relations by the winning side. If you had to attack me I gave you the chance to do it right there. Did you? Not a whit of it.
FACT: I brought up the fact he is ninety. NOT as you appear to imagine a case of feeling sorry for him, but TO SUGGEST the people testifying against him would ALSO be the same age.
To recap. The main thrust of my argument was what ANY potential person having to front up to a War Crime committed sixty-four years ago would go through hell BEFORE the trial ever got under way.
Dear WALTER, I suggest you re-read my list of possible events faced by a ninety year old before he/she even gets to the trial. If you think I’m wrong let me know.
My attitude would be quite different to much younger people such as your Lockerbie bomber.

Let’s apply your twisted logic to Australia. What happened to Aboriginal peoples is nothing compared to the virtual extermination of native Americans, so really, you Abo’s didn’t suffer nearly as badly as the 20 million plus natives did in the Americas. Get over it.

And you know what Vernise, it all happened a long time ago. Those Stolen Generation people, their memories must be a bit hazy and unreliable, and anyway, don’t us white folk all look the same to them? Who’s to say which white police officer/protector took which kiddies? Wouldn’t be fair to try to lay blame, would it?

Tribunals and court cases to seek compensation? No, they don’t work, do they? Sends the wrong message doesn’t it?

Shall we all move on Venise and put these alleged injustices, murders, rapes and acts of genocide aside? Sounded good to John Howard. I mean, the Palestinians get it worse than our Indigenous folk, according to you, therefore their claims are ‘lesser’ and in the great scales of injustice, must rate pretty lowly.

Your worldview – let’s move on and not worry about seeking justice against those who have committed crimes against humanity ‘cause they’re old and memory fades and the Gaza strip is worse … honestly Venise, this type of lovey-dovey forgive and forget utopia makes me reach for the inflight brown bag.

PS> the Lockabie bomber. Let him die a miserable death in jail. I knew people on that plane, and I have no sympathy for the terrorist’s cancer claims.

You say that its an established fact that it’s fine to punish the elderly. Are you sure?
Have you any conception of the barrage of lengthy tests the man would have to be subjected to. Here we are talking about the tests necessary in order to justify his being tried at all. These sorts of tests are very time consuming, thus making it almost impossible to guarantee the man living long enough to be tried. Then there would be the protesters; more months being spent in trying to keep them apart and allowing them plenty of time to be interviewed by the various media.
Now-assuming the man, Herr Scheungraber, hasn’t tested positive to Alzheimer’s Syndrome and all the other diseases of the elderly, and assuming he is halfway mentally able to cope with at least one and a half years to two years of torment he stands before the trial comes the really hard part.
Thanks to the enlightened system of justice in the Western world, all potential jurors and legal people, especially assorted judges will all want to back off least they attract too much attention from hostile elements. Protesters of all sides, cranks, hate-filled old crones, etc.
Then you have the situation of testimony. Many people will swear they ‘would know him anywhere’. Ever read the book/movie ‘The Man in the Glass Booth” An eloquent testimony of the fallibility of people’s memories. Experts are to be called up and by now two or more years later this amazing circus will be gathering steam. By this time the now ninety year old Herr Scheungruber will be ninety-five. And if he wasn’t loony before this, he will be by then. He will have been crucified in the media, subjected to aural torture by irate on-lookers and had his life well and truly buggered up well before the trial.
All this for what? So as the people who got him into this mess can feel justified in bringing him to this sorry state of affairs.
Revenge feels so morally superior doesn’t it? But it’s a bad way to win points. To this day people feel that the war trials in Nürenberg and Tokyo were a good thing.
Were they? Nearly all the really bad guys got off or committed suicide. Perhaps Winston Churchill, for once, had the right idea. Namely trust in the cause that the Allies were morally superior, because by using this standard one could kill off the bad guys ASAP and the combined superiority would ensure the right people got killed. It’s not my opinion, as I said, it was Churchill.
Looked at rationally it could be argued that the War Trials were an exercise in Public Relations by the winning side.

The SS troops who killed somewhere between 80 and 150 US troops at Malmedy were tried(!) - many of these were sentenced to death - all sentences were commuted. The trial was not well conducted. All were released - their commander finally dying in a house fire in France in 1976.

There are many reports of prisoner killings on the eastern front. That is not the case for the western front.

A key part of the German strategy was the infiltration of Allied lines by German troops dressed in US uniforms travelling in captures US jeeps. These soldiers when captured were shot summarily. Are you suggesting that this was somehow a massacre by the Allies? Those German troops were well aware of the risks they ran by wearing enemy uniforms.

Where are the massacres by the Allied troops during the Battle of the Bulge, Guy??

I see a pattern in all their defences – it wasn’t me Your Honour, it was them evil Nazi’s. I was just a foot soldier and did nothing. Funny how 6-8 million Jews, Gypsies, homos*xuals, communists etc all died at the hands of just a handful of war criminals and now we’re being asked to feel some sympathy for hounding a few old farts? Spare me, please.

If you’ve ever given evidence in a case long after the event, let me tell you memory is not reliable. But I approach this from the opposite standpoint Guy – better to prosecute them all than to let live in freedom one mass murder and/or war criminal.

PS. I’m only a totally hypocritical prat in this regard. The rest of the time I’m a big bleedin’ hearted socialist lover of the left. But when it comes to war crimes, I turn into George W!!

Walter - your logic is circular. You assume that people have got the right 90 year old war criminal, and then assert that they can be hounded down. what if youre hounding down someone who wasnt a war criminal and/or acted honourably? The first Demjanjuk had witnesses who swore blind they had seen him at the camps - even when they were at camps that both the original ‘Ivan the Terrible’ and Demjanjuk (if theyre different people) had never been. People have a desire to see their persecutors punished and that can alight on anyone who might fit the bill. Risking the punishment of innocents for war crimes is an obviously self-defeating act. You haven’t thought this through.

Guy, what is the evidence for this extraordinary assertion - it is truly easy to make wild allegations - and this seems to be a corker.

War crimes are unlike other ‘crimes’. We should hound these old bastards down to their dying day. Cambodia’s recent prosecution of Kaing Guek Eav for crimes committed only 30 years ago is critical in both the post-genocide healing and also the message that resounds in Liberia, Kosovo etc etc – that is, age and time do not diminish war crimes.

That’s the message too for the US, Australia and others in Iraq and Afghanistan – that we also may be prosecuted for our crimes against civilians under the clock of ‘war’.