Laos and Cambodia weren't participants in the war but that doesn't really feel like it matters all that much. Whenever I talk about the bombings of Cambodia and Laos with Americans (who - liberals and conservatives alike feel they must always defend) I sometimes here "well we bombed cities in Germany and Japan in WW2 and no one talks about those being war crimes". But were they? I really don't know much about those bombings. My gut says yes they were also war crimes but we just accept them because they were combatant countries?

  • footfaults [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    In Fog Of War, McNamara says that had the allies not won, they would have been war crimes.

    https://youtu.be/RceLAhPOS9Q

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      If you want to see this in action in the present day; What America and Saudi are doing in Yemen is an order of magnitude more destructive and murderous than anything that has happened in Ukraine, yet American and European commentators are breathlessly calling for war crimes trials against the Russians.

    • Leon_Grotsky [comrade/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      McNamara is actually quoting Curtis "Bombs Away" LeMay when he says that:

      When asked about U.S. actions in Japan during World War II, McNamara responded, “LeMay said if we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals. And I think he’s right. . . . LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose, and not immoral if you win?”

        • Leon_Grotsky [comrade/them]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Absolutely!

          I mean to iterate that what I think is most interesting about this quote is McNamara is criticizing a butcher like LeMay with his own words.