I state all this because Robert McNamara passed away last week. Do you remember him? In the 1960s they used to call the Vietnam War, "McNamara's War".
Only decades later did McNamara confess that what he had been involved in with during both WWII with Japan bombings and in the Vietnam War again might truly be called war crimes-i.e. that is, if America had been the loser in WWII and if Vietnamese forces had captured him in the 1960s.
If you don't believe me, watch the classic war documentary, THE FOG OF WAR!!
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/7/vietnam_war_architect_robert_mcnamara_dies
In Errol Morris' Documentary, "THE FOG OF WAR" McNamara stated clearly, "I don't fault Truman for dropping the nuclear bomb. The US-Japanese War was one of the most brutal wars in all of human history. Kamikaze pilots, suicide-Unbelievable. What one can criticize is that the human race prior to that timeand todayhas not really grappled with what are called the rules of war. Was there a rule then that says you should bomb, shouldn't kill, shouldn't burn to death 100,000 civilians in a night? Lemay said if we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals. And I think he's right. He, and I'd say I, were behaving as war criminals. 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?"
So, in a sense, Der Spiegel writers do have a point in criticizing other lands, their people, and their memories of war, crimes, and occupation.
Many people are called war criminals and prosecuted only when they are on the losing side in a war. Meanwhile, others are never prosecuted as perpetrators of war-crimes because they are never arrested, prosecutedand if they do not lose the war.
However, humanity, its victims, and I would really appreciate it if peoples and families of perpetrators would admit to the crimes and apologize in their history books and museums for the crimes of theirsand of their forefathers.
NOTES
Germany Relied on Outside Help in the Monstrous Murder Project,
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,625824-3,00.html
"Hitler's European Holocaust Helpers",
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,625824,00.html
"Many Foreign Helpers Acted Voluntarily"
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,625824-2,00.html
"Vietnam War Architect Robert McNamara Dies"
