Today in the block period we continued to watch the Nuremberg trials documentary, as well started to watch a similar documentary about the Vietnam War. Both of the videos showed what happens when someone commits a war crime. All of the war crime trials we have viewed there has been a common theme of who is responsible when many people are involved in a crime. It is hard to decide whether to charge the individual listening to orders, or the person who is commanding them. In the case of the Nazis, almost every SS officer involved was charged with something, if they were found. It was very easy to prove that the higher up officers had committed war crimes because there had been so much evidence available proving that they did. In the Vietnam war with the My Lai massacre it was slightly different. The highest up commander claimed that he did not know what his men were doing, and when he realized what they were doing was wrong he stopped them right away. It was a big question whether or not he should be responsible for the massacre. He told his troops to destroy everything, kill all the livestock, poison the wells, and kill all people, but the people had turned out to be innocent. Because the soldiers were told that everyone at the compound were enemies, upon their arrival they walked in believing everyone was enemies which allowed this massacre to happen.
They had pre judged who they were up against so it was hard to change their beliefs and think that they were all innocent civilians. Because both the individuals and the Commanders in both situations had reasons they could be innocent or guilty it was hard to determine who actually committed the war crime.
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