Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Who is responsible in a war crime?
I researched more when I got home about who is responsible in war crimes and why more people should feel bad for the actions that they pursue in a crime. War crimes were happening all over the world during World War II and many followers of the Nazi Party took place in the killing of the Jews. We read a document written in the point of view of one of the Nazi commanders. He states that he was in great pain seeing these children and men suffering and having to be burned alive and dying in the gas chambers. If he felt any sympathy towards them, he would be killed as well. Back to the idea of who is responsible for the war crime, I would say that anyone who lets or does the duty of killing is considered responsible. It doesn't matter if you didn't help with the actual killing, but if you witnessed the scene you are held responsible. The Nazi commander did not think he was responsible for anything since he just gave the order to have someone kill the Jews, but in reality he could have stopped this and it wouldn't have been a war crime anymore.
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What did you learn from your research?
ReplyDeleteAlso, i disagree with your statement that watching a crime is as bad as doing it. I've seen a few other people that have talked about the same topic who have somewhat similar beliefs to yours. However, I also heard about certain people (generals, members of the nazi party etc) standing back and watching others die because they did not have a choice. Many people simply could not do anything because they would be killed for intervening with all of the killing. So, just because a person watches the murder of another person, does necessarily not mean that the observer is at fault.
Your argument doesn't make any sense to me. I mean, tons of atrocities go on all around the world every day, and I have a feeling that you probably don't do very much to stop them, e.g. the Iraq War. In which case, according to your system of ethics, you are just as responsible for these things as the Nazi Commander was in Germany.
ReplyDeleteI think you are underestimating the amount of courage, determination, perhaps even stupidity it takes to try and fight against the Nazi's from within. What do you think would have happened if a German had tried to stand up to the Nazis? He probably would have been shot and killed. It is completely understandable that many people Germany did not take action against their government even though they felt that their government's actions were wrong.
Yes, i happen to disagree as well. I think that watching a war crime is just as bad as committing one because you are witnessing the killings opposed to trying to stop them. However, I understand that you would need extreme power in order to stop the horrible actions that the Nazi's did. An example of this would be, if you saw somebody drowning and you decided not to help them and just watch them as the sink, you technically wouldn't be responsible but you would at the same time for not saving the person. But you can have many views on the idea of a War Crime.
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