"Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason? Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason."
replace treason with "war crimes" and it would be as valid.
What constitutes "war crimes" is defined, in practice, by the winners of the war. I wonder if you notice that the winning side in a war never commits "war crimes" and if they do are never punished severely. If the Nazis had won, Roosevelt and Eisenhower would be the "war criminals" (please note the quotes). Stalin is not a "war criminal" in spite of being responsible for the deaths of more people than the Nazis ever killed.
The British were the first to use concentration camps to imprison the Boer women and children where they died like flies. How many British commanders w were prosecuted and punished, do you think?
Even when Americans lose wars, they are never prosecuted for war crimes. This is because American loss of a war does not (yet) involve the enemy invading the United States mainland and conducting prosecutions there.
Btw how many American soldiers were shot for My Lai?
From Wikipedia
My Lai "was the mass murder conducted by a unit of the U.S. Army on March 16, 1968 of 347 to 504 unarmed citizens in South Vietnam, all of whom were civilians and a majority of whom were women, children, and elderly people.
Many of the victims were sexually abused, beaten, tortured, and some of the bodies were found mutilated."
Certainly sounds like a "war crime" to me.
"After a four-month-long trial, in which he claimed that he was following orders from his commanding officer, Captain Medina, William Calley was convicted, on March 29, 1971, of premeditated murder for ordering the shootings. He was initially sentenced to life in prison. Two days later, however, President Nixon made the controversial decision to have Calley released from prison, pending appeal of his sentence. Calley's sentence was later adjusted, so that he would eventually serve four and one-half months in a military prison at Fort Benning."
"Most of the enlisted men who were involved in the events at My Lai had already left military service, and were thus legally exempt from prosecution. In the end, of the 26 men initially charged, Calley's was the only conviction."
So much for "war crimes" and "criminal regimes". Many non Americans believe the Bush/Cheney administration was a criminal regime waging unjustified "aggressive wars of conquest" (one of the main charges against the Japanese after world war 2, btw) Does that make them criminals?
Many Afghans believe that Predator drone attacks that kill civilians are "war crimes". Does that make the American army "criminal"?
Imo not really. "International Law" is much flimsier than the term would have us believe. Without a commonly understood idea of what a "crime" is, it is hard to have a law relating to that crime.
Are you claiming Americans never commit war crimes? Or that they are punished severely when they do? How is an American soldier fighting for his country in Iraq during Gulf War 2 any less "supporting a criminal regime" than this Serb commander downing planes that bomb his country?
Please note that I am not saying only Americans are war criminals or that the Nazis were not.
All sides in a war conduct "war crimes" (as seen by the victims). Who wins and what form the victory takes decides who is a "war criminal" (in terms of getting punished) and who is not.