Talk:United States war crimes

Kunduz

Shouldn’t the Kunduz hospital airstrike be listed here somewhere? 2601:C1:4100:6AC0:DDCD:6E1E:BD1C:1B49 (talk) 05:07, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

There would have to be a consensus among reliable sources that this is the case. I suspect this would be difficult as war crimes generally require intent or at the very least gross negligence/reckless disregard. Also war crimes are not black and white - bombing civilians is not in itself a war crime, you also have to consider military necessity, proportionality, and mitigating circumstances.

Obviously the Pentagon is a biased source but see what their report found below:

"The label 'war crimes' is typically reserved for intentional acts – intentionally targeting civilians or intentionally targeting protected objects. The investigation found that the tragic incident resulted from a combination of unintentional human errors and equipment failures, and that none of the personnel knew that they were striking a medical facility."

source:

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/04/29/476178817/pentagon-report-says-airstrikes-on-afghan-hospital-wasnt-a-war-crime

Its not about whether the air strike was right or wrong (that much would be obvious), it’s about whether it meets the legal standards of a war crime. Because the bombing was clearly unintentional it’s much harder to determine whether or not these standards have been met.

The practical implication for us as editors is that for complex examples such as this there is a lack of consensus among reliable sources as to whether or not they constitute war crimes which limits what we can include in the article. John wiki: If you have a problem, don't mess with my puppy... 10:20, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

US nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

This list is woefully incomplete without mentioning American nuclear attacks on the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.

https://hpmmuseum.jp/modules/exhibition/index.php?action=CornerView&corner_id=19&lang=eng

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/09/dont-let-the-victors-define-morality-hiroshima-was-always-indefensible 98.110.89.116 (talk) 02:54, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

You need to provide multiple RS that the atomic attacks were war crimes. An opinion in the Guardian and the Hiroshima Peace Museum (which is obviously WP:BIASED) aren't enough. The issue is highly debatable. Mztourist (talk) 03:55, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Agree with @Mztourist. As I’ve previously mentioned, in complex examples such as this it is very difficult to find a consensus among RS. What constitutes a war crime isn’t a moral/ethical judgement, it’s a legal one. Bombing civilians is not outright prohibited in the course of war if it meets the standards of military necessity and proportionality. In the case of they atomic bombings there are strong arguments that they met the above standards so you’ll struggle to find a consensus among reliable sources: although some will say they were war crimes, a similar amount will say they are not. Even the guardian article you linked above only calls it morally indefensible - yes it alludes to the fact that some people consider it a war crime but it doesn’t go as far as explicitly labelling it as such. In other words, there is nothing definitive to work with so there is a limited amount we as editors can do.

As a side note, as someone with a fair amount of expertise in the matter, that guardian article is very poor and a good example of the amount of historical revisionism surrounding the topic. There is limited evidence that those quotes actually reflect what happened at the time and aren’t just a response to how society later reacted to the bombings. It also ignores a lot of key context and fails to consider what would have happened if the bombs had not been dropped: the Japanese empire were killing more non-combatants per month than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined, the alternative to the a-bombs was a strategic bombing campaign that would have taken months and resulted in millions of Japanese civilian deaths, and the hardliner generals who had a veto in government would have refused to surrender (which nearly happened anyway). Yes there were racial elements involved but they don’t adequately explain the decision making and relative to everything else really aren’t that important in the overall story. Yes the bombings were horrific and objectively immoral, however so was everything else happening at the time and when put into context the alternative outcome would have almost certainly been far worse. There is still an argument to be made that war crimes were committed but it is very shaky and you’ll never find a consensus on the matter. John wiki: If you have a problem, don't mess with my puppy... 11:04, 8 April 2023 (UTC)