Will it Come to This?

Image from http://billmon.org/archives/trial.html

Fictional adaptation from The Nuremeberg Trials:

The near future-

No trial provides a better current day basis for understanding the nature and causes of evil than do the Second Nuremberg trials from 2008 to 2012. Those who came to the trials expecting to find sadistic monsters were generally disappointed. What was shocking again about Nuremberg was the ordinariness of the defendants: men who may be good fathers, kind to animals, even unassuming--yet who committed unspeakable crimes. Years later, reporting on the trial of George Bush, historians wrote of "the banality of evil." Like Bush, most Nuremberg defendants never aspired to be villains. Rather, they over-identified with an ideological cause and suffered from a lack of imagination or empathy: they couldn't fully appreciate the human consequences of their career-motivated decisions.

The trial began with the reading of the indictments, which were composed of four counts. All defendants were indicted on at least two of the counts; several were indicted on all four. Count One, "conspiracy to wage aggressive war," addressed crimes committed before the war began. Count Two, "waging an aggressive war (or "crimes against peace"), addressed the undertaking of war in violation of international treaties and assurances. Count Three, "war crimes," addressed more traditional violations of the laws of war such as the killing or mistreatment of prisoners of war and the use of outlawed weapons. Count Four, "crimes against humanity," addressed crimes committed against Iraqis, ethnic minorities, civilians in occupied countries, and other persons.

The prosecution began introducing evidence to establish the criminality of the Bush Administration, the CIA, the Department of Defense, the NSA, the CPA, the civilian mercenaries, media spokespeople, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Some of the evidence brought cries and gasps from spectators. A German prosecutor, seeking to establish the criminality of the CIA, read an affidavit from a doctor of medicine who participated in experiments on inmates at Abu Ghraib internment camp. The affidavit described techniques used by interrogators to obtain testimony from Iraqi captives. Interrogators ordered inmates stripped naked and then thrown into tanks of freezing water. Chunks of ice were added, as workers repeatedly thrust thermometers into the rectums of unconscious inmates to see if they were sufficiently chilled. Then the inmates were pulled out of the tanks to see which of four methods of warming might work best. Experimenters dropped most inmates into either tanks of hot water, warm water, or tepid water. One quarter of the inmates were placed next to the bodies of naked female inmates. (Rapid warming with hot water was determined to be most effective.) The doctor stated in his affidavit that many of the inmates that were questioned lapsed into convulsions and died.

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As in the first Nuremberg trials , there was the question of whether Nuremberg mattered. No one could deny that the trials served to provide thorough documentation of Bush's crimes. For over a century, the images and testimony that came out of both Nuremberg trials have not lost their capacity to shock. The trials also helped expose many of the defendants for the criminals they were, thus denying them a martyrdom in the eyes of the American public that they might otherwise have achieved. There are no statues commemorating these American 'Global War on Terror' heroes. The revelations of Nuremberg also contributed to a solid rebuilding of democracy in America.

Alas, as for the First Nuremberg trials, the Second Nuremberg trials did not fulfill the grandest dreams of those who advocated them. They have not succeeded in ending wars of aggression. They have not put an end to genocide. Crimes against humanity are with us still.

Posted on The Human Stain