Telford Taylor: "The Chief Prosecutor"

The late Telford Taylor was a distinguished American military officer-cum-lawyer. He was the chief prosecutor at the 1946 Nuremberg War Crimes Trial. Taylor, who later became a law Professor, however believed that America too must be subjected to accountability over the war crimes of its own soldiers. In a 1970 book, entitled "Nuremberg And Vietnam: An American Tragedy" Taylor painted a gripping account of American war crimes in foreign lands against children and other defenceless non-combatants.


 Excerpt: "If the silence of Nuremberg answers no questions about what ought to be the law, it certainly asks them, and these unanswered questions are especially relevant to American bombing policies not in North, but in South Vietnam. Is there any significant difference between killing a babe-in-arms by a bomb dropped from a high-flying aircraft, or by an infantryman's pointblank gunfire? As we have seen, by common practice of the antagonists in the Second World War massive aerial bombardment of population centres, for the purpose of destroying habitations and killing or terrorising the population, became an accepted part 'strategic air warfare.' If that is to be tolerated under customary law of war, would that have justified Allied ground forces in entering German and Japanese towns with guns blazing, and killing off infants who survived the bombing? Few would support such a proposition, but the distinction is seldom articulated other than by describing the aviator's act as more 'impersonal' than the ground soldier's...An important ingredient of this principle of reason and necessity is proportion...The rights and wrongs of Hiroshima are debatable, but I have never heard a plausible justification of Nagasaki." My take: The application of war crime laws seem largely to affect the leaders and soldiers of weaker countries. When great powers like the U.S., UK and France commit war crimes, nobody hold them accountable. Yet, these are the same powers that take the moral high ground to preach human rights to weaker countries.


By Na-Allah Mohammed Zagga