Re: In today's news...
This is a big post, so I'll cut it in bits for a reply
The defense of superior orders was very specifically denied during the Nuremberg trials. If we start accepting it as a defense now, then we have to admit that those we tried were not guilty. Not only this, it sets a pretty fucking dangerous precedent too. Saying that even though you know what's wrong and what's right, and willfully ignored that, making the choice that your life was worth more than those of the non-combatants that you MURDERED, it's okay as long as someone up the command chain said to do it.
Nuremberg was a show trial, while what happened was shit and the people trailed were definitely not good people, the trial was mostly just for show. Many of the proofs and evidences used at it have later on been shown to be false(Jew-skin lampshades, human fat based soap, etc)
It's definitely not acceptable to just say "Orders are orders", I agree there. We're all ultimately responsible for our own actions, and if everyone said no, then it just plain wouldn't happen.
(More on being personally responsible),in fact threatening me is a good way to get me to not do what you want. And let's also skip the "reverse psychology" thing, that doesn't work either.
Threatening me works the same, it gets me to not do it just because threats will never pay off. Sadly there are many people who can be manipulated or threatened into doing horrible things. And many who do them out of their own free will
Who're we talking about here anyway? The guy that opened and closed the gate at the prison camps? Fuck it, let him get away. The guys operating the gas chambers or giving the orders to and shit like that are the ones I believe we're pursuing. If we still are at all? I actually don't know. How much money is too much to spend on this? How much was spent? How many nazis did they catch? How many didn't they catch? How much does each nazi cost to catch? Is this even being funded by governments or is it a private effort?
Generally the guy who opened or closed the prison gate, even a few administrative staff these days. Anyone really important has either disappeared without trace or has already been caught (Though rumours that Hitler lives in Argentine are always popping up every now and then). Or they've been given a job by the US/USSR to work for them, in the case of scientists who used the camps for their own experiments(And plenty of Japanese ones who used Chinese POWs as their subjects too)
Funding tends to come from private organisations as far as I am aware, and it tends to cost a LOT because the easy to catch ones have already been caught by now
If your objection isn't solely on a monetary basis, but also on man-hours, how do you know this isn't what these people want to be doing? Maybe they'd just quit and find a different job if they were told they'd have to give up and go join the gang-unit.
I don't mind them doing it. I just think it's a waste of time and the media circus around it is bullshit. The important ones are dead or in prison, everyone moved on. It's time for the media to stop caring just like they stopped caring about other cause of the moment things(Kony 2012 anyone?)
As far as allied war crimes, I'm pretty sure most of them that anything was done about were taken care of by the military bodies within which those soldiers served, with court martials and the like. Though I imagine most of them were swept under the rug. I believe there was one guy who was dishonorably discharged and sentenced to prison time for killing something like 35 POWS in Italy. The Soviet Union technically couldn't commit any war crimes because they hadn't signed the Geneva convention at that time, but that is kind of a cheap way to get out of it.
I probably forgot to address something, but I'm hungry right now and need to go eat.
Yeah, there are plenty who were court marshalled, but sadly some things(Such as putting the defeated German army in open fields and fencing them in so they wouldn't count as POWs but as 'disarmed combatants' and as such did not need to be given food or shelter according to the Geneva convention) were done by people higher up in the chain of command and as far as I know they were never really punished for it. As for others, The Japanese government at this point still
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that their country has committed war crimes, and
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was even given immunity for extremely horrific experiments.
It's all really messed up and... Wait, what was this about again?
Oh, right, news.
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Portugal decides the people should not be allowed to choose their government. As the people voted to stop austerity, wage cuts, and tax raises that were forced on them by the EU. As such, the president has said he will ignore the election and the people and continue austerity because he believes he knows better