Since I made the comparison between America and Germany today, I have been told that my argument is absurd. Here is my response.
Nuremburg chief prosecutor Ferencz said pre-emptive war against Iraq was a war crime, the same as that committed by the Germans in WWII.
If someone wants to make the case that America is better in kind, not just scale, make it. (I guess one can say “we still haven’t tried to kill an entire racial group even if we did engage in pre-emptive war.” Feel free to do so.)
- Pre-emptive war: Check
- Systematic Torture: Check
- Genocide: Nope
- Number of dead: Much less but still plenty, especially if you’re an Iraqi
But just trying to dismiss the comparison out of hand only tells me that some people aren’t looking hard enough in the mirror. It is understandable, of course. No one likes having the standards they apply to others applied to them.
However, I would find it intellectually honest if Americans were to apologize to those Germans they hung for pre-emptive war and other non-Holocaust crimes and say that those crimes, in retrospect, aren’t that big a deal, and that in any case, America after WWII should have been looking ahead, and not behind. You can also apologize to the Japanese who were tried for waterboarding.
Go ahead and be the first.