Now I'm mad...

Where on earth did you read that I was saying Nuremberg was about military tactics?

The indictments handed down at Nuremberg were (and this is not something I am making up):

1) Planning or conspiring towards crimes against peace.

This means making national efforts, as a governmental or authoritative body, to plan, prepare for, and mobilize a nation to wage war with no external or internal threat to warrant the actions. Not something I feel the US, UK or France was doing... and the Soviets did it as a matter of ideology, but did it so poorly I guess no one noticed.

2) Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression or other crimes against peace.

Seems self explanatory.

3) War crimes.

This is much tougher, as it is vague in the best of times. However, as defined both prior to Nuremberg and after, it is not limited to those conducting wars of aggression. Regardless of who starts a war, this "statute" requires all nations to conduct their affairs according to the established "laws and customs of war". This is where the legitimacy of the Nuremberg Trials comes into question. Because Germany was waging wars against civilian populations and working actively to exterminate entire ethnic groups from existance... do we have the RIGHT to do the same to entire cities of civilian people? Does the fact that we did conduct active campaigns to turn cities like Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo and Kyoto into moonscapes of fused glass and charred brickwork mean we should have recused ourselves from judging the Wehrmacht leadership for doing the same thing (through alternate means) to the suburbs and ghettos of Krakow, Prague, Warsaw or Gdansk?

The fourth indictment was (obviously) "Crimes against humanity" and while I applaud what was trying to be accomplished with this indictment... again, our own conduct during and after the war made the nations who conducted the trial look less-than-likely for having made the judgments.

I hate being made to feel that I have to play devil's advocate against the Nuremberg Trials to men such as yourselves... much good did come from the trials, as Ryan said. What failed to come from the trials was what was most wanted by all involved: an end to future genocidal acts by nations or leaders of nations. In fact, the only figure that might ever have come to eclipse Hitler's Nazis was one of the "Allies" themselves... Uncle Joe Stalin.

What possible good could come from a repeat of that effort today? Nuremberg is seen in the light it is only because of the TOTAL victory that the Allies enjoyed. If we do not have the same degree of victory against terrorists and terrorism in general... what could we gain at all from trying bin Laden?

Honestly, I'm asking.