'Just obeying orders' no excuse for war crimes

Soldiers conducting the slaughter of innocent civilians under the excuse of obeying orders are war criminals, no matter which country is guilty, writes Mark Beeson.

ONE OF THE MORE infamous products of the criminal trials that followed World War 2 was the so-called “Nuremberg defence”. In essence, this revolved around the claim that people who were responsible for murdering innocent, mainly Jewish, civilians were just following the orders given to them by a superior.

Not only did the defendants claim this absolved them of personal responsibility, but their lawyers implied that there was something about German culture that made its people especially likely to obey those in positions of power. Clearly, this doesn’t account for the Germans that fled the Nazi regime or even those who tried to resist its growing menace before the war, but it may explain why some ideas took hold.

In one of the greatest of historical ironies, debates about personal responsibility and the legitimacy of orders from superiors have gained renewed currency. Israel’s most recent attack on Gaza, which resulted in at least 400 deaths, many of them women and children, may not be on quite the industrial scale that the Nazis eventually managed, but the brutality and sheer inhumanity is breathtaking, nonetheless.

Claims of morality do not reconcile with utter savagery

Israel's claim of right and morality cannot be reconciled with its utter savagery.

To be fair, many Israeli citizens regard Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a loathsome, corrupt autocrat who is using the conflict with Hamas as a way of preserving his grip on power and possibly staying out of gaol. Antisemitism plainly has nothing to do with such views and nor should it. Anyone who isn’t troubled by children being blown to pieces, no matter where they come from or which religion their parents subscribe to, really ought to seek counselling.

And yet, remarkably enough, many people in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) are apparently entirely comfortable about continuing to slaughter innocents. Indeed, some IDF personnel have fled abroad after filming themselves committing potential war crimes and posting the results on social media.

We know that the Nazis had little difficulty in recruiting people to commit murders on behalf of the state and that some sadists like Josef Mengele relished the opportunity to torture innocents in the course of “medical experiments”. We might have hoped that Jewish people above all might have learned just how dangerous a complete loss of humanity can be.

Clearly, this is not an exclusively Jewish problem. The Hamas terrorists who started the latest round of the Middle East’s seemingly never-ending conflicts were just as cold-blooded and inhuman. But what about the Russians who fire off guided missiles at targets in Ukraine, knowing that civilians will be the victims? What of the pilots of the American planes that recently bombed Yemen, where civilians seem to have been the principal victims?

No doubt war is a brutal affair. By definition, states want unquestioning and immediate obedience from the members of their armed when conflict occurs. When the bullets are flying not many people are likely to be debating the rules of engagement or whether the particular conflict they are involved in can be characterised as a “just war”.

But this is overwhelmingly not the reality faced by most combatants from wealthy, industrialised nations. Death can be delivered at arm’s length, with comparatively little danger to the pilots who pulverise communities with no air defences, for example. Do they high-five each other on their safe return to base? Is this really what they signed up for?

Murder of Gaza journalists a war crime

A glimpse into the plight of Palestinian journalists raises questions about how war crimes against workers are going largely ignored — even by unionists.

Much the same questions could be asked of the Australian armed forces, of course, as the recent inquiry into the conduct of the ADF in Afghanistan reminds us. “Unlawful killings”, as they are delicately described, are not something only other countries commit.

But no matter which country’s combatants commit such crimes, it’s important to ask how far up the chain of command responsibility should go. Netanyahu is a particularly glaring example of someone who is prepared to use extreme and inhumane violence against civilians to achieve his own selfish ends.

But what about former Prime Minister John Howard’s enthusiastic participation in the Iraq war? Remarkably enough, “only” four Australians lost their lives in this conflict, the only purpose of which was to demonstrate, yet again, Australia’s slavish fealty to the United States, no matter how great a folly it might have been contemplating. Still, better than the 650,000 “excess deaths” suffered by the Iraqis.

It is difficult now to find anyone willing to claim that the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan or Vietnam were a good idea, but even Vietnam doesn’t seem quite as cold-blooded, brutal and indefensible as the “war” in Gaza. If there’s one thing we really ought to learn from history (but no doubt won’t), it’s that we ought not to mindlessly do what we’re told — even if we’re in uniform.

This is an especially good idea now that the most powerful man in the world has found his trigger finger. It would be another remarkable historical irony if it takes the American military, still the most respected institution in the country, to save us from the looming Trumpian onslaught on democracy and individual freedom.

Some orders definitely shouldn’t be obeyed.

Mark Beeson is an adjunct professor at the University of Technology Sydney and Griffith University. He was previously Professor of International Politics at the University of Western Australia.