While this sounds nice, it's just not so. The most obvious example in our current context is that the Germans weren't tried for their own "terror bombing" war crimes. "He did it first" is a recognized basis for self-defense in criminal law, for equitable estoppel in civil law, and has been a general principle of society, everywhere, since someone first came up with the "eye-for-an-eye" notion.
That doesn't make the conduct pleasant, or even useful, you understand.
- oldman
Of course they didn't. They'd look like complete hypocrites. Nevertheless, in 1949 willful killing of civilians became a war crime, less than five years after the major parties to WWII had willfully killed civilians en masse.
No. Just no... Murdering a man's family is not justified because "he did it first". No court in the world would forgive you for murdering a child just because the child's father murdered yours. That's what were talking about here; using military force to deliberately kill defenseless civilians. Women, children, infants.
