Gal Giap, aged 102, is dead

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Viewing Mao and Alexander as war criminals by modern standards is too easy to have to denote here.

Lee's campaign in Pennsylvania was specifically aimed at two goals: 1) political -- taking the war to the enemy and making them feel threatened and 2) taking lots of supplies and other stuff from the North. While Heth's move at Gettysburg was probably NOT prompted by raiding for shoes, Lee's troops were taking all sorts of stuff -- under orders -- and not issuing vouchers or indemnifying the locals in any way. Not a crime against humanity, but a war crime by modern definition.

Napoleon's armies were infamous, even by the standards of the time, for living off the land at the expense of the locals and beating/killing any local who attempted to dissuade them. Napoleon could not have been unaware of the practice. Moreover, his orders for dealing with Haiti -- even presuming RIbbe is off base on the worst episodes -- constitute not only war crimes but crimes against humanity by modern definition.

Rommel was in charge of the defenses of the so-called Atlantic Wall. Efforts to improve those defenses utilized "slave labor" conscripted from local populations and from prisoners of war. The basic means of promoting cooperation was simple. Refuse a job, no food ration cards -- good luck eating. Rommel may not, at that point, have been the ardent Nazi he was through the Anschluss, but he was certainly aware of who was building his fortifications...and thus, by modern definitions (and some contemporary ones) guilty of war crimes.


It is rather easy to take the modern definition and brand virtually any past military leader as a war criminal. Giap actually qualifies more quickly than most for his complicity with the NV POW system.

[Fragony]

Napoleon's armies were infamous, even by the standards of the time, for living off the land at the expense of the locals and beating/killing any local who attempted to dissuade them. Napoleon could not have been unaware of the practice. Moreover, his orders for dealing with Haiti -- even presuming RIbbe is off base on the worst episodes -- constitute not only war crimes but crimes against humanity by modern definition.

France has always been pretty damn brutal, we can only they don't get the GRANDEUR-fever again