The level at which Henry Kissinger micromanaged the bombing of innocent civilians can not be overlooked. Even by fairly stringent definitions he is a war criminal.
Sure. But legally irrelevant. He didn’t command them. The person receiving the order could—and in many cases, should—have refused. That’s different if e.g. Nixon ordered it directly, because in that case it’s a military command.
Again, these terms had meaning. But they’re practically unenforceable even in public opinion, now, because they’re bandied about loosely. That gives cover for actual war criminals.
This isn’t true. The persons who carry out the order are liable. As is the commander.
Eichman was an SS officer! In what way did he lack command authority?
War criminal is the new RICO. Except the latter doesn’t lose legitimacy when the public mis-uses it.
This is a natural response to divergent opinions [1]. It’s the mechanism through which social media polarises populations [2][3].
Our brains simply didn’t evolve to deal with multiple hypotheses and different opinions, and most of us never get the training to do so calmly and effectively.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_sorting
[2] https://pnas.scienceconnect.io/api/oauth/authorize?ui_locale...
[3] https://academic.oup.com/poq/article/80/S1/351/2223236?login...
If you can't see the difference between defending a person and defending the meaning of a statute, sure. It makes life simpler when we turn up the contrast to absolutes.
Legality is entirely technical. When we lose sight of that, and turn legal terms like war criminal into colloquial ones, we sap the terminology of strength. If everyone horrific is a war criminal, then it’s all just banal evil. Nuremberg attempted to draw a line. This type of rhetoric loses its clarity.