At the end of WWII the Military Tribunals, set up at Nuremberg Gremany and Sugamo Prison in Tokyo by the Allies, prosecuted thousands of war crimes which resulted in executions for some and long prison terms for others, of those convicted. I closely followed those events day by day as they unfolded. I was proud of my country’s actions. There was a background rumble in both Japan and Germany that these trials were simply “Victors Justice”. “NOT SO!” I thought, “We are better than that.”
One of the common teams at these trials was, “We were just following orders” which according to the Tribunals was not a legitimate defense at all. Both the Governments of Germany and Japan approved of the actions that were later deemed war crimes and claimed they were legal. At the result of their approval, some of them (Lawyers and Judges) were convicted of war crimes.
The release of the Senate Torture Report summery makes the WWII War Crimes trials, a big obscene joke.