In opening the Nuremberg Criminal Trial on 21st November 1945, US Prosecutor, Justice Robert Jackson, emphasised the responsibility of the victors in bringing proceedings against Nazi Germany.
And the lofty reason he gave was because the wrongs which the court sought to condemn and punish were deemed “so calculated, malignant and devastating” that civilisation couldn’t tolerate their being ignored,” and the reason for that, Jackson suggested, was because “civilisation could not survive their being repeated.”
The first part of that statement is clearly untrue: The West has happily tolerated the genocide being perpetrated in Gaza and has even offered Israel military support and diplomatic cover for its crimes. As for the second part, it is too soon to tell.
Following the precedent set by Nuremberg, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant for crimes against humanity, provoking outrage in the US, and thereby affirming Churchill’s interpretation of Nuremberg as ‘Victor’s Justice’. President Biden ‘fundamentally rejected’ the ICC’s decision and described the warrants as ‘outrageous’. Senators, from both parties have called for the prosecutors of the ‘Kangaroo Court’ to be punished and sanctioned. Senator Lindsey Graham has reminded us in the UK of our ‘special relationship’ with the hegemon: warning that the British economy will be ‘crushed’ if such arrests are carried out or even enabled.
Other, more gung ho political representatives have cited the ‘Hague Invasion Act’ and called on the administration to promise to break Bibi out of prison should any one dare to arrest him. Such an escapade – which has precedent: the SS broke Mussolini out of a mountain stronghold when his fascist government collapsed in 1943 – would presumably be called something naff, like ‘Operation Free Our Boy’ given the American love of handles and the fact that this war criminal received endless standing ovations in congress.
Justice Jackson described Nuremburg, which was very much an American initiative, as “the most significant tribute power has ever paid to reason.” It’s unlikely that American foreign policy could be couched in such august terms today, but it wasn’t true even then.
Allen Dulles, head of the soon to be formed CIA, had already communicated to the Nazi government that a strong Germany was what the allies were seeking in a post-war Europe which needed to be kept safe for capitalism.
The real enemy was perceived to be the USSR, notwithstanding the fact that they had just lost 27 million of their number in the fight against fascism. And to counter that imagined Soviet threat, the US was busy recruiting hundreds of Nazi scientists – many straight out of concentration camp research facilities – to work on various weapon programs. ‘Operation Paper-Clip’ was the name given to the plan – whereby Nazis with useful backgrounds were identified by attaching a paper clip to their file so that they could be surreptitiously funnelled over to the US and given new lives.
Whilst an ambitious scheme, Paper-clip was fairly sedate in its operation. Having taken off their Nazi uniforms these scientists settled into American suburbia, drawing salaries and pensions, getting promotions and even winning awards for their work. Meanwhile in Europe, a more dynamic fascist-affiliated project was under way. ‘Operation Gladio’ – another Dulles initiative – involving former Nazis and local collaborators, so called ‘stay-behind’ units, who had assisted in the genocide of East European Jewry, were being recruited and trained to quell the imagined Soviet menace.
Over the next few decades these NATO-aligned military units deployed terror tactics in false-flag operations all over Europe with the aim of ensuring there was no swing to the political left…
-Susan Roberts
Read more in the following article: https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/12/18/why-there-wont-be-a-nuremberg-2-0/
