War crimes by U.S. armed forces
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United States war crimes are violations of the
law of war The law of war is the component of international law that regulates the conditions for initiating war (''jus ad bellum'') and the conduct of warring parties (''jus in bello''). Laws of war define sovereignty and nationhood, states and territor ...
committed by members of the United States Armed Forces after the signing of the
Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 are a series of international treaties and declarations negotiated at two international peace conferences at The Hague in the Netherlands. Along with the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Conventions were amon ...
and the Geneva Conventions. The United States prosecutes offenders through the
War Crimes Act of 1996 The War Crimes Act of 1996 is a law that defines a war crime to include a " grave breach of the Geneva Conventions", specifically noting that "grave breach" should have the meaning defined in any convention (related to the laws of war) to whic ...
and articles from the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). The United States signed the 1998 Rome Statute but never ratified the treaty, taking the position that the International Criminal Court (ICC) lacks fundamental checks and balances. The
American Service-Members' Protection Act The American Service-Members' Protection Act (ASPA, Title 2 of ), known informally as the Hague Invasion Act, is a United States federal law which aims "to protect United States military personnel and other elected and appointed officials of the ...
of 2002 further limited US involvement with the ICC. The ICC was conceived as a body to try war crimes when states do not have effective or reliable processes to investigate for themselves. The United States says that it has investigated many of the accusations alleged by the ICC prosecutors as having occurred in Afghanistan, and thus does not accept ICC jurisdiction over its nationals. This article contains a chronological list of incidents in which war crimes occurred or were alleged to have occurred that include the
summary execution A summary execution is an execution in which a person is accused of a crime and immediately killed without the benefit of a full and fair trial. Executions as the result of summary justice (such as a drumhead court-martial) are sometimes include ...
of captured enemy combatants, the
mistreatment of prisoners Prisoner abuse is the mistreatment of persons while they are under arrest or incarcerated. Prisoner abuse can include physical abuse, psychological abuse, sexual abuse, torture, or other acts such as refusal of essential medication. Physical a ...
during
interrogation Interrogation (also called questioning) is interviewing as commonly employed by law enforcement officers, military personnel, intelligence agencies, organized crime syndicates, and terrorist organizations with the goal of eliciting useful informa ...
, the use of torture, the use of violence against civilians and non-combatants, and the unnecessary destruction of civilian property.


Definition

War crimes are defined as acts which violate the laws and customs of war established by the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, or acts that are grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and
Additional Protocol I Protocol I (sometimes referred to as Additional Protocol I or AP 1) is a 1977 amendment Protocol (diplomacy), protocol to the Geneva Conventions relating to the protection of victims of ''international conflicts'', extending to "armed conflict ...
and
Additional Protocol II Protocol II is a 1977 amendment protocol to the Geneva Conventions relating to the protection of victims of ''non-international'' armed conflicts. It defines certain international laws that strive to provide better protection for victims of ...
. The
Fourth Geneva Convention The Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, more commonly referred to as the Fourth Geneva Convention and abbreviated as GCIV, is one of the four treaties of the Geneva Conventions. It was adopted in Augus ...
of 1949 extends the protection of civilians and
prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held Captivity, captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold priso ...
during military occupation, even in the case where there is no armed resistance, for the period of one year after the end of hostilities, although the occupying power should be bound to several provisions of the convention as long as "such Power exercises the functions of government in such territory."


List of war crimes in chronological order


Philippine–American War

Following the end of the Spanish–American War in 1898, Spain ceded the Captaincy General of the Philippines to the United States as part of the peace settlement. This triggered a conflict between the United States Armed Forces and revolutionary First Philippine Republic under President
Emilio Aguinaldo Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy (: March 22, 1869February 6, 1964) was a Filipino revolutionary, statesman, and military leader who is the youngest president of the Philippines (1899–1901) and is recognized as the first president of the Philippine ...
, and the Moro fighters. During the March across Samar, Brigadier General
Jacob H. Smith General Jacob Hurd Smith (January 29, 1840 – March 1, 1918) was a U.S. Army officer notorious for ordering indiscriminate retaliation on the island of Samar in response to what is called the Balangiga massacre during the Philippine–Amer ...
ordered Major
Littleton Waller Littleton Tazewell "Tony" Waller (September 26, 1856 – July 13, 1926) was a career officer in the United States Marine Corps, who served in the Spanish–American War, the Caribbean and Asia. He was court martialled and acquitted for acti ...
, commanding officer of a battalion of 315
U.S. Marines The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the Marines, maritime land force military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary warfare, exped ...
assigned to Smith's forces in Samar, to kill all persons "who are capable of bearing arms in actual hostilities" over the age of ten years old. The widespread massacre of Filipino civilians followed as American columns marched across the island. All food and trade to Samar were cut off, and the widespread destruction of homes, crops, and draft animals occurred, with the intention of starving the Filipino revolutionaries and the civilian populace into submission. Smith used his troops in sweeps of the interior to search for guerrilla bands and in attempts to capture Philippine General Vicente Lukbán, but he did nothing to prevent contact between the guerrillas and the population. Waller stated in a report that over an eleven-day period his men burned 255 dwellings, shot 13 carabaos, and killed 39 people. An exhaustive research made by a British writer in the 1990s put the figure at about 2,500 dead; Filipino historians believe it to be around 50,000. As a consequence of his order in Samar, Smith became known as "Howling Wilderness Smith". In May 1902, Smith was convicted at his court-martial in the United States for the order he gave to Waller in Samar. On March 5, 1906, the First Battle of Bud Dajo, also known as the Moro Crater Massacre, began when an assault force consisting of soldiers from the 6th Infantry, the
19th Infantry The 19th Infantry Regiment ("Rock of Chickamauga") is a United States Army infantry regiment which is assigned to the US Army Training and Doctrine Command, with the assignment of conducting Basic and Advanced Infantry Training. Lineage 1st Ba ...
, the 4th Cavalry, the 28th Artillery Battery, the U.S. naval gunboat ''Pampanga'', and men from the Philippine Constabulary opened fire with mountain guns against Moro fortifications in the Bud Dajo crater which was populated by 800 to 1,000 Tausug villagers. Additionally, a machine gun was used to sweep the crest of the mountain. At the battle's conclusion by March 8, only six Moros had survived, with 99% having been killed. Moro men in the crater possessed melee weapons, and while fighting was limited to ground action on Jolo, use of naval gunfire contributed significantly to the overwhelming firepower brought to bear against the Moros. One account claims that the Moros, armed with knives and spears, refused to surrender and held their positions. Some of the defenders rushed the Americans and were cut down by artillery fire. The Americans charged the surviving Moros with fixed bayonets, and the Moros fought back with their kalis, barung, improvised grenades made with
black powder Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). Th ...
and seashells. Despite the inconsistencies among various accounts of the battle, one in which all occupants of Bud Dajo were gunned down, another in which defenders resisted in fierce hand-to-hand combat, all accounts agree that few, if any, Moros survived, and the description of it being a "battle" became a matter of dispute. The author
Vic Hurley Gerald V. (Vic) Hurley (1898–1978) was a record-breaking athlete, adventurer, expert on the Philippine Islands, military officer, and prolific author. His published books include a non-fiction series relating to the Philippine Islands in the firs ...
wrote, "By no stretch of the imagination could Bud Dajo be termed a 'battle'".
Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...
strongly condemned the incident in several articles he published, and commented: "In what way was it a battle? It has no resemblance to a battle. We cleaned up our four days' work and made it complete by butchering these helpless people." Major Hugh Scott, the province's District Governor said that those who fled to the crater "declared they had no intention of fighting, ran up there only in fright, and had some crops planted and desired to cultivate them." In response to criticism, Wood's explanation of the high number of women and children killed stated that the women of Bud Dajo dressed as men and joined in the combat, and that the men used children as living shields. Hagedorn supports this explanation, by presenting an account of Lieutenant Gordon Johnston, who was allegedly severely wounded by a female warrior. A second explanation was given by the Governor-General of the Philippines, Henry Clay Ide, who reported that the women and children were collateral damage, having been killed during the artillery barrages. These conflicting explanations of the high number of women and child casualties brought accusations of a cover-up, further adding fire to the criticism. According to Joshua Gedacht, Wood's and Ide's explanation is at odds with the use of the machine-gun that was placed to the edge of the crater to fire upon its occupants; Gedacht states that the high number of non-combatants killed can be explained as the result of indiscriminate machine-gun fire.


Banana Wars


First and Second Caco Wars

During the First (1915) and Second (1918-1920) Caco Wars which were both waged during the United States occupation of Haiti (1915–1934), human rights abuses were committed against the native Haitian population. Overall, the United States Marine Corps and the Haitian gendarmerie killed several thousands of Haitian civilians during the rebellions between 1915 and 1920, though the exact death toll is unknown. During Senate hearings in 1921, the commandant of the Marine Corps reported that, in the 20 months of active unrest, 2,250 Haitians had been killed. However, in a report to the Secretary of the Navy, he reported the death toll as being 3,250. Haitian historian
Roger Gaillard Roger Gaillard may refer to: * Roger Gaillard (historian) (1923–2000), Haitian historian and novelist * (1893–1970), French actor (''The Threepenny Opera'', ''La Chienne'', '' Le Diable boiteux'') * Roger Gaillard (journalist) (1947–2010), S ...
, estimated that in total, including rebel combatants and civilians, at least 15,000 Haitians were killed during the occupation. According to Paul Farmer, the higher estimates are not accepted by most historians outside Haiti. Mass killings of civilians were allegedly committed by United States Marines and their subordinates in the Haitian gendarmerie. According to Haitian historian
Roger Gaillard Roger Gaillard may refer to: * Roger Gaillard (historian) (1923–2000), Haitian historian and novelist * (1893–1970), French actor (''The Threepenny Opera'', ''La Chienne'', '' Le Diable boiteux'') * Roger Gaillard (journalist) (1947–2010), S ...
, such killings involved rape,
lynchings Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an ex ...
, summary executions, burning villages and deaths by burning. Internal documents of the United States Army justified the killing of women and children, describing them as "auxiliaries" of rebels. A private memorandum of the Secretary of the Navy criticized “indiscriminate killings against natives”. American officers who were responsible for acts of violence were given
Haitian Creole Haitian Creole (; ht, kreyòl ayisyen, links=no, ; french: créole haïtien, links=no, ), commonly referred to as simply ''Creole'', or ''Kreyòl'' in the Creole language, is a French-based creole language spoken by 10–12million people wor ...
names such as "Linx" for Commandant Freeman Lang and "Ouiliyanm" for Lieutenant Lee Williams. According to American journalist H.J. Seligman, Marines would practice "bumping off Gooks", describing the shooting of civilians in a manner which was similar to killing for sport. During the Second Caco War of 1918–1919, many Caco prisoners were summarily executed by Marines and the gendarmerie on orders from their superiors. On June 4, 1916, Marines executed caco General Mizrael Codio and ten others after they were captured in
Fonds-Verrettes Fonds-Verrettes ( ht, Fonvèrèt) is a commune in the Croix-des-Bouquets Arrondissement, in the Ouest department of Haiti. It has 40,224 inhabitants and lies adjacent to the Dominican Republic–Haiti border The Dominican Republic–Haiti borde ...
. In Hinche in January 1919, Captain Ernest Lavoie of the gendarmerie, a former United States Marine, allegedly ordered the killing of nineteen caco rebels according to American officers, though no charges were ever filed against him due to the fact that no physical evidence of the killing was ever presented. The torture of Haitian rebels and the torture of Haitians who were suspected of rebelling against the United States was a common practice among the occupying Marines. Some of the methods of torture included the use of
water cure Water cure may refer to: * Water cure (therapy), a course of medical treatment by hydrotherapy * Water cure (torture), a form of torture in which a person is forced to drink large quantities of water * ''The Water Cure'', a 1916 film starring Olive ...
, hanging prisoners by their genitals and ''ceps'', which involved pushing both sides of the tibia with the butts of two guns.


World War II


Pacific theater

On January 26, 1943, the submarine USS ''Wahoo'' fired on survivors in lifeboats from the Imperial Japanese Army transport ship '' Buyo Maru''. Vice Admiral
Charles A. Lockwood Charles Andrews Lockwood (May 6, 1890 – June 6, 1967) was a vice-admiral and flag officer of the United States Navy. He is known in submarine history as the commander of ComSubPac, Submarine Force Pacific Fleet during World War II. He devised ...
asserted that the survivors were
Japanese soldiers Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...
who had turned machine-gun and rifle fire on the ''Wahoo'' after it surfaced, and that such resistance was common in
submarine warfare Submarine warfare is one of the four divisions of underwater warfare, the others being anti-submarine warfare, mine warfare and mine countermeasures. Submarine warfare consists primarily of diesel and nuclear submarines using torpedoes, missi ...
. According to the submarine's executive officer, the fire was intended to force the Japanese soldiers to abandon their boats and none of them were deliberately targeted. Historian Clay Blair stated that the submarine's crew fired first and the shipwrecked survivors returned fire with handguns. The survivors were later determined to have included Allied POWs of the
British Indian Army The British Indian Army, commonly referred to as the Indian Army, was the main military of the British Raj before its dissolution in 1947. It was responsible for the defence of the British Indian Empire, including the princely states, which co ...
's 2nd Battalion,
16th Punjab Regiment The 16th Punjab Regiment was an infantry regiment of the British Indian Army from 1922 to 1947. Upon the Partition of India, it was transferred to the newly-raised Pakistan Army. It ceased to exist in this form in 1956, when it was amalgamated ...
, who were guarded by Japanese Army Forces from the 26th Field Ordnance Depot. Of 1,126 men originally aboard ''Buyo Maru'', 195 Indians and 87 Japanese died, some killed during the torpedoing of the ship and some killed by the shootings afterwards. During and after the Battle of the Bismarck Sea (March 3–5, 1943), U.S. PT boats and Allied aircraft attacked Japanese rescue vessels as well as approximately 1,000 survivors from eight sunken Japanese troop transport ships. The stated justification was that the Japanese personnel were close to their military destination and would be promptly returned to service in the battle. Many of the Allied aircrew accepted the attacks as necessary, while others were sickened. American servicemen in the
Pacific War The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vast ...
deliberately killed Japanese soldiers who had surrendered, according to Richard Aldrich, a professor of history at the University of Nottingham. Aldrich published a study of diaries kept by United States and
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
n soldiers, wherein it was stated that they sometimes massacred prisoners of war. According to John Dower, in "many instances ... Japanese who did become prisoners were killed on the spot or ''en route'' to prison compounds." According to Professor Aldrich, it was common practice for U.S. troops not to take prisoners. His analysis is supported by British historian Niall Ferguson, who also says that, in 1943, "a secret .S.intelligence report noted that only the promise of ice cream and three days leave would ... induce American troops not to kill surrendering Japanese." Ferguson states that such practices played a role in the ratio of Japanese prisoners to dead being 1:100 in late 1944. That same year, efforts were taken by Allied high commanders to suppress "take no prisoners" attitudes among their personnel (because it hampered intelligence gathering), and to encourage Japanese soldiers to surrender. Ferguson adds that measures by Allied commanders to improve the ratio of Japanese prisoners to Japanese dead resulted in it reaching 1:7, by mid-1945. Nevertheless, "taking no prisoners" was still "standard practice" among U.S. troops at the
Battle of Okinawa The , codenamed Operation Iceberg, was a major battle of the Pacific War fought on the island of Okinawa by United States Army (USA) and United States Marine Corps (USMC) forces against the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA). The initial invasion of ...
, in April–June 1945. Ferguson also suggests that "it was not only the fear of disciplinary action or of dishonor that deterred German and Japanese soldiers from surrendering. More important for most soldiers was the perception that prisoners would be killed by the enemy anyway, and so one might as well fight on." Ulrich Straus, a U.S. Japanologist, suggests that Allied troops on the front line intensely hated Japanese military personnel and were "not easily persuaded" to take or protect prisoners, because they believed that Allied personnel who surrendered got "no mercy" from the Japanese. Allied troops were told that Japanese soldiers were inclined to feign surrender in order to make surprise attacks, a practice which was outlawed by the Hague Convention of 1907. Therefore, according to Straus, "Senior officers opposed the taking of prisoners on the grounds that it needlessly exposed American troops to risks ..." When prisoners were taken at the
Guadalcanal campaign The Guadalcanal campaign, also known as the Battle of Guadalcanal and codenamed Operation Watchtower by American forces, was a military campaign fought between 7 August 1942 and 9 February 1943 on and around the island of Guadalcanal in th ...
, Army interrogator Captain Burden noted that many times POWs were shot during transport because "it was too much bother to take hemin". U.S. historian James J. Weingartner attributes the very low number of Japanese in U.S. prisoner of war compounds to two important factors, namely (1) a Japanese reluctance to surrender, and (2) a widespread American "conviction that the Japanese were 'animals' or 'subhuman' and unworthy of the normal treatment accorded to prisoners of war." The latter reason is supported by Ferguson, who says that "Allied troops often saw the Japanese in the same way that Germans regarded Russians—as '' Untermenschen'' (i.e., "subhuman")."


=Mutilation of Japanese war dead

= In the Pacific theater, American servicemen engaged in human trophy collecting. The phenomenon of "trophy-taking" was widespread enough that discussion of it featured prominently in magazines and newspapers.
Franklin Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
himself was reportedly given a gift of a letter-opener made of a Japanese soldier's arm by U.S. Representative
Francis E. Walter Francis Eugene Walter (May 26, 1894 – May 31, 1963) was a Democratic Party (United States), Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania. Walter was a prominent member of the House Un-American Activities Committee ...
in 1944, which Roosevelt later ordered to be returned, calling for its proper burial. The news was also widely reported to the Japanese public, where the Americans were portrayed as "deranged, primitive, racist and inhuman". This, compounded by a previous '' Life'' magazine picture of a young woman with a skull trophy, was reprinted in the Japanese media and presented as a symbol of American barbarism, causing national shock and outrage.


=War rape

= U.S. military personnel raped Okinawan women during the
Battle of Okinawa The , codenamed Operation Iceberg, was a major battle of the Pacific War fought on the island of Okinawa by United States Army (USA) and United States Marine Corps (USMC) forces against the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA). The initial invasion of ...
in 1945. Based on several years of research, Okinawan historian Oshiro Masayasu (former director of the Okinawa Prefectural Historical Archives) writes: According to interviews carried out by '' The New York Times'' and published by them in 2000, several elderly people from an Okinawan village confessed that after the United States had won the Battle of Okinawa, three armed Marines kept coming to the village every week to force the villagers to gather all the local women, who were then carried off into the hills and raped. The article goes deeper into the matter and claims that the villagers' tale—true or not—is part of a "dark, long-kept secret" the unraveling of which "refocused attention on what historians say is one of the most widely ignored crimes of the war": "the widespread rape of Okinawan women by American servicemen." Although Japanese reports of rape were largely ignored at the time, one academic estimated that as many as 10,000 Okinawan women may have been raped. It has been claimed that the rape was so prevalent that most Okinawans over age 65 around the year 2000 either knew or had heard of a woman who was raped in the aftermath of the war. Professor of East Asian Studies and expert on Okinawa,
Steve Rabson Steve Rabson (born May 7, 1943) is an American Japanologist, historian, translator, academic and professor emeritus of East Asian Studies at Brown University. Career Rabson's research has focused on modern Japanese literature, especially works ...
, said: "I have read many accounts of such rapes in Okinawan newspapers and books, but few people know about them or are willing to talk about them." He notes that plenty of old local books, diaries, articles and other documents refer to rapes by American soldiers of various races and backgrounds. An explanation given for why the US military has no record of any rapes is that few Okinawan women reported abuse, mostly out of fear and embarrassment. According to an Okinawan police spokesman: "Victimized women feel too ashamed to make it public." Those who did report them are believed by historians to have been ignored by the U.S. military police. Many people wondered why it never came to light after the inevitable American-Japanese babies the many women must have given birth to. In interviews, historians and Okinawan elders said that some of those Okinawan women who were raped and did not commit suicide did give birth to biracial children, but that many of them were immediately killed or left behind out of shame, disgust or fearful trauma. More often, however, rape victims underwent crude abortions with the help of village midwives. A large scale effort to determine the possible extent of these crimes has never been conducted. Over five decades after the war had ended, in the late-1990s, the women who were believed to have been raped still overwhelmingly refused to give public statements, instead speaking through relatives and a number of historians and scholars. There is substantial evidence that the U.S. had at least some knowledge of what was going on. Samuel Saxton, a retired captain, explained that the American veterans and witnesses may have intentionally kept the rape a secret, largely out of shame: "It would be unfair for the public to get the impression that we were all a bunch of rapists after we worked so hard to serve our country." Military officials formally denied the mass rapes, and all surviving related veterans refused request for interviews from '' The New York Times''. Masaie Ishihara, a sociology professor, supports this: "There is a lot of historical amnesia out there, many people don't want to acknowledge what really happened." Author George Feifer noted in his book ''Tennozan: The Battle of Okinawa and the Atomic Bomb'', that by 1946 there had been fewer than 10 reported cases of rape in Okinawa. He explained it was "partly because of shame and disgrace, partly because Americans were victors and occupiers. In all there were probably thousands of incidents, but the victims' silence kept rape another dirty secret of the campaign." Some other authors have noted that Japanese civilians "were often surprised at the comparatively humane treatment they received from the American enemy." According to ''Islands of Discontent: Okinawan Responses to Japanese and American Power'' by
Mark Selden Mark Selden (born 1938) is a coordinator of the open-access journal ''The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus'', a senior research associate in the East Asia Program at Cornell University, and Bartle Professor of History and Sociology at Binghamton Un ...
, the Americans "did not pursue a policy of torture, rape, and
murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...
of civilians as Japanese military officials had warned." According to numerous academics, there were also 1,336 reported rapes during the first 10 days of the occupation of Kanagawa prefecture after the Japanese surrender, however, Brian Walsh states that this claim originated from a misreading of crime figures and that the Japanese Government had actually recorded 1,326 criminal incidents of all types involving American forces, of which an unspecified number were rapes.


European theater

In the Laconia incident, U.S. aircraft attacked Germans rescuing survivors from the sinking British troopship in the Atlantic Ocean. Pilots of a United States Army Air Forces (USAAF)
B-24 Liberator The Consolidated B-24 Liberator is an American heavy bomber, designed by Consolidated Aircraft of San Diego, California. It was known within the company as the Model 32, and some initial production aircraft were laid down as export models des ...
bomber, despite knowing the U-boat's location, intentions, and the presence of British seamen, killed dozens of ''Laconia'''s survivors with bombs and strafing attacks, forcing ''U-156'' to cast its remaining survivors into the sea and crash dive to avoid being destroyed. During the Allied invasion of Sicily, some massacres of civilians by US troops were reported, including the Vittoria one, where 12 Italians died (including a 17-year-old boy), and in Piano Stella, where a group of peasants was murdered. The "
Canicattì massacre The Canicattì massacre (or Canicattì slaughter) was a massacre that occurred in Canicattì, Italy following its capture by American forces. During the invasion of Sicily in July 1943, eight unarmed Italian civilians were killed by U.S. troops ...
" involved the killing of Italian civilians by Lieutenant Colonel George Herbert McCaffrey; a confidential inquiry was made, but McCaffrey was never charged with any offense relating to the massacre. He died in 1954. This fact remained virtually unknown in the U.S. until 2005, when Joseph S. Salemi of New York University, whose father witnessed it, reported it. In the "
Biscari massacre The Biscari massacre was a war crime committed by members of the United States Army during World War II. It refers to two incidents in which U.S. soldiers were involved in killing 71 unarmed Italian and 2 German prisoners-of-war at the Regia Ae ...
", which consisted of two instances of mass murder, U.S. troops of the 45th Infantry Division killed 73 prisoners of war, mostly Italian. According to an article in ''
Der Spiegel ''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...
'' by Klaus Wiegrefe, many personal memoirs of
Allied An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
soldiers have been wilfully ignored by historians until now because they were at odds with the " greatest generation" mythology surrounding World War II. However, this has recently started to change, with books such as ''The Day of Battle'', by Rick Atkinson, in which he describes Allied war crimes in Italy, and ''D-Day: The Battle for Normandy'', by Antony Beevor. Beevor's latest work suggests that Allied war crimes in Normandy were much more extensive "than was previously realized". Historian Peter Lieb has found that many U.S. and Canadian units were ordered not to take enemy prisoners during the D-Day landings in Normandy. If this view is correct, it may explain the fate of 64 German prisoners (out of the 130 captured) who did not make it to the POW collecting point on
Omaha Beach Omaha Beach was one of five beach landing sectors designated for the amphibious assault component of operation Overlord during the Second World War. On June 6, 1944, the Allies invaded German-occupied France with the Normandy landings. "Omaha" r ...
on the day of the landings. Near the French village of
Audouville-la-Hubert Audouville-la-Hubert () is a commune in the Manche department in the Normandy region in northwestern France. History In 1944, thirty German prisoners of war were massacred near the village of Audouville-la-Hubert by American paratroopers in an a ...
, 30 '' Wehrmacht'' prisoners were massacred by U.S. paratroopers. In the aftermath of the 1944
Malmedy massacre The Malmedy massacre was a German war crime committed by soldiers of the on 17 December 1944, at the Baugnez crossroads near the city of Malmedy, Belgium, during the Battle of the Bulge (16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945). Soldiers of sum ...
, in which 80 American POWs were murdered by their German captors, a written order from the headquarters of the 328th U.S. Army Infantry Regiment, dated 21 December 1944, stated: "No SS troops or paratroopers will be taken prisoner but ather theywill be shot on sight." Major-General Raymond Hufft (U.S. Army) gave instructions to his troops not to take prisoners when they crossed the Rhine in 1945. "After the war, when he reflected on the war crimes he authorized, he admitted, 'if the Germans had won, I would have been on trial at Nuremberg instead of them. Stephen Ambrose related: "I've interviewed well over 1000 combat veterans. Only one of them said he shot a prisoner ... Perhaps as many as one-third of the veterans...however, related incidents in which they saw other GIs shooting unarmed German prisoners who had their hands up." In the " Chenogne massacre" during the Battle of the Bulge on January 1, 1945, members of the 11th Armored Division killed an estimated 80 German prisoners of war, which were assembled in a field and shot with machine guns. The events were covered up at the time, and none of the perpetrators were ever punished. Postwar historians believe the killings were carried out on verbal orders by senior commanders that " no prisoners were to be taken". General
George S. Patton George Smith Patton Jr. (November 11, 1885 – December 21, 1945) was a general in the United States Army who commanded the Seventh United States Army in the Mediterranean Theater of World War II, and the Third United States Army in France ...
confirmed in his diary that the Americans "...also murdered 50 odd German med ic I hope we can conceal this". "
Operation Teardrop Operation Teardrop was a United States Navy operation during World War II, conducted between April and May 1945, to sink German U-boats approaching the East Coast of the United States, Eastern Seaboard that were believed to be armed with V-1 flyi ...
" involved eight surviving captured crewmen from the sunken German submarine ''
U-546 German submarine ''U-546'' was a Type IXC/40 U-boat operated by Nazi Germany's ''Kriegsmarine'' during World War II. She was laid down at the Deutsche Werft in Hamburg as yard number 367 on 6 August 1942, launched on 17 March 1943 and ...
'' being tortured by U.S. military personnel. Historian Philip K. Lundeberg has written that the beating and torture of ''U-546's'' survivors was a singular atrocity motivated by the interrogators' need to quickly get information on what the U.S. believed were potential missile attacks on the
contiguous United States The contiguous United States (officially the conterminous United States) consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the Federal District of the United States of America. The term excludes the only two non-contiguous states, Alaska and Hawaii ...
by German submarines. Among American WWII veterans who admitted to having committed war crimes was former Mafia hitman
Frank Sheeran Francis Joseph Sheeran (October 25, 1920 – December 14, 2003), also known as "The Irishman", was an American labor union official and enforcer for Jimmy Hoffa and Russell Bufalino. He was accused of having links to the Pittston crime family ...
. In interviews with his biographer Charles Brandt, Sheeran recalled his war service with the
Thunderbird Division Thunderbird, thunder bird or thunderbirds may refer to: * Thunderbird (mythology), a legendary creature in certain North American indigenous peoples' history and culture * Ford Thunderbird, a car Birds * Dromornithidae, extinct flightless birds k ...
as the time when he first developed a callousness to the taking of human life. By his own admission, Sheeran participated in numerous massacres and summary executions of German POWs, acts which violated the
Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 are a series of international treaties and declarations negotiated at two international peace conferences at The Hague in the Netherlands. Along with the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Conventions were amon ...
and the 1929 Geneva Convention on POWs. In his interviews with Brandt, Sheeran divided such massacres into four different categories. :1. Revenge killings in the heat of battle. Sheeran told Brandt that, when a
German Army The German Army (, "army") is the land component of the armed forces of Germany. The present-day German Army was founded in 1955 as part of the newly formed West German ''Bundeswehr'' together with the ''Marine'' (German Navy) and the ''Luftwaf ...
soldier had just killed his close friends and then tried to surrender, he would often "send him to hell, too." He described often witnessing similar behavior by fellow
GIs A geographic information system (GIS) is a type of database containing Geographic data and information, geographic data (that is, descriptions of phenomena for which location is relevant), combined with Geographic information system software, sof ...
. :2. Orders from unit commanders during a mission. When describing his first murder for organized crime, Sheeran recalled: "It was just like when an officer would tell you to take a couple of German prisoners back behind the line and for you to 'hurry back'. You did what you had to do." :3. The
Dachau massacre During the Dachau liberation reprisals,The incident at Dachau does not meet the ''legal'' definition of ''reprisal'', an illegal act conducted to dissuade an enemy nation from performing its own illegal acts. The massacre was not officially sanc ...
and other reprisal killings of concentration camp guards and trustee inmates. :4. Calculated attempts to dehumanize and degrade German POWs. While Sheeran's unit was climbing the Harz Mountains, they came upon a Wehrmacht mule train carrying food and drink up the mountainside. The female cooks were first allowed to leave unmolested, then Sheeran and his fellow GIs "ate what we wanted and soiled the rest with our waste." Then the Wehrmacht mule drivers were given shovels and ordered to "dig their own shallow graves." Sheeran later joked that they did so without complaint, likely hoping that he and his buddies would change their minds. But the mule drivers were shot and buried in the holes they had dug. Sheeran explained that by then, "I had no hesitation in doing what I had to do."


=Rape

= Secret wartime files made public only in 2006 reveal that American GIs committed 400 sexual offenses in Europe, including 126 rapes in England, between 1942 and 1945. A study by Robert J. Lilly estimates that a total of 14,000 civilian women in England, France and Germany were raped by American GIs during World War II. He estimates that there were around 3,500 rapes by American servicemen in France between June 1944 and the end of the war. Historian William Hitchcock states that sexual violence against women in liberated France was common.


Korean War


No Gun Ri

The No Gun Ri massacre refers to an incident of mass killing of an undetermined number of South Korean refugees by U.S. soldiers of the 7th Cavalry Regiment (and in a U.S. air attack) between 26 and 29 July 1950 at a railroad bridge near the village of Nogeun-ri, southeast of Seoul. In 2005, the South Korean government certified the names of 163 dead or missing (mostly women, children, and old men) and 55 wounded. It said that many other victims' names were not reported. The South Korean government-funded No Gun Ri Peace Foundation estimated in 2011 that 250–300 were killed. Over the years survivors' estimates of the dead have ranged from 300 to 500. This episode early in the Korean War gained widespread attention when the Associated Press (AP) published a series of articles in 1999 that subsequently won a
Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting The Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting has been awarded since 1953, under one name or another, for a distinguished example of investigative reporting by an individual or team, presented as a single article or series in a U.S. news publicat ...
.


Vietnam War

RJ Rummel estimated that American forces killed around 5,500 people in
democide Democide is a term coined by American political scientist Rudolph Rummel to describe "the intentional killing of an unarmed or disarmed person by special agent, government agents acting in their authoritative capacity and pursuant to government p ...
between 1960 and 1972 in the Vietnam War, from a range of between 4,000 and 10,000.
Benjamin Valentino Benjamin Andrew Valentino (born 1971) is a political scientist and professor at Dartmouth College. His 2004 book '' Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century'', adapted from his PhD thesis and published by Cornell University ...
estimates 110,000–310,000 deaths as a "possible case" of "counter-guerrilla mass killings" by U.S. and South Vietnamese forces during the war. During the war, 95 U.S. Army personnel and 27 U.S. Marine Corps personnel were convicted by court-martial of the murder or manslaughter of Vietnamese. U.S. forces also established numerous
free-fire zone A freedom zone to fire in U.S. military parlance is a fire control measure, used for coordination between adjacent combat units. The definition used in the Vietnam War by U.S. troops may be found in field manual FM 6-20: :A specific designated ar ...
s as a tactic to prevent Viet Cong fighters from sheltering in South Vietnamese villages. Such practice, which involved the assumption that any individual appearing in the designated zones was an enemy combatant that could be freely targeted by weapons, is regarded by journalist Lewis M. Simons as "a severe violation of the laws of war". Nick Turse, in his 2013 book, ''Kill Anything that Moves'', argues that a relentless drive toward higher body counts, a widespread use of free-fire zones, rules of engagement where civilians who ran from soldiers or helicopters could be viewed as Viet Cong and a widespread disdain for Vietnamese civilians led to massive civilian casualties and endemic war crimes inflicted by U.S. troops.


My Lai Massacre

The My Lai massacre was the
mass murder Mass murder is the act of murdering a number of people, typically simultaneously or over a relatively short period of time and in close geographic proximity. The United States Congress defines mass killings as the killings of three or more pe ...
of 347 to 504 unarmed citizens in South Vietnam, almost entirely civilians, most of them women and children, conducted by U.S. soldiers from the
Company A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of people, whether Natural person, natural, Legal person, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common p ...
C of the 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade of the 23rd (American) Infantry Division, on 16 March 1968. Some of the victims were raped, beaten, tortured, or maimed, and some of the bodies were found mutilated. The massacre took place in the hamlets of Mỹ Lai and My Khe of
Sơn Mỹ ''Toxicodendron succedaneum'', the wax tree, Japanese Hazenoki tree (Sumac or wax tree), sơn in Vietnam or charão in Portuguese, is a flowering plant species in the genus ''Toxicodendron'' found in Asia, although it has been planted elsewhere, ...
village during the Vietnam War. Of the 26 U.S. soldiers initially charged with criminal offenses or war crimes for actions at My Lai, only William Calley was convicted. Initially sentenced to life in prison, Calley had his sentence reduced to ten years, then was released after only three and a half years under
house arrest In justice and law, house arrest (also called home confinement, home detention, or, in modern times, electronic monitoring) is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to their residence. Travel is usually restricted, if all ...
. The incident prompted widespread outrage around the world, and reduced U.S. domestic support for the Vietnam War. Three American Servicemen (
Hugh Thompson, Jr. Hugh Clowers Thompson Jr. (April 15, 1943 – January 6, 2006) was a United States Army Major, and a former warrant officer in the 123rd Aviation Battalion of the 23rd Infantry Division. He is credited with ending the Mỹ Lai Massacre of the S ...
,
Glenn Andreotta Glenn Urban Andreotta (October 30, 1947 – April 8, 1968) was an American helicopter crew chief in the Vietnam War noted for being one of three who intervened in the Mỹ Lai massacre, in which 504 unarmed children, women and men were murder ...
, and
Lawrence Colburn Lawrence Manley Colburn (July 6, 1949 – December 13, 2016) was a United States Army veteran who, while serving as a helicopter gunner in the Vietnam War, intervened in the March 16, 1968 Mỹ Lai massacre. Born in Coulee Dam, Washington, Colbu ...
), who made an effort to halt the massacre and protect the wounded, were sharply criticized by U.S. Congressmen, and received hate mail, death threats, and mutilated animals on their doorsteps. Thirty years after the event their efforts were honored. Following the massacre a
Pentagon In geometry, a pentagon (from the Greek πέντε ''pente'' meaning ''five'' and γωνία ''gonia'' meaning ''angle'') is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple pentagon is 540°. A pentagon may be simpl ...
task force called the
Vietnam War Crimes Working Group The Vietnam War Crimes Working Group (VWCWG) was a Pentagon task force set up in the wake of the My Lai massacre and its media disclosure. The goal of the VWCWG was to attempt to ascertain the veracity of emerging claims of war crimes by U.S. a ...
(VWCWG) investigated alleged atrocities by U.S. troops against South Vietnamese civilians and created a formerly secret archive of some 9,000 pages (the
Vietnam War Crimes Working Group Files The Vietnam War Crimes Working Group (VWCWG) was a Pentagon task force set up in the wake of the My Lai massacre and its media disclosure. The goal of the VWCWG was to attempt to ascertain the veracity of emerging claims of war crimes by U.S. a ...
housed by the National Archives and Records Administration) documenting 320 alleged incidents from 1967 to 1971 including 7 massacres (not including the My Lai Massacre) in which at least 137 civilians died; 78 additional attacks targeting noncombatants in which at least 57 were killed, 56 wounded and 15 sexually assaulted; and 141 incidents of U.S. soldiers torturing civilian detainees or prisoners of war. 203 U.S. personnel were charged with crimes, 57 were court-martialed and 23 were convicted. The VWCWG also investigated over 500 additional alleged atrocities but could not verify them.


Operation Speedy Express

Operation Speedy Express was a controversial military operation aimed at pacifying large parts of the
Mekong delta The Mekong Delta ( vi, Đồng bằng Sông Cửu Long, lit=Nine Dragon River Delta or simply vi, Đồng Bằng Sông Mê Kông, lit=Mekong River Delta, label=none), also known as the Western Region ( vi, Miền Tây, links=no) or South-weste ...
from December 1968 to May 1969. The U.S. Army claimed 10,899 PAVN/VC were killed in the operation, while the US Army Inspector General estimated that there were 5,000 to 7,000 civilian deaths from the operation. Robert Kaylor of United Press International alleged that according to American pacification advisers in the Mekong Delta during the operation the division had indulged in the "wanton killing" of civilians through the "indiscriminate use of mass firepower."


Phoenix Program

The Phoenix Program was coordinated by the CIA, involving South Vietnamese, US and other allied security forces, with the aim identifying and destroying the Viet Cong (VC) through infiltration, torture, capture, counter-terrorism,
interrogation Interrogation (also called questioning) is interviewing as commonly employed by law enforcement officers, military personnel, intelligence agencies, organized crime syndicates, and terrorist organizations with the goal of eliciting useful informa ...
, and
assassination Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have ...
. The program was heavily criticized, with critics labeling it a "civilian assassination program" and criticizing the operation's use of torture.


Tiger Force

Tiger Force was the name of a long-range reconnaissance patrol unit of the 1st Battalion (Airborne),
327th Infantry The 327th Infantry Regiment (Bastogne Bulldogs) is an infantry regiment of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) of the United States Army. During World War II, the 327th was a glider-borne regiment of the 101st Airborne Division. It fough ...
, 1st Brigade (Separate),
101st Airborne Division The 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) ("Screaming Eagles") is a light infantry division of the United States Army that specializes in air assault operations. It can plan, coordinate, and execute multiple battalion-size air assault operati ...
, which fought from November 1965 to November 1967. The unit gained notoriety after investigations during the course of the war and decades afterwards revealed extensive war crimes against civilians, which numbered into the hundreds. They were accused of routine torture, execution of prisoners and the intentional killing of civilians. US army investigators concluded that many of the alleged war crimes took place.


Other incidents

On 12 August 1965 Lcpl McGhee of Company M,
3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines, abbreviated as (3/3), is an infantry battalion of the United States Marine Corps, based out of Kaneohe, Hawaii. Known as either "Trinity" or "America's Battalion", the unit falls under the command of the 3rd Marine ...
, walked through Marine lines at Chu Lai Base Area toward a nearby village. In answer to a Marine sentry's shouted question, he responded that he was going after a VC. Two Marines were dispatched to retrieve McGhee and as they approached the village they heard a shot and a woman's scream and then saw McGhee walking toward them from the village. McGhee said he had just killed a VC and other VC were following him. At trial Vietnamese prosecution witnesses testified that McGhee had kicked through the wall of the hut where their family slept. He seized a 14-year-old girl and pulled her toward the door. When her father interceded, McGhee shot and killed him. Once outside the house the girl escaped McGhee with the help of her grandmother. McGhee was found guilty of unpremeditated murder and sentenced him to confinement at hard labor for ten years. On appeal this was reduced to 7 years and he actually served 6 years and 1 month. On 23 September 1966, a nine-man ambush patrol from the
1st Battalion, 5th Marines 1st Battalion, 5th Marines (1/5) is an infantry battalion in the United States Marine Corps based out of Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California consisting of approximately 800 Marines and sailors. Nicknamed ''Geronimo'', it falls under the ...
, left Hill 22, northwest of Chu Lai. Private First Class John D. Potter, Jr. took effective command of the patrol. They entered the hamlet of Xuan Ngoc (2) and seized Dao Quang Thinh, whom they accused of being a Viet Cong, and dragged him from his hut. While they beat him, other patrol members forced his wife, Bui Thi Huong, from their hut and four of them raped her. A few minutes later three other patrol members shot Dao Quang Thinh, Bui, their child, Bui's sister-in-law, and her sister in- law's child. Bui Thi Huong survived to testify at the courts-martial. The company commander suspicious of the reported "enemy contact" sent Second Lieutenant Stephen J. Talty, to return to the scene with the patrol. Once there, Talty realized what had happened and attempted to cover up the incident. A wounded child was discovered alive and Potter bludgeoned it to death with his rifle. Potter was convicted of premeditated murder and rape, and sentenced to confinement at hard labor for life, but was released in February 1978, having served 12 years and 1 month. Hospitalman John R. Bretag testified against Potter and was sentenced to 6 month's confinement for rape. PFC James H. Boyd, Jr., pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to 4 years confinement at hard labor. Sergeant Ronald L. Vogel was convicted for murder of one of the children and rape and was sentenced to 50 years confinement at hard labor, which was reduced on appeal to 10 years, of which he served 9 years. Two patrol members were acquitted of major charges, but were convicted of assault with intent to commit rape and sentenced to 6 months' confinement. Lt Talty was found guilty of making a false report and dismissed from the Marine Corps, but this was overturned on appeal. PFC Charles W. Keenan was convicted of murder by firing at point-blank range into an unarmed, elderly Vietnamese woman, and an unarmed Vietnamese man. His life sentence was reduced to 25 years confinement. Upon appeal, the conviction for the woman's murder was dismissed and confinement was reduced to five years. Later clemency action further reduced his confinement to 2 years and 9 months. Corporal Stanley J. Luczko, was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to confinement for three years From 31 January to 1 February 1967, 145 civilians were purported to have been killed by Company H, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, during the Thuy Bo incident. Marine accounts record 101 Viet Cong and 22 civilians killed during a 2-day battle. On 5 May 1968, Lcpl Denzil R. Allen led a six-man ambush patrol from the 1st Battalion, 27th Marines near Huế. They stopped and interrogated two unarmed Vietnamese men who Allen and Private Martin R. Alvarez then executed. After an attack on their base that night the unit sent out a patrol who brought back three Vietnamese men. Allen, Alvarez, Lance Corporals John D. Belknap, James A. Maushart, PFC Robert J. Vickers, and two others then formed a firing squad and executed two of the Vietnamese. The third captive was taken into a building where Allen, Belknap, and Anthony Licciardo, Jr., hanged him, when the rope broke Allen cut the man's throat, killing him. Allen pleaded guilty to five counts of unpremeditated murder and was sentenced to confinement at hard labor for life reduced to 20 years in exchange for the guilty plea. Allen's confinement was reduced to 7 years and he was paroled after having served only 2 years and 11 months confinement. Maushart pleaded guilty to one count of unpremeditated murder and was sentenced to 2 years confinement of which he served 1 year and 8 months. Belknap and Licciardo each pleaded guilty to single murders and were sentenced to 2 years confinement. Belknap served 15 months while Licciardo served his full sentence. Alvarez was found to lack mental responsibility and found not guilty. Vickers was found guilty of two counts of unpremeditated murder, but his convictions were overturned on review On the morning of 1 March 1969 an eight-man Marine ambush was discovered by three Vietnamese girls, aged about 13, 17, and 19, and a Vietnamese boy, about 11. The four shouted their discovery to those being observed by the ambush. Seized by the Marines, the four were bound, gagged, and led away by Corporal Ronald J. Reese and Lance Corporal Stephen D. Crider. Minutes later, the 4 children were seen, apparently dead, in a small bunker. The Marines tossed a fragmentation grenade into the bunker, which then collapsed the damaged structure atop the bodies. Reese and Crider were each convicted of four counts of murder and sentenced to confinement at hard labor for life. On appeal both sentences were reduced to 3 years confinement. On February 19, 1970, during the
Son Thang massacre A son is a male offspring; a boy or a man in relation to his parents. The female counterpart is a daughter. From a biological perspective, a son constitutes a first degree relative. Social issues In pre-industrial societies and some current ...
, 16 unarmed women and children were killed in the Son Thang Hamlet by Company B,
1st Battalion, 7th Marines The 1st Battalion, 7th Marines (1/7) is an infantry battalion of the 7th Marine Regiment of the United States Marine Corps. It is currently based at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms. Consisting of approximately 1,000 M ...
. One person was sentenced to life in prison, another sentenced to 5 years, but both sentences were reduced to less than a year. with those killed reported as enemy combatant. On 2 June 1971, Brigadier General John W. Donaldson was charged with the murder of six Vietnamese civilians but was acquitted due to lack of evidence. In 13 separate incidents Donaldson was alleged to have flown over civilian areas shooting at civilians. He was the first U.S. general charged with war crimes since General
Jacob H. Smith General Jacob Hurd Smith (January 29, 1840 – March 1, 1918) was a U.S. Army officer notorious for ordering indiscriminate retaliation on the island of Samar in response to what is called the Balangiga massacre during the Philippine–Amer ...
in 1902 and the highest ranking American to be accused of war crimes during the Vietnam War. The charges were dropped due to lack of evidence.


War on Terror

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks in 2001, the
U.S. Government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a fede ...
adopted several new measures in the classification and treatment of prisoners captured in the War on Terror, including applying the status of unlawful combatant to some prisoners, conducting extraordinary renditions and using torture ("
enhanced interrogation techniques "Enhanced interrogation techniques" or "enhanced interrogation" is a euphemism for the program of systematic torture of detainees by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and various components of the U.S. A ...
"). Human Rights Watch and others described the measures as being illegal under the Geneva Conventions. The torture of detainees was extensively detailed in the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture.


Command responsibility

A presidential memorandum of February 7, 2002, authorized U.S. interrogators of prisoners captured during the War in Afghanistan to deny the prisoners basic protections required by the Geneva Conventions, and thus according to Jordan J. Paust, professor of law and formerly a member of the faculty of the Judge Advocate General's School, "necessarily authorized and ordered violations of the Geneva Conventions, which are war crimes." Based on the president's memorandum, U.S. personnel carried out cruel and inhumane treatment on captured enemy fighters, which necessarily means that the president's memorandum was a plan to violate the Geneva Convention, and such a plan constitutes a war crime under the Geneva Conventions, according to Professor Paust. U.S. Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales Alberto R. Gonzales (born August 4, 1955) is an American lawyer who served as the 80th United States Attorney General, appointed in February 2005 by President George W. Bush, becoming the highest-ranking Hispanic American in executive governme ...
and others have argued that detainees should be considered "unlawful combatants" and as such not be protected by the Geneva Conventions in multiple memoranda regarding these perceived legal gray areas. Gonzales' statement that denying coverage under the Geneva Conventions "substantially reduces the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act" suggests, to some authors, an awareness by those involved in crafting policies in this area that U.S. officials are involved in acts that could be seen to be war crimes. The U.S. Supreme Court challenged the premise on which this argument is based in '' Hamdan v. Rumsfeld'', in which it ruled that Common Article Three of the Geneva Conventions applies to detainees in Guantanamo Bay and that the
military tribunals Military justice (also military law) is the legal system (bodies of law and procedure) that governs the conduct of the active-duty personnel of the armed forces of a country. In some nation-states, civil law and military law are distinct bodie ...
used to try these suspects were in violation of U.S. and international law. Human Rights Watch claimed in 2005 that the principle of " command responsibility" could make high-ranking officials within the Bush administration guilty of the numerous war crimes committed during the War on Terror, either with their knowledge or by persons under their control. On April 14, 2006, Human Rights Watch said that Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld Donald Henry Rumsfeld (July 9, 1932 – June 29, 2021) was an American politician, government official and businessman who served as Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under president Gerald Ford, and again from 2001 to 2006 under Presi ...
could be criminally liable for his alleged involvement in the abuse of Mohammed al-Qahtani. On November 14, 2006, invoking universal jurisdiction, legal proceedings were started in Germany—for their alleged involvement of prisoner abuse—against Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo,
George Tenet George John Tenet (born January 5, 1953) is an American intelligence official and academic who served as the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, as well as a Distinguished Professor in the P ...
and others. The Military Commissions Act of 2006 is seen by some as an amnesty law for crimes committed in the War on Terror by retroactively rewriting the War Crimes Act and by abolishing '' habeas corpus'', effectively making it impossible for detainees to challenge crimes committed against them. Luis Moreno-Ocampo told '' The Sunday Telegraph'' in 2007 that he was willing to start an inquiry by the International Criminal Court (ICC), and possibly a trial, for war crimes committed in Iraq involving British Prime Minister Tony Blair and American President
George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
. Though under the Rome Statute, the ICC has no jurisdiction over Bush, since the U.S. is not a State Party to the relevant treaty—unless Bush were accused of crimes inside a State Party, or the UN Security Council (where the U.S. has a veto) requested an investigation. However, Blair does fall under ICC jurisdiction as Britain is a State Party. Shortly before the end of President Bush's second term in 2009, news media in countries other than the U.S. began publishing the views of those who believe that under the United Nations Convention Against Torture, the U.S. is obligated to hold those responsible for prisoner abuse to account under
criminal law Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It prescribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and moral welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal law i ...
. One proponent of this view was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (Professor Manfred Nowak) who, on January 20, 2009, remarked on German television that former president George W. Bush had lost his
head of state immunity Immunity from prosecution is a doctrine of international law that allows an accused to avoid prosecution for criminal offences. Immunities are of two types. The first is functional immunity, or immunity '' ratione materiae''. This is an immunit ...
and under international law the U.S. would now be mandated to start criminal proceedings against all those involved in these violations of the UN Convention Against Torture.Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment calls for prosecution * * Law professor
Dietmar Herz Dietmar is a German forename. * Dietmar I (archbishop of Salzburg), ruled 874 to 907 *Dietmar von Aist, Minnesinger from a baronial family of Upper Austria, documented between 1140 and 1171 * Dietmar Bär (born 1961), German actor * Dietmar Barts ...
explained Nowak's comments by opining that under U.S. and international law former President Bush is criminally responsible for adopting torture as an interrogation tool.


War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)

In 2005, '' The New York Times'' obtained a 2,000-page United States Army investigatory report concerning the
homicide Homicide occurs when a person kills another person. A homicide requires only a volitional act or omission that causes the death of another, and thus a homicide may result from accidental, reckless, or negligent acts even if there is no inten ...
s of two unarmed civilian
Afghan Afghan may refer to: *Something of or related to Afghanistan, a country in Southern-Central Asia *Afghans, people or citizens of Afghanistan, typically of any ethnicity ** Afghan (ethnonym), the historic term applied strictly to people of the Pas ...
prisoners by U.S. military personnel in December 2002 at the
Bagram Theater Internment Facility The Parwan Detention Facility (also called Detention Facility in Parwan or Bagram prison) is Afghanistan's main military prison. Situated next to the Bagram Air Base in the Parwan Province of Afghanistan, the prison was built by the U.S. during t ...
(also ''Bagram Collection Point'' or ''B.C.P.'') in Bagram, Afghanistan and general treatment of prisoners. The two prisoners, Habibullah and Dilawar, were repeatedly chained to the ceiling and beaten, resulting in their deaths. Military
coroner A coroner is a government or judicial official who is empowered to conduct or order an inquest into Manner of death, the manner or cause of death, and to investigate or confirm the identity of an unknown person who has been found dead within th ...
s ruled that both the prisoners' deaths were homicides. Autopsies revealed severe trauma to both prisoners' legs, describing the trauma as comparable to being run over by a bus. Seven soldiers were charged in 2005. The
Maywand District murders The Maywand District murders were the thrill-killings of at least three Afghan civilians perpetrated by a group of U.S. Army soldiers from June 2009 to June 2010, during the War in Afghanistan. The soldiers, who referred to themselves as the "K ...
involved the killing of three Afghan civilians by a group of soldiers during the period June 2009 to June 2010. The soldiers referred to their group as "Kill Team" and were members the 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, and 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division. They were based at FOB Ramrod in Maiwand, from Kandahar Province of Afghanistan. During the summer of 2010, the military charged five members of the platoon with the murders of three Afghan civilians in Kandahar Province and collecting their body parts as trophies. The Kandahar massacre was a
mass murder Mass murder is the act of murdering a number of people, typically simultaneously or over a relatively short period of time and in close geographic proximity. The United States Congress defines mass killings as the killings of three or more pe ...
that occurred in the early hours of 11 March 2012, when Staff Sergeant Robert Bales killed 16 Afghan civilians and wounded six others in the Panjwayi District of Kandahar Province, Afghanistan. Nine of the victims were children, and eleven of the dead were from the same family. Bales was taken into custody later that morning when he confessed to authorities that he had committed the murders. First Lieutenant Clint Lorance was an infantry platoon leader in the 4th Brigade Combat Team of the
82nd Airborne Division The 82nd Airborne Division is an Airborne forces, airborne infantry division (military), division of the United States Army specializing in Paratrooper, parachute assault operations into denied areasSof, Eric"82nd Airborne Division" ''Spec Ops ...
. In 2012, Lorance was charged with two counts of unpremeditated murder after he ordered his soldiers to open fire on three Afghan men who were on a motorcycle. He was found guilty by a
court-martial A court-martial or court martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of memb ...
in 2013 and sentenced to 20 years in prison (later reduced to 19 years by the reviewing commanding general). He was confined in the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas for six years. Lorance was eventually
pardoned A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the ju ...
by President Donald Trump on November 15, 2019.


Iraq War

During the early stages of the Iraq War, a group of soldiers committed a series of human rights violations including physical and sexual abuse against detainees in the
Abu Ghraib prison Abu Ghraib prison ( ar, سجن أبو غريب, ''Sijn Abū Ghurayb'') was a prison complex in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, located west of Baghdad. Abu Ghraib prison was opened in the 1950s and served as a maximum-security prison with torture, weekly exe ...
in Iraq. The abuses came to public attention with the publication of photographs of the abuse by
CBS News CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio service CBS. CBS News television programs include the ''CBS Evening News'', ''CBS Mornings'', news magazine programs '' CBS News Sunday Morning'', '' 60 Minutes'', and '' 48 H ...
in April 2004. The incidents caused shock and outrage, receiving widespread condemnation within the United States and internationally. The Department of Defense charged eleven soldiers with dereliction of duty, maltreatment,
aggravated assault An assault is the act of committing physical harm or unwanted physical contact upon a person or, in some specific legal definitions, a threat or attempt to commit such an action. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may result in crim ...
and
battery Battery most often refers to: * Electric battery, a device that provides electrical power * Battery (crime), a crime involving unlawful physical contact Battery may also refer to: Energy source *Automotive battery, a device to provide power t ...
. Between May 2004 and April 2006, these soldiers were
court-martialed A court-martial or court martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of memb ...
, convicted, sentenced to
military prison A military prison is a prison operated by a military. Military prisons are used variously to house prisoners of war, unlawful combatants, those whose freedom is deemed a national security risk by the military or national authorities, and members of ...
, and
dishonorably discharged A military discharge is given when a member of the armed forces is released from their obligation to serve. Each country's military has different types of discharge. They are generally based on whether the persons completed their training and the ...
from service. Two soldiers, found to have perpetrated many of the worst offenses at the prison, Charles Graner and Lynndie England, were subject to more severe charges and received harsher sentences. Graner was convicted of assault,
battery Battery most often refers to: * Electric battery, a device that provides electrical power * Battery (crime), a crime involving unlawful physical contact Battery may also refer to: Energy source *Automotive battery, a device to provide power t ...
, conspiracy, maltreatment of detainees, committing indecent acts and dereliction of duty; he was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment and loss of rank, pay and benefits. England was convicted of conspiracy, maltreating detainees and committing an indecent act and sentenced to three years in prison. Brigadier General
Janis Karpinski Janis Leigh Karpinski ( Beam, born May 25, 1953) is a retired career officer in the United States Army Reserve. She is notable for having commanded the forces that operated Abu Ghraib and other prisons in Iraq in 2003 and 2004, at the time of the ...
, the commanding officer of all detention facilities in Iraq, was reprimanded and demoted to the rank of colonel.. Several more military personnel who were accused of perpetrating or authorizing the measures, including many of higher rank, were not prosecuted. In 2004, President
George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
and Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld Donald Henry Rumsfeld (July 9, 1932 – June 29, 2021) was an American politician, government official and businessman who served as Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under president Gerald Ford, and again from 2001 to 2006 under Presi ...
apologized for the Abu Ghraib abuses. On March 12, 2006, a 14-year-old Iraqi girl named Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi was raped and subsequently murdered along her 34-year-old mother Fakhriyah Taha Muhasen, 45-year-old father Qassim Hamza Raheem, and 6-year-old sister Hadeel Qassim Hamza al-Janabi. The killings took place in the family home in Yusufiyah, a village to the west of the town of
Al-Mahmudiyah Mahmoudiyah ( ar, المحمودية) (also transliterated Al-Mahmudiyah, Al-Mahmoudi, or Al-Mahmudiya, prefixed usually with Al-) is a rural city south of Baghdad. Known as the "Gateway to Baghdad," the city's proximity to Baghdad made it centra ...
, Iraq. Five soldiers from the
502nd Infantry Regiment The 502nd Infantry Regiment (502nd IR), previously titled the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment (502nd PIR), is an infantry regiment of the United States Army. The regiment was established shortly after U.S. entry into World War II, and was ass ...
were charged with rape and murder: Paul E. Cortez, James P. Barker, Jesse V. Spielman, Bryan L. Howard, and
Steven Dale Green The Mahmudiyah rape and killings were war crimes involving the gang-rape and murder of 14-year-old Iraqi people, Iraqi girl Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi and the murder of her family by United States Army soldiers on March 12, 2006. It occurred in ...
. Green was discharged from the U.S. Army for
mental instability A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitti ...
before the crimes were known by his command, whereas Cortez, Barker, Spielman and Howard were tried by a military court martial, convicted, and sentenced to decades in prison. Green was tried and convicted in a United States civilian court and was sentenced to life in prison, but committed suicide in prison in 2014.
John E. Hatley John E. Hatley (born July 30, 1968) is a former first sergeant who was prosecuted by the United States Army in 2008 for murdering four Iraqi detainees near Baghdad, Iraq in 2006. He was convicted in 2009 and sentenced to life in prison at the ...
was a first sergeant who was prosecuted by the Army in 2008 for murdering four Iraqi detainees near Baghdad, Iraq in 2006. He was convicted in 2009 and sentenced to life in prison at the
Fort Leavenworth Disciplinary Barracks The United States Disciplinary Barracks (USDB) colloquially known as Leavenworth, is a military correctional facility located on Fort Leavenworth, a United States Army post in Kansas. It is one of three major prisons built on Fort Leavenwo ...
. He was released on parole in October 2020. The Hamdania incident involved the alleged kidnapping and subsequent murder of an Iraqi man by United States Marines on April 26, 2006, in Al Hamdania, a small village west of Baghdad near
Abu Ghraib Abu Ghraib (; ar, أبو غريب, ''Abū Ghurayb'') is a city in the Baghdad Governorate of Iraq, located just west of Baghdad's city center, or northwest of Baghdad International Airport. It has a population of 189,000 (2003). The old road t ...
. An investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service resulted in
charges Charge or charged may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Charge, Zero Emissions/Maximum Speed'', a 2011 documentary Music * ''Charge'' (David Ford album) * ''Charge'' (Machel Montano album) * '' Charge!!'', an album by The Aqu ...
of
murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...
,
kidnapping In criminal law, kidnapping is the unlawful confinement of a person against their will, often including transportation/asportation. The asportation and abduction element is typically but not necessarily conducted by means of force or fear: the p ...
, housebreaking, larceny, Obstruction of Justice and conspiracy associated with the alleged
coverup A cover-up is an attempt, whether successful or not, to conceal evidence of wrongdoing, error, incompetence, or other embarrassing information. Research has distinguished personal cover-ups (covering up one's own misdeeds) from relational co ...
of the incident. The
Haditha massacre The Haditha massacre (also called the Haditha killings or the Haditha incident) was a series of killings on November 19, 2005, in which a group of United States Marines killed 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians. The killings occurred in Haditha, a cit ...
occurred on November 19, 2005, in Haditha, Iraq. After Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas (20 years old) was killed by a roadside improvised explosive device, Staff Sergeant
Frank Wuterich Frank D. Wuterich (born February 28, 1980) is a former United States Marine Corps Staff Sergeant who pleaded guilty to negligent dereliction of duty as a result of his actions during the Haditha killings where multiple innocent civilians were murd ...
led Marines from the 3rd battalion into Haditha. 24 Iraqi women and children were fatally shot. Wuterich acknowledged in military court that he gave his men the order to "shoot first, ask questions later" after the roadside bomb explosion. Wuterich told military judge Lt. Col. David Jones "I never fired my weapon at any women or children that day." On January 24, 2012, Frank Wuterich was given a sentence of 90 days in prison along with a reduction in rank and pay. The day prior, Wuterich pled guilty to one count of negligent dereliction of duty. No other marine that was involved that day was sentenced to any jail time. For the massacre, the Marine Corps paid $38,000 total to the families of 15 of the dead civilians.


Notes


References


Further reading


General

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By nation

;Iraq * * * * * * ;Vietnam * * * {{refend War crimes committed by country War