War crimes? All war is a crime.

The concept of “war crimes” was an effort to pretend that war isn’t intrinsically a crime, and thus make it palatable for civilians and politicians. There are no just wars; there are no proper wars; there are no good wars. War is evil. That it is sometimes a necessary evil doesn’t make it any less evil. In 1944, we needed to invade Europe in order to defeat Nazi Germany; this means we had to do a bad thing to stop a worse thing.

Let’s all take that as read, shall we? While I can imagine objections to it, I can’t imagine any logical or well-reasoned ones. (If you disagree, that’s why we have a Comments section. Take your time and get it right, because if you don’t I’m going to mercilessly rip you apart. -Editor)

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