Evening star., 1945-09-18

cunarlty OF Jap Lowell Meliett.
anese thinking. Tt is part of the
thinking of aggressive warmakers
everywhere. 1t has always been so
No man or group of men can make
plans for war without being aware
that they are planning to inflict
death and misery on innocent peo-
pie. Their purpose from the outset
is to use brute force and to use it
brutally. There is no other way
Atrocities are inevitable in their
plans.
Mussolini planned the conquest of
the vast region surrounding the
Mediterranean and among the re-
suits were atrocities on commen-
surate scale. Japan's rulers planned
conquest of all the Far Eastern
world and the accumulating tales of
their atrocities are in keeping with
the size of the ambitious undertak-
Ing. Hitler'S proposed field of oper-
ations was the whole world and be-
fore his mad dream was ended he
was responsible for an aggregate of
atrocities that could scarcely have
been greater had he succeeded in
carrying his war to the whole world.
His madness happened to include an
extreme of racial prejudice that led
him to attempt the determination
Of a whole race within his own
country.
Nazis DiStOrt War Pattern.
This racial cbsession of Hitler
and his party somewhat distorts
the pattern of aggressive warfare
as historically practiced. All the
millions of Jews he caused to be
slaughtered were victims of a spe-
cial alteration, side issue of the
urge to conquer. The true curse of
Hitlerism, which is another word
for extreme nationalism-and for
italian fascism and Japanese jingo-
ism-is this urge to conquer, with
out regard to cost or consequences.
Atrocities flow from it as any ef-
feet follows its cause. Civilians must
be killed because they are in the
way. The human spirit must be killed
because the human spirit resists.
And to kill the human spirit the
age-old method is torture of the
human body. That means atrocities.
So it isn't by chance that the
atrocity score rests against the Ger
mans, the italians and japanese
and not against the Americans, the
British and Russians. The Allied
countries fought war that was
brought against them, not a war of
their seeking. They wanted no war
and, for too long perhaps, refused
to contemplate even a defensive war.
The Axis countries deliberately
planned to make war in the same
full understanding of their own
guilt that burglar has when, car
rying gun, he enters a sleeping
house, prepared to murder if neces-
sary.
Criminal Code of Nations.
1t may be that Axis statesmen
and military leaders, relying on
precedent, have told themselves that
they have an immunity from pun
ishment that is not enjoyed by bur-
glars. Warmakers in the past have
not been punished as such. They
sometimes have been accorded hon.
or as defeated foes. But that was in
the past. A criminal code for ma
tions is coming into being and is
about to be applied, first at Nuern-
burg and presently at Tokyo.
Sincere legalists in this and 9TH
er countries protest that the forth
coming trials are in violation of
the principles of justice. There has
been no accepted international law
heretofore on the subject of aggres-
sive warfare, they say, and we
should not try men for acts that
were not declared to be crimes un-
til after they had been committed
Try them for specific atrocities,
they say, and punish them if proved
guilty. Atrocities have long been
outlawed by international agree
ment, they say, but not the crime
of making war itself.
This reasoning, however, ignores