Prisoners Of War Quotes
This quotation was reported to Congress by Thomas Jefferson. Essentially, this religious justification is no different from that made by contemporary Islamic extremists. Particularly interesting is the last sentence. The Koran states that all Muslims who die defending Islam will go immediately to heaven regardless of their previous sins and transgressions. Under that justification, even criminal extortion and terrorism is justified by some Muslims whenever the victims are non-believers.
The second atomic bomb had just been dropped.
He was describing the Battle of Zagonara in 1424 and Molinella in 1427. Although major battles of the time the only casualties in the later were horses, and in the former, three armored men fell off their horses into the mud and drowned. Battle was almost like a capture the flag game with uniforms and weapons displayed.
The import of this quotation is to see how matter of fact, atrocities by our standards, were committed in the earlier times. “Beys” was an Ottoman term for a class of nobles.
General Cornwallis was informing his superior that he had surrendered at Yorktown. The French navy had prevented escape or resupply from the sea, and the British were totally surrounded by American and French land forces.
See {77473} for evidence of German war crimes.
The treaty was for the surrender of the city of Acre. King Richard led all the Christian Crusaders. He has always had a good reputation in the West, and most people—especially the English would be surprised to learn that in order to speed up compliance with a treaty he ordered this atrocity. Christian historians corroborate the slaughter.
The note was found in an abandoned Japanese camp on Bataan. There are some who believe that this note was a forgery. However, most think it genuine as it reflected one of the Japanese
“aces in the hole” to defend against an allied invasion of the Japanese mainland. It was one of the reasons that some American planners advocated use of the Atomic Bomb. Of course that was a real risk of using the bomb. The Japanese might be so angry and feel morally abused and kill the many allied prisoners they had. Many thought it was a lesser risk because it did not have the symbolic animus that foreigners occupying the Japanese homeland had. The quotation illustrates the amazing complexity that the American and allied leadership faced trying to end WWII in the Pacific.
1000 Spanish prisoners of war were over a 4 day period beheaded. This infamous order has been a black mark on his general democratic and humane public life. Some apologists for his war crimes point out that the Spaniards were making an all-out assault on his revolutionary troops who were very badly outnumbered. It took many revolutionary solders to guard the prisoners and if Bolivar lost the upcoming battle, it would have been the end of his revolution and Spain might still be in control of much of South America. With the additional soldiers freed up from guard duty, Bolivar barely survived the battle and the Revolution was not crushed.
The worst war crimes and atrocities of the Civil War took place at Andersonville. 13,000 Union prisoners of war were killed there. Capt, Henry Wirtz, the prison commandant, was tried and executed after the war.
Many of the prisoners in Iraq were accused of no crime but were picked up in security sweeps. In 2004 the brutal and illegal treatment of prisoners in Iraq became a national and worldwide scandal. Miller was never held responsible. See {70775}.
When the Confederate Government realized that the Union was planning to arm escaped slaves and induct them into the Union Army, they quickly passed a law that declared any escaped slave who joined the Union Army or wore its uniform was guilty of Treason and would be executed. Most Union Generals one way or another got word to the Confederate Officers that they had better treat all Negro Union Soldiers as prisoners of war. Even President Lincoln warned the South. Butler, however, had a large number of Negro troops in his area and had heard threats of some of the Southerners to execute Black prisoners of war. He had a way of making things very clear, and he was able to prevent murder of any of his Negro troops despite the Treason law.
The Prime Minister was coping with a scandal where there was an incident where British soldiers had abused Iraq prisoners of war. They were being held to account criminally.
Lawrence of Arabia. In the Middle East, Lawrence led a small Arab army against the Turks and the Germans. In a battle near Tafas, the captured 250 Turkish and German soldiers as prisoners. They them shot them all in cold blood with their Hotchkiss machine gun. What makes this quotation so significant is that one of the great British heroes of WWI was actually guilty of War Crimes. An American journalist gave Lawrence and his exploits great publicity without mentioning the atrocities. The British chain of command also ignored the transgression of one of the most fundamental rules of war even though the clear evidence was in basic battle report files. However, the British never removed the report from the files or destroyed it. The Turks and the Germans while they respected the rules of war with the English, French, and most allies, treated the Arabs much more harshly and murdered Arab prisoners on many occasions. In part this atrocity at Tafas was an act of vengeance and retaliation. But Lawrence never even tried to explain it.
First American Military Manual. Roger’s Rangers of the French & Indian War were the first using unconventional warfare and invented the “deep raid” when they went in stealth all the way to Quebec and defeated the Abnaki Indians in their home village rather than defend against the Indians’ & French coordinated attacks on upper York State. Rogers was portrayed by Spencer Tracy in the film Northwest Passage depicting the raid.
