Echoes of trials past in today's headlines
Sixty years ago, the International Military Tribunal held what has come to be known as the Nuremberg Trials, which endeavored to judge all the people who had been complicit in the Nazi Party and Germany's instigation of war.
The point was to ferret out and prosecute all those who inflicted Nazi rule on an unsuspecting Europe. I quote from Wikipedia, which is much more concise than the official sites:
The Nuremberg Trials is the general name for two sets of trials of Nazis involved in World War II and the Holocaust. The trials were held in the German city of Nuremberg from 1945 to 1949 at the Nuremberg Palace of Justice . The first and most famous of these trials was the Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal or IMT, which tried twenty-four of the most important captured (or still believed to be alive) leaders of Nazi Germany. It was held from November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946. The second set of trials of lesser war criminals was conducted under Control Council Law No. 10 at the U.S. Nuremberg Military Tribunals (NMT), including the famous Doctors' Trial. Link
The result of the Nuremberg Trials was to establish the term "crimes against humanity" and to put many infamous people behind bars or to death, including Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and Hermann Goering. But did it really punish those who instigated the German march to European supremacy? Did it stamp out racism and bigotry in Germany, Europe, or the world at large? Are we a better people for having held these trials? What, if anything, have we learned as a society?
On the eve of Saddam's trial for "crimes against humanity", what are the similarities and differences between this trial and the Nuremberg Trials? Are we better prepared to prosecute Saddam for the same crimes as Hitler's cronies?