War Criminals

How dare your letter writer compare President George Bush to Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak and to Nazi war criminals after World War II. America, before, during and after the Sept. 11 attacks on our soil, also had our U.S. Embassies, Ambassadors, our U.S. ally Israel, our Marines and American civilians abroad, attacked and murdered by terrorists who were aided and abetted by Iraq andal-Qaidaand their assorted mercenaries. Our brave soldiers were volunteers defending our country which is still being threatened.

How dare your letter writer compare President George Bush to Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak and to Nazi war criminals after World War II. America, before, during and after the Sept. 11 attacks on our soil, also had our U.S. Embassies, Ambassadors, our U.S. ally Israel, our Marines and American civilians abroad, attacked and murdered by terrorists who were aided and abetted by Iraq andal-Qaidaand their assorted mercenaries. Our brave soldiers were volunteers defending our country which is still being threatened.

VILNIUS, Lithuania -- Lithuania's new government has begun issuing certificates of exoneration for thousands of people who had been condemned as Nazi war criminals by Soviet courts.Among those who have already had their convictions as collaborators expunged by the chief prosecutor are people who confessed to mass murder in appearances before Soviet courts soon after the war.For the Lithuanians, the fundamental aim of the rehabilitation of people, living and dead, is to challenge and revoke the authority of Soviet Communist courts to judge the behavior of Lithuanians during a war in which their country was first overrun by Soviet troops and then, two years later, was occupied by the Nazis.

Bedford Groves, a retired Washington College administrator who earned two Purple Hearts in the infantry during World War II, died of heart disease March 15 at Chester River Manor. He was 90 and lived in Chestertown. He was born on a farm at Turners Creek near Kennedyville on the Eastern Shore. His father died when he was 14. To help support his six sisters and mother, he worked on a neighbor's farm in the early morning and hitchhiked to Chestertown High School, where he graduated in 1937.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- The Argentine authorities were either unwilling or unable to bring Nazi war criminals to justice even when they had them in custody, according to archives made public for the first time.The archives on five Nazi war criminals that were made available by Argentina show a pattern that confirms what many have said for years, that war criminals found a safe haven here and that this country was probably one of the easiest in which to disappear and escape justice.Last week, President Carlos Menem ordered the files opened and gave government agencies 30 days to produce any they had on suspected war criminals who came to Argentina.

John Demjanjuk returned to the United States yesterday, turned loose by an Israeli judicial system unable to convict him of being the arch war criminal "Ivan the Terrible" at the Treblinka death camp but still certain he was a smaller cog in the immense engine of the Final Solution.His case has bred fears in some quarters that the near eight-year imprisonment of Mr. Demjanjuk, the grueling 15-month courtroom struggle and its inconclusive outcome might hurt the effort to bring to justice remaining perpetrators of Holocaust crimes.

BERLIN -- In Germany, a country that knows a thing or two about war criminals, new villains are loose in the land.They stand accused of brutality and genocide. About a dozen are under investigation, and some people believe that hundreds more may be ducking the authorities in cities from Berlin to Frankfurt.The suspects are not Nazis from World War II, but Serbs from the war in the former Yugoslavia. And this time around, Germans are doing the chasing and charging, not the running and hiding.

UNITED NATIONS - The world's first permanent criminal court for the prosecution of dictators and war criminals became a reality yesterday despite strong U.S. opposition. "The long-held dream of the International Criminal Court will now be realized," Secretary-General Kofi Annan said. "Impunity has been dealt a decisive blow." The court closes a gap in international law by holding people, not nations or armies, responsible for the most horrific crimes, Annan said. He was speaking at a news conference in Rome, where more than 100 countries met in 1998 to propose the establishment of the tribunal.

Bruce Bereano found a judge who understood. Some people always do.Baltimore needs an NBA team. Preferably one better than the Washington (formerly Baltimore) Bullets.Naming war criminals as war criminals does not make them easier to deal with.

Bosnian Serb indicted war criminals, 1; United Nations, 0. Bill made his position perfectly clear: We're going in; we're not going in; we're going in . . . The Republicans' are equally clear. They disagree on what to do, agree that whatever Bill does will have been inexcusable.

While I am no fan of Jonathan Pollard, I must take issue with Haviland Smith's commentary in the January 13 edition of The Sun ( "Freeing Pollard would be a terrible mistake" . Jonathan Pollard pleaded guilty to a charge of passing on classified information to an ally, a crime which on average has yielded a seven-year sentence and about four years of actual prison time served. Mr. Pollard has been incarcerated now for more than 25 years. He has served longer than most murderers, rapists and, yes, war criminals.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court gave a skeptical hearing yesterday to the Bush administration's claim that the president has the power to create and control special military tribunals to punish foreigners he deems to be war criminals. Five of the eight justices hearing the case commented that the laws of war and the Geneva Conventions set basic rules of fairness for trying alleged war criminals. And they questioned whether the president was free to ignore those basic rules - as well as the rules of American military law. It suggested a second setback might be looming for the administration's legal strategy in the fight against terrorism.

The passing of Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal is a moment to pay tribute to his relentless pursuit of justice - and to consider that while today it is a given that such criminals should be punished, there was a time when Nazi-hunting was not politically correct. Soon after the United States entered World War II, the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt began formulating its policy on postwar treatment of Nazi war criminals. Even at that early stage, the Allies knew enough about Nazi atrocities against Jews and others to know that if and when they won the war, they would have many war criminals on their hands.

LONDON - Mayor Ken Livingstone sparked anger from Israel yesterday for labeling Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a "war criminal" less than a month after he drew criticism for comparing a Jewish reporter for a British newspaper to a concentration camp guard. Writing in the left-wing Guardian newspaper, Livingstone responded to criticism over the earlier remark, pointing to what he said was his long record of opposition to anti-Semitism. But then he launched a harsh attack on the "ethnic cleansing" policies of the Israeli government.

WASHINGTON - The CIA is refusing to provide hundreds of thousands of pages of documents sought by a government working group under a 1998 law that requires full disclosure of classified records related to Nazi war criminals, say congressional officials from both parties. Under the law, the CIA has already provided more than 1.2 million pages of documents, the bulk of them from the archives of its World War II predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services. Many documents have been declassified, and some made public last year showed a closer relationship between the U.S. government and Nazi war criminals than had previously been understood, including the CIA's recruitment of war criminal suspects or Nazi collaborators.

BOSTON - There was a moment in The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara when I thought this sober film on the life and times of the former defense secretary should be required viewing for those who believe that even a good war is free of moral dilemmas. Remembering the firebombing of Tokyo, the deaths of 100,000 civilians in one night in World War II, Mr. McNamara asks: Would we have been tried as war criminals if we'd lost? There was another moment when I thought the film should be viewed as well by those who believe that American vulnerability began on Sept.

The passing of Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal is a moment to pay tribute to his relentless pursuit of justice - and to consider that while today it is a given that such criminals should be punished, there was a time when Nazi-hunting was not politically correct. Soon after the United States entered World War II, the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt began formulating its policy on postwar treatment of Nazi war criminals. Even at that early stage, the Allies knew enough about Nazi atrocities against Jews and others to know that if and when they won the war, they would have many war criminals on their hands.

The United States should 1) never 2) always 3) sometimes negotiate with war criminals. Choose one.NATO is doubling the number of troops who will not invade Kosovo.Baltimore is so broke, the City Council will beg NATO to bomb it, then pour in aid.The main difficulty with China is reconciling what we want to foist on them with what they want to procure from us.

ANDERSONVILLE, Ga. - The Georgia preacher flailed his arms - not out of zeal, but self-defense. It was Easter. The just-risen sun was burning through the morning mist. Birds chirped. And the mosquitoes, sensing easy prey, converged on the sparse crowd attending sunrise services at this former Civil War prison camp. "We're going to `a cappella' this one," the Rev. John P. Drake said, waving bugs away as congregants, who had been quietly passing around a can of bug repellent, stood to sing.