William Shawcross Quotes
You cannot do justice to the dead. When we talk about doing justice to the dead we are talking about retribution for the harm done to them. But retribution and justice are two different things.
Shawcross, William. Justice and the Enemy: Nuremberg, 9/11, and the Trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. PublicAffairs, 2011, p. 45.
Nathaniel Bacon had led a rebellion in Virginia and had routed the Governor’s troops and caused him to flee leaving control of Virginia to Bacon and his followers who were far more democratic and advanced. However Bacon succumbed to swamp fever, and his followers could not hold the colony together giving the Governor a chance to establish his authority. He then went on a vengeful reign of terror, executing all of Bacon’s followers he could get his hands on. With no danger to the authority of the Crown, King Charles felt that Berkeley had gone too far. The King’s father Charles I had been executed in the aftermath of the English Civil War, but he had executed far fewer than Berkely had done in Virginia.
A number of the American soldiers refused to obey Calley's illegal order. Some helped some villagers to escape, and a helicopter pilot landed betreen Callery's men and the villagers they were shooting at, and ordered his helicopter machine gun crew to fire on the soldiers if they did back off. The soldiers stopped firing at the civillians. However, his and other reports of the massacre were covered up by the military for a few years. Mai Lai was not the only major war crime perpetrated by Americans in the Vietnam War; there had been a few others. But given the years of fighting and the many opportunities war crimes violations under orders were quite rare. The Viet Cong had many more war crimes that they perpetrated, and our South Vietnamese allies repeatedly committed war crimes against their own people.
William Hartley Hume Shawcross, CVO is a British writer and commentator, and the former Chairman of the Charity Commission for England and Wales.
