Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky

by Noam Chomsky

In fact, even worse than the Nuremberg trials were the Tokyo trials [of Japanese war criminals]: by the standards of the Tokyo trials, not just every American President, but everyone would be hanged [at Tokyo, those who failed to take affirmative steps to prevent war crimes or to dissociate themselves from the government were executed]. General Yamashita was an extreme case: he was hanged because during the American conquest of the Philippines, troops that were technically under his command, although he had already lost all contact with them, carried out crimes—therefore he was hanged. Ask yourself who’s going to survive that one. Here’s a guy who was hanged because troops he had no contact with whatsoever, but which theoretically in some order of battle had to do with his units, committed atrocities. If those same principles apply to us, who’s going to survive? And that was just one case, I think we killed about a thousand people in the Tokyo trials—they were really grotesque.