IS PUTIN A "CLASS A" WAR CRIMINAL? 6/8: Judgment at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia Hardcover – by Gary J. Bass
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 16 February 2025
⏱️ 8 minutes
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Summary
1942 JAPAN ATTACKS DUTCH INDIES
https://www.amazon.com/Judgment-Tokyo-World-Making-Modern/dp/1101947101
In the weeks after Japan finally surrendered to the Allies to end World War II, the world turned to the question of how to move on from years of carnage and destruction. For Harry Truman, Douglas MacArthur, Chiang Kai-shek, and their fellow victors, the question of justice seemed clear: Japan’s militaristic leaders needed to be tried and punished for the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor; shocking atrocities against civilians in China, the Philippines, and elsewhere; and rampant abuses of prisoners of war in notorious incidents such as the Bataan death march. For the Allied powers, the trial was an opportunity to render judgment on their vanquished foes, but also to create a legal framework to prosecute war crimes and prohibit the use of aggressive war, building a more peaceful world under international law and American hegemony. For the Japanese leaders on trial, it was their chance to argue that their war had been waged to liberate Asia from Western imperialism and that the court was victors’ justice.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm John Batchel with Professor Gary Bass. His new book is Judgment at Tokyo, World War II on trial and the making of modern Asia. |
| 0:12.7 | As the professor has told us, 50,000 pages of transcripts, and it comes to these Class A criminals alleged to have waged aggressive war. |
| 0:24.7 | Sixteen military, I'm following Gary's reporting, 16 military, 13 of them from the Army, |
| 0:30.0 | three from the Navy, 12 civilians, five from the foreign ministry, one finance minister, |
| 0:35.4 | and then Quito of the palace itself. They are sitting through |
| 0:39.9 | these proceedings, the allegations, and then their defense attorneys, who are in general, I believe, |
| 0:46.4 | American defense attorneys, and a credit to them, Professor. I think you say the defense |
| 0:50.7 | attorneys wear down the judges. They do a very good job of scrambling in order |
| 0:56.0 | to make the case for their clients, even though they're mostly in uniform, I think. And one |
| 1:02.7 | particular argument turns over the conspiracy charge. Was this new in 19? It was new in Nuremberg. |
| 1:09.9 | It was also new in Tokyo. Was Tokyo borrowing from Nuremberg, or did they come to this understanding of conspiracy separately? |
| 1:19.8 | It was put in place at Nuremberg, and the charter at Tokyo is almost exactly the same as the charter at Nuremberg. |
| 1:30.2 | So conspiracy, which is something that, you know, is a part of American criminal law, |
| 1:34.7 | and it's kind of a prosecutor's dream. |
| 1:38.5 | So it's treated as a common criminal enterprise. |
| 1:41.9 | And this is something the lot of the judges are actually uncomfortable with, that it's not |
| 1:45.6 | a familiar part of their legal system. |
| 1:48.2 | Some of them are, you know, are outright against it. |
| 1:53.0 | Some of them are just uncomfortable. |
| 1:56.2 | But it is, it's something that makes more sense, whatever you think of conspiracy charges as law. |
| 2:04.2 | As fact, it makes a lot more sense when you're thinking about the very unified totalitarian government of Nazi Germany. |
| 2:13.6 | And it makes much less sense when you're thinking about a very splintered Japanese government, |
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