United States war crimes are the violations of the laws and customs of war of which the United States Armed Forces are accused of committing since the signing of the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. These have included the summary execution of captured enemy combatants, the mistreatment of prisoners during interrogation (torture), and the use of violence against civilian non-combatants.
War crimes can be prosecuted in the United States through the War Crimes Act of 1996. However, the U.S. Government strongly opposes the International Criminal Court (ICC) treaty, arguing that the Court lacks checks and balances, and thus does not accept ICC jurisdiction over its nationals.
Mexican–American War
When Zachary Taylor began leading American soldiers into Mexico the U.S troops under the watchful eye of Taylor at first adhered to the rules of war for the most part and almost exclusively engaged only with enemy soldiers. This gained them some popularity with Mexican civilians who held the occupying Americans in a degree of high regard compared to the Mexican Army who left their wounded to be captured by the enemy as they retreated from the area. In June 1846, this changed when American reinforcements entered the area and began raiding local farms.
Many soldiers on garrison duty began committing crimes against civilians such as robbery, rape and murder in order to cure their boredom. This crime wave resulted in American soldiers murdering at least 20 civilians during the first month of occupation. Taylor showed little concern with the crimes his soldiers had been committing and made no attempt to discipline the soldiers responsible for them. This led to public opinion turning against the American troops and resulted in many Mexicans taking up arms and forming guerrilla bands which attacked patrols of U.S soldiers. The attacks continued to get more prevalent especially after the Battle of Monterrey.
During this time anti-Catholic sentiment and racism fueled more attacks on civilians. It was estimated that during this time US troops killed at least 100 civilians, with the majority of them being killed by Col. John C. Hays' 1st Texas Mounted Volunteers. In response to the violence, Mexicans killed an American soldier outside of Monterrey. American troops under the command of Capt. Mabry B. "Mustang" Gray responded to the event by abducting and executing twenty-four unarmed Mexican civilians.
In the coming months the boredom of occupation duties led to additional violence against civilians. In November 1846, a detachment from the 1st Kentucky regiment murdered a young Mexican boy, apparently for sport. Afterwards, Taylor again refused to bring charges against any of the soldiers involved.
The most infamous group of soldiers during this time was the ones serving under Joseph Lane. After Captain Samuel Hamilton Walker was killed in a skirmish there, Lane ordered his men to avenge the dead Texas Ranger by sacking the town of Huamantla. The soldiers quickly became drunk after raiding a liquor store and began targeting the townspeople. Reports described the soldiers raping scores of women many of whom were young girls and murdering dozens of Mexican civilians while they burned down homes. However, these reports of an American rampage were overshadowed by news of Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna's resignation after the Huamantla attack, leading to no repercussions against Lane or any of the soldiers involved in the massacre.
By the end of the war the number of Mexican civilians killed by American troops was estimated at being over 10,000.
Philippine–American War
General Jacob H. Smith's infamous order "Kill Everyone over Ten" was the caption in the New York Journal cartoon on May 5, 1902. The Old Glory draped an American shield on which a vulture replaced the bald eagle. The caption at the bottom proclaimed, "Criminals Because They Were Born Ten Years before We Took the Philippines"
Following the end of the Spanish–American War in 1898, Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States as part of the peace settlement. This triggered a more than decade-long conflict between the United States Armed Forces and the First Philippine Republic under President Emilio Aguinaldo.
War crimes committed by the United States Army include the March across Samar, which led to the court martial and forcible retirement of Brigadier General Jacob H. Smith.
Smith instructed Major Littleton Waller, commanding officer of a battalion of 315 U.S. Marines assigned to bolster his forces in Samar, regarding the conduct of pacification:
"I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn, the more you kill and burn the better it will please me. I want all persons killed who are capable of bearing arms in actual hostilities against the United States," General Jacob H. Smith said.
Since it was a popular belief among the Americans serving in the Philippines that native males were born with bolos in their hands, Major Littleton "Tony" Waller asked, "I would like to know the limit of age to respect, sir."
"Ten years", Smith said.
"Persons of ten years and older are those designated as being capable of bearing arms?"
"Yes." Smith confirmed his instructions a second time.
A sustained and widespread massacre of Filipino civilians followed. Food and trade to Samar were cut off, intended to starve the revolutionaries into submission. Smith's strategy on Samar involved widespread destruction to force the inhabitants to stop supporting the guerrillas and turn to the Americans from fear and starvation. He used his troops in sweeps of the interior in search for guerrilla bands and in attempts to capture Philippine General Vicente Lukbán, but he did nothing to prevent contact between the guerrillas and the townspeople. American columns marched across the island, destroying homes and shooting people and draft animals.
The exact number of Filipino civilians killed by US troops will never be known. Littleton Waller, in a report, stated that over an eleven-day period his men burned 255 dwellings, shot 13 carabaos and killed 39 people. An exhaustive research made by a British writer in the 1990s put the figure at about 2,500 dead; Filipino historians believe it to be around 50,000. As a consequence of his order in Samar, Smith became known as "Howling Wilderness Smith".
Moro crater massacre
Regarding the massacres in Bud Dajo, Major Hugh Scott, the District Governor of Sulu Province, where the incidents occurred, recounted that those who fled to the crater "declared they had no intention of fighting, - ran up there only in fright, [and] had some crops planted and desired to cultivate them."
The description of the engagement as a "battle" is disputed because of both the overwhelming firepower of the attackers and the lopsided casualties. The author Vic Hurley wrote, "By no stretch of the imagination could Bud Dajo be termed a 'battle'". Mark Twain condemned the incident strongly in articles and commented, "In what way was it a battle? It has no resemblance to a battle ... We cleaned up our four days' work and made it complete by butchering these helpless people." A higher percentage of Moros were killed than in other incidents now considered massacres. For example, the highest estimate of Native Americans killed at the Wounded Knee Massacre is 300 out of 350 (a death rate of 85 percent), whereas in Bud Dajo there were only six Moro survivors out of a group estimated at 1,000 (a death rate of over 99 percent). As at Wounded Knee, the Moro group included women and children. Moro men in the crater who had arms possessed melee weapons. While fighting was limited to ground action on Jolo, use of naval gunfire contributed significantly to the overwhelming firepower brought to bear against the Moros.
During the engagement, 750 men and officers, under the command of Colonel J.W. Duncan, assaulted the volcanic crater of Bud Dajo (Tausūg: Būd Dahu), which was populated by 800 to 1,000 Tausug villagers.
On March 2, 1906, Wood ordered Colonel J.W. Duncan of the 6th Infantry Regiment (stationed at Zamboanga, the provincial capital) to lead an expedition against Bud Dajo. The assault force consisted of "272 men of the 6th Infantry, 211 [dismounted] men of the 4th Cavalry, 68 men of the 28th Artillery Battery, 51 Philippine Constabulary, 110 men of the 19th Infantry and 6 sailors from the gunboat Pampanga." The battle began on March 5, as mountain guns fired 40 rounds of shrapnel into the crater. During the night, the Americans hauled mountain guns to the crater's edge with block and tackle. At daybreak, the American guns (both the mountain guns and the guns of the Pampanga) opened up on the Moros' fortifications in the crater. American forces then placed a "Machine Gun... in position where it could sweep the crest of the mountain between us and the cotta," killing all Moros in the crater. One account claims that the Moros, armed with krises and spears, refused to surrender and held their positions. Some of the defenders rushed the Americans and were cut down. The Americans charged the surviving Moros with fixed bayonets, and the Moros fought back with their kalis, barung, improvised grenades made with black powder and seashells. Despite the inconsistencies among various accounts of the battle (one in which all occupants of Bud Dajo were gunned down, another in which defenders resisted in fierce hand-to-hand combat), all accounts agree that few, if any, Moros survived.
In response to criticism, Wood's explanation of the high number of women and children killed stated that the women of Bud Dajo dressed as men and joined in the combat, and that the men used children as living shields. Hagedorn supports this explanation, by giving an account of Lt. Gordon Johnston, who was severely wounded by a woman warrior. A second explanation was given by the Governor-General of the Philippines, Henry Clay Ide, who reported that the women and children were collateral damage, having been killed during the artillery barrages. These conflicting explanations of the high number of women and child casualties brought accusations of a cover-up, adding to the criticism. Furthermore, Wood's and Ide's explanation are at odds with Col. J.W. Duncan's March 12, 1906 post-action report describing the placement of a machine-gun at the edge of the crater to fire upon the occupants. Following Duncan's reports, the high number of non-combatants killed can be explained as the result of indiscriminate machine-gun fire.
Despite President McKinley's proclamation of "benevolent assimilation" of the Philippines as a U.S. Territory, American treatment of Philippine soldiers and civilians was far from benevolent.
General Elwell Stephen Otis controlled the flow of information by journalists, often through violent methods, in order to maintain American support for the war. Following the Battle of Manila, Aguinaldo switched his tactics from conventional warfare to guerrilla warfare, causing American generals to establish harsher methods of warfare as well.
Orders given by Otis and General Arthur MacArthur Jr. oversaw the complete destruction of many villages, and the capture and execution of their civilians, in order to incite conflict by Philippine soldiers. Despite Otis' restriction on journalism, many reports by both American and Filipino journalists indicate that American treatment of Filipino prisoners was very harsh, as many were starved and tortured, and many others were executed.
A report written by General J.M. Bell in 1901 states: "I am now assembling in the neighborhood of 2,500 men who will be used in columns of about fifty men each. I take so large a command for the purpose of thoroughly searching each ravine, valley and mountain peak for insurgents and for food, expecting to destroy everything I find outside of towns. All able bodied men will be killed or captured. ... These people need a thrashing to teach them some good common sense; and they should have it for the good of all concerned."
World War I
According to historian Richard Rubin, American Doughboys developed an intense hatred of all soldiers of the Imperial German Army during the Meuse-Argonne Campaign. Rubin claims to have "read, here and there, reports of newly captured German prisoners at Meuse-Argonne being executed rather than sent back behind the lines."
World War II
Pacific theater
On January 26, 1943, the submarine USS Wahoo fired on survivors in lifeboats from the Japanese transport Buyo Maru. Vice Admiral Charles A. Lockwood asserted that the survivors were Japanese soldiers who had turned machine-gun and rifle fire on the Wahoo after she surfaced, and that such resistance was common in submarine warfare. According to the submarine's executive officer, the fire was intended to force the Japanese soldiers to abandon their boats and none of them were deliberately targeted. Historian Clay Blair stated that the submarine's crew fired first and the shipwrecked survivors returned fire with handguns. The survivors were later determined to have included Allied POWs of the Indian 2nd Battalion, 16th Punjab Regiment, who were guarded by Japanese Army Forces from the 26th Field Ordnance Depot. Of 1,126 men originally aboard Buyo Maru, 195 Indians and 87 Japanese died, some killed during the torpedoing of the ship and some killed by the shootings afterwards.
During and after the Battle of the Bismarck Sea (March 3–5, 1943), U.S. PT boats and Allied aircraft attacked Japanese rescue vessels as well as approximately 1,000 survivors from eight sunken Japanese troop transport ships. The stated justification was that the Japanese personnel were close to their military destination and would be promptly returned to service in the battle. Many of the Allied aircrew accepted the attacks as necessary, while others were sickened.
American servicemen in the Pacific War sometimes deliberately killed Japanese soldiers who had surrendered, according to Richard Aldrich, a professor of history at the University of Nottingham. Aldrich published a study of diaries kept by United States and Australian soldiers, wherein it was stated that they sometimes massacred prisoners of war. According to John Dower, in "many instances ... Japanese who did become prisoners were killed on the spot or en route to prison compounds." According to Professor Aldrich, it was common practice for U.S. troops not to take prisoners. His analysis is supported by British historian Niall Ferguson, who also says that, in 1943, "a secret [U.S.] intelligence report noted that only the promise of ice cream and three days leave would ... induce American troops not to kill surrendering Japanese."
Ferguson states that such practices played a role in the ratio of Japanese prisoners to dead being 1:100 in late 1944. That same year, efforts were taken by Allied high commanders to suppress "take no prisoners" attitudes among their personnel (because it hampered intelligence gathering), and to encourage Japanese soldiers to surrender. Ferguson adds that measures by Allied commanders to improve the ratio of Japanese prisoners to Japanese dead resulted in it reaching 1:7, by mid-1945. Nevertheless, "taking no prisoners" was still "standard practice" among U.S. troops at the Battle of Okinawa, in April–June 1945. Ferguson also suggests that "it was not only the fear of disciplinary action or of dishonor that deterred German and Japanese soldiers from surrendering. More important for most soldiers was the perception that prisoners would be killed by the enemy anyway, and so one might as well fight on."
Ulrich Straus, a U.S. Japanologist, suggests that Allied troops on the front line intensely hated Japanese military personnel and were "not easily persuaded" to take or protect prisoners, because they believed, reasonably, that Allied personnel who surrendered got "no mercy" from the Japanese. Allied troops were told that Japanese soldiers were inclined to feign surrender in order to make surprise attacks, a practice which was outlawed by the Hague Convention of 1907. Therefore, according to Straus, "Senior officers opposed the taking of prisoners on the grounds that it needlessly exposed American troops to risks ..." When prisoners were taken at Guadalcanal, Army interrogator Captain Burden noted that many times POWs were shot during transport because "it was too much bother to take [them] in".
U.S. historian James J. Weingartner attributes the very low number of Japanese in U.S. prisoner of war compounds to two important factors, namely (1) a Japanese reluctance to surrender, and (2) a widespread American "conviction that the Japanese were 'animals' or 'subhuman' and unworthy of the normal treatment accorded to prisoners of war. The latter reason is supported by Ferguson, who says that "Allied troops often saw the Japanese in the same way that Germans regarded Russians — as Untermenschen (i.e., "subhuman").
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