Those who have committed war crimes or who are suspected of committing them must answer for them.
War criminals kill innocent people for various reasons, whether it’s over religion, ethnicity or ideology. Whatever their reasons, there can be no justification for their actions.
One of the most well-documented and horrendous cases of war crimes occurred during World War II when former German dictator Adolf Hitler and his henchmen tried to exterminate the entire Jewish race along with others they considered inferior or undesirable. Because of their orders and orders being acted upon by leaders and soldiers in the concentration camps, nearly 6 million innocent Jewish people were murdered.
There are a few officers and guards from those concentration camps who are still alive and have evaded capture or trial for their despicable acts.
To add insult to injury to the families of victims massacred in the camps, it has been disclosed that dozens of suspected Nazi war criminals and SS guards received millions of dollars in U.S. Social Security benefits after being forced out of the United States.
The payments, underwritten by U.S. taxpayers, flowed through a legal loophole that gave the U.S. Justice Department leverage to persuade Nazi suspects to leave the U.S.
If they agreed to go or simply flee before deportation, they could keep their Social Security benefits.
There is a lot of blame to go around here, but the bottom line is these men are suspected war criminals who need to be tried for their alleged crimes in a court of law, rather than receiving money from U.S. taxpayers.
Shame on those who were responsible for letting this happen. Perhaps this injustice can still be corrected.
— The Daily News, Bowling Green, Kentucky
Oct. 24
