For the most part I think imprisoning people is wrong except where they pose a clear danger to other citizens. Prison as punishment is simply wrong. I strongly believe in community service and engagement along with real attempts at reform for people who commit crimes. Short of keeping sexual predators and murderous sociopaths away from innocent people imprisonment serves no purpose that I can see. By real attempts at reform I mean education and/or job training along with job placement and mental health counseling. Keeping people away from society is not a good way to socialize them to societies normative behaviours is it? People usually make bad choices because they were socialized to believe they are acceptable or that they should be excused from acceptable behaviour for some reason. Not every criminal of course but the vast majority. Why treat a war criminal any differently than a bank robber? Last time I checked there were no socially approved institutions teaching people to rob liquor stores yet there is a huge socially approved institution teaching people to be war criminals so why should I harbor some particular ill will towards those who commit war crimes rather than rob liquor stores? Socially implemented punishment breeds contempt for society in those punished practically guaranteeing they will recommit crimes.
I don't feel the Nuremberg Principles should be of much use to us now. I should hope we would be moving away from the idea that war crimes are any different from other crimes and that punishment of transgressors will help make our society any safer. If the head of a drug cartel orders the deaths of 30 people over the span of a few years when caught he should be tried for those crimes, judged whether he is a continuous threat, incarcerated if he is, and offered a chance at reform if he is not. If a General orders a wedding party bombed and 30 people are killed he should be treated the same way and to the same standards. He should not be allowed to continue being a General any more than the drug cartel leader should be allowed to return to his former occupation. He has demonstrated that he cannot perform the tasks required of a General with any competency and may have to settle for stocking shelves at Wal-Mart for the rest of his days where his opportunity for making such calamitous errors is reduced to an acceptable level. As near zero as we can practically get. In real life I fear the leader of a drug cartel who orders multiple killings is far more likely to be a dangerous sociopath than the General it is just that the General is in a position to more easily kill and with less culpability. That should be changed. If the practical aspects of this are a near total reduction in armed services I can live with that. I don't foresee anyone attacking the US if all we had was a small, well equipped and trained force defending the US from within the borders of the US. No fan of Empire, I see no need to "project power" outside our own borders. None of what I believe makes a damn bit of difference in the real world however.
John Thornton