Politics & Power Quote by George Wald

“The concept of war crimes is an American invention” lands like a dare: not a factual footnote, but a moral indictment disguised as a historical observation. Coming from George Wald, a scientist better known for physiology than polemics, the line borrows the cool authority of the lab to say something incendiary about politics. Wald isn’t litigating whether atrocities existed before the United States; he’s interrogating who gets to define them, name them, prosecute them - and who gets exempted.

The intent is double-edged. On one level, it’s a backhanded compliment: “war crimes” as a modern ethical technology, a vocabulary that implies there are rules even in hell. On the other, it’s a critique of American power’s habit of writing the rulebook while claiming innocence of the game. The subtext is hypocrisy: the same superpower that champions tribunals, conventions, and “humanitarian” limits can also bend those limits when strategic necessity, domestic politics, or national mythology demands it.

Context matters. Wald spoke in an era when “war crimes” had become a post-World War II instrument of legitimacy - Nuremberg, Geneva, and the Cold War’s propaganda duel over moral standing. Later, Vietnam sharpened the charge: televised violence and civilian casualties made “war crimes” feel less like an abstract category and more like a live accusation. Wald’s phrasing - “American invention” - isn’t about origin so much as ownership. It suggests the label functions as a tool of empire: a way to police enemies, launder interventions, and convert messy violence into a narrative where the U.S. is always the judge, rarely the defendant.