Browsing through the Encyclopedia Brittanica recently, I ran across an article on war crimes. The article said that &uot;war crimes&uot; was a term never successfully defined. Three categories, though, came to be recognized following World War II.

It was the first category that interested me: &uot;Crimes against peace &045; the planning, preparation, initiation of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances; or participating in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing.&uot;

In the fall of 1946 at Nuremberg, Germany, a number of Nazi leaders were tried and condemned for war crimes. Their defense, as I recall, consisted largely of their having followed the orders of their leaders.

On the news last week I heard of two men, who went into a mall and a shop where messages were custom stitched on T-shirts, each bought a shirt and had a peace slogan attached on the shirt, front and back. Then they put on their shirts and repaired to the store cafeteria to eat. There was no demonstration of any kind, no carrying of placards. The men were just wearing their peace shirts with mild messages of peace on them.

Someone, however, complained. The police were called. The men wearing the shirts were threatened with arrest and ordered to leave the cafeteria.

I think it was Thomas Jefferson who said &uot;Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.&uot; I always thought that meant that when the government followed a course that seemed wrong to a citizen, that citizen was duty-bound to protest.

Now that the &uot;patriots&uot; have defined patriotism as uncritical support of the president, whether you approve of his decisions or not, I’m feeling a little uneasy about those Nuremberg trials.

Could it be that &045; may God forgive us &045; we hanged those poor souls for war crimes, when all they were guilty of was patriotism?

What exactly is a patriot anyway? If it is defined by having a relative in active combat, who hasn’t had a relative in active combat? Some of mine were fighting for this country when it was still a colony.

To think a war veteran has a corner on patriotism is to forget that the terror of Sept. 11 was not our first such. The one in Oklahoma was planned and carried out by a Vietnam veteran.

Hitler was a veteran of World War I. Patriotic he may have been, but he didn’t do Germany a whole lot of good, did he?

I was reading last night in a journal I kept in 1991. About this time of the year, March, I wrote that 80,000 people had been killed. That seems to me like a good many people. Since we’re planning to kill another 80,000 or so, we can’t exactly consider the 1991 combat an unqualified success.

If we’re going to engage in war with every country that is a threat to us, we’ve got Korea, China, Iran and an number of others just around the corner.

We haven’t many friends right now, either. Whatever its prime minister may say, Great Britain is holding more protest marches than we are.

No one seems to realize that war isn’t the cozy little horror that it used to be. We all have weapons now that can not only kill but can totally annihilate the human race. Like the dinosaurs, we are expendable.

It saddens me that I have reached an age when marching for peace is beyond me. And I never was much of a singer. But I’m still capable of expressing gratitude and I want to thank the wonderful citizens who, true to their highest sense of right, march in protest against that which most of the world sees as a mistake.

Not to change the subject, but just for a minute to wish all of you a happy St. Patrick’s Day. As I confessed, I’ve never been much of a singer, and I’m no longer much of a walker. If I had those two gifts, I’d be out doing my protest march and in honor of St. Patrick, singing at the top of my voice, &uot;There once were two cats of Kilkenny/ Each thought there was one cat too many/ So they fought and they fit/ and they scratched and they bit/ until &045; except for their nails and the tips of their tails &045; instead of two cats of Kilkenny/ There were not any.&uot;

Love Cruikshank is an Albert Lea resident. Her column appears Thursdays.