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The "condoned" equivelent is not comparable. Revenge is not a scarcity but there are 'criminal' elements in all societies that will use the "they did it first" excuse against the innocent (civilians, etc.).

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I always found it puzzling that you can have 'rules of war'. This is total war on a grand scale & most aggressors will not abide by any rules. Apart from things like treatment of prisoners this puts those that do adhere to them at an immediate disadvantage.

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You are definitely correct on that point. Germans and especially the Japanese saw the Geneva Conventions as useless and a sign of weakness. They figured, if your going to fight a war, fight a war. If you are to win a war, you must become war.

The Japanese didn't believe in surrender and even after the 2 A-bombs were dropped. There were radical eliminates in the Japanese military that refused to even consider surrender. These people tried to prevent the Emperor from recording his capitulation on the 2 discs that were to be broadcast. They tried to overthrow the Emperor and his government in order to continue the war and to avoid the shame of surrender. Luckily for the Japanese and the Allies, they failed. If it hadn't failed, I can't imagine the chaos and the amount of lives that it would have cost on both sides to invade Japan.

The Gestapo and the SS ignored the standards expected, the other German services tended to respect their prisoners (of course every camp had the odd loon for a goon). A good example of this was the camp commandant at Stalag Luft III when he had to tell the British prisoners that 50 of their colleagues had been murdered by the Gestapo following the Great Escape. Apparently he was nearly as rough as the British over this news. An honourable man....

I'd never thought of them as acne before

According to Mitsuo Fuchida, the Soviet attack was a doublecross.  In a Japanese phrase, the Soviets were "the thief at the fire", which is a huge insult.  Although, the Soviet attack contributed to the watershed of events that led to the Japanese surrender, the primary actor for the surrender was the Emperor.  The militarists were prepared to fight to the last, Soviet attack or not.  The one event that caused Hirohito to make his unprescedented action were the two atomic bombs.  It wasn't the deaths from the bombs, especially since the B29 raids were killing more japanese citizens.  It was the shock factor of one bomb rendering so much destruction.  Prior to the A-Bombs, Hirohito had made it known, in his traditionally subtle, and court-etiquette manner that he wanted the war to come to an end.  But after the A-Bombs, he resolved that he must go against tradition and take personal action.

I never did buy the Soviet theory, and after re-reading Fuchida's autobiography - as dictated to Gordon Prange, I'm convinced it's wrong.  And besides, Fuchida was there, and he had the extremely rare honor of being a mere captain and participating in the imperial court, not once, but twice.

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I never heard of such a documentary.  However, the marines on Guadalcanal learned the hard way that the Japanese soldier could not be counted upon to surrender when defeated, or treat their prisoners decently when captured, even if they allowed their prisoners to live.  So, when fighting  the Japanese soldiers, the marines gave no quarter, nor asked for any.  It was how both sides treated each other.  The marines also quickly learned that many Japanese soldiers, when severely wounded would wait for a marine approach himself, then detonate a gernade, taking himself out as well as his would-be rescuer.  So the marines just shot the wounded enemy rather than risk their own demise.  However, when it was safe, the marines did take prisoners, but Japanese prisoners were very rare.

Now, if anyone construes this as atrocities, then they are revising history.