While Johnson was undergoing treatment, the International Military Tribunal was conducting the final trial of Hydra's leaders.
"Alexander Pierce, Gillian Malik, Wolfgang von Strucker, Arnim Zola, Whitehall, Sunil Bakshi..."
A long list of Hydra leaders was read aloud. These people were scattered across the world and came from every nation—the United States, Bavaria, Germany... People discovered that Hydra's influence had never diminished; it had merely gone underground.
After reading the names, the judges on the bench exchanged glances.
"You bear primary responsibility for the war in Afghanistan, the five Middle East wars, the Amara Island War, the Grenada War..."
The presiding judge then read out another long list of wars, encompassing nearly every war that had occurred in the world since World War II.
World War I had been called "the war to end all wars," but in reality, an even more horrifying World War II had followed.
After World War II, dozens more wars involving great powers had broken out around the world. If coups and Civil Wars in certain smaller countries were included, the number would have exceeded a hundred.
Many of those wars remained deeply controversial to this day. No matter how heavily countries such as the United States promoted them, they were still unjust.
If no one took the blame, those wars and decades of propaganda would continue to have a major impact between nations. Even if they were suppressed for a time, people with ulterior motives would drag them back out at the next sensitive moment and make an issue of them.
And now, Hydra had conveniently crashed right into them—and every last one had been captured.
The key was that many of those wars really had been connected to them. Making them shoulder a little more blame was hardly difficult.
"...You bear primary responsibility