[netsharc]

Probably because Obama said we have to look forwards and not backwards, and Europe was probably in love with him that they just said "ok!", and Russia and China were thinking "that's fine with us because it means we'll get away with doing similar things!"

Obama seemed to have the dream of stopping the partisan bickering and reuniting the country, prosecuting the former presidential administration would not have helped with that (not that this dream/mission got anywhere close to reality in his 8 years).

Another reason was prosecuting them would've meant subsequent administrations would look for any wrongdoing they could use against the previous admin. (Well, this is what the GOP did anyway, say with Benghazi).

[tsimionescu]

As far as I know, the US have never investigated a member of their government for war crimes, and have always shielded any US army person investigated in another country. It is a very simple policy: by definition, the US is carying out just wars, so there can be no war crimes perpetrated by the US army. At most, regrettable mistakes can be admitted to.

This applies even when international courts have found the US guilty, since the US does not recognize the authority of international courts against them. See the case of the mining of Nicaragua's harbors https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_v._United_States