[jchb]

To me, a non-US citizen, it seems that the International Criminal Court (ICC) is being quite reasonable here. ICC wants to investigate US military personnel that, allegedly, committed war crimes on Afghanistan soil after 2003. They can do that because Afghanistan ratified the ICC that year. Clearly, if the US wants to commit war crimes, they should only do that inside their own borders, where they are actually perfectly safe from the ICC.

That being said, I don't like when this kind of issues are politicized ("Obama destroyed America", "Trump sucks on all issues", ...). So I looked up the numbers.

The US congress and senate passed a law, in 2002, that gave the president authority to "with all means necessary, prohibit the International Criminal Court from seeking to exercise jurisdiction over United States persons, and allied persons"

https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2002328

Votes by party

Republican YEAS: 201 NAYS: 18

Democratic YEAS: 195 NAYS: 13

Doesn't seem to be a "current administration" issue only. Clearly the US was caught up in the post-9/11 panic at the time of passing this law. But it seems a good idea to repeal it - if there is no longer a majority in support of it.

[mola]

Well that's still is politics. The US lost its marbles after 9/11. Obama was trying to stear the boat a different way, but he didn't have the support of the legislative bodies which made it their job to give him hell no matter what.

Anyway, The bill didn't specify the means, so the means are a part of policy. Sanctioning these type of individuals is a bully move. This administration has picked a strategy of being a bully.

[throwaway4good]

The "rules-based order" of the world is essentially a US-led world order.

What is fascinating is that the US itself is dismantling it, ultimately leading to a world that is no longer US-led and where the US is a lot poorer.

[eternalban]

It is thought provoking, and here the question to ask is: would the usual suspects in USA also be a "lot poorer" when the superpower is dethroned?

If you review George H W Bush's early 90s speeches, he was cryctal clear that "UN" would be the center of "a new world order" and not USA or Washington DC. The undeclared attack of 9/11 necessitated a change in the plans. (If you think US was attempting to "Shock and Awe" Iraqis, that is fine, but we would disagree on that ..)

p.s. http://canadianliberty.com/new-world-order-speeches-of-presi...

[adventured]

> Obama was trying to stear the boat a different way, but he didn't have the support of the legislative bodies which made it their job to give him hell no matter what.

No he wasn't. He went after journalists in the most vicious way since Nixon. His intelligence services violated privacy in the US on a scale never seen before in the country. He attempted to invade Syria and de facto ended up doing exactly that, starting new wars across the Middle East. He didn't do a damn thing different, he was just another President in the White House committing new atrocities, like the guy before him. Then on the way out the door he sent the FBI after his replacement, in a pre-staged attempted coup. Dirty as can be.

People try to pretty up the Obama Administration years, because he's a fan favorite. I get it, he's a lot more likable than Bush or Trump; he's more composed, smoother, and smarter. It's all a con, all the way down to the fraudulent Nobel Peace Prize he apparently got ahead of time for destroying Syria and Libya. His Presidency was a travesty filled with many acts of extraordinary evil. There should have been a Syria death counter every night on CNN, but the left didn't have the integrity to do it to one of their own.

[mola]

Sorry, but that's lazy thinking. I used the term steer the boat for a reason. He was in charge of a huge system with its own momentum expecting a change of the sort you want is just silly. US abandoning all the fronts he had would've been disasterous for everyone. Regarding syria, the Syrian situation was in full swing without Obama's US involvement. The ISIS situation and Iran fighting along side Assad is a direct reprocussion of the bush invasion of Iraq. Obama did everything he could not to have forces inside syria, that's why russia and Iran established forces there. Just compare US involvement in Syria, to it's involvement in iraq and afghanistan. If anything, you could blame him for not doing enough to ward off Iran Assad and Russia.

Your type of delusional perfectionism will deter any leader who tries to follow your moral compass while keeping in touch with reality. We will be left only with assholes in charge, because they don't give a fuck what you think.

[bigbizisverywyz]

>Your type of delusional perfectionism will deter any leader who tries to follow your moral compass while keeping in touch with reality. We will be left only with assholes in charge, because they don't give a fuck what you think.

Thank you very much for that great phrase to describe so much of politics today 'delusional perfectionism', and which might explain a lot of the aggressive antagonism towards the media from US and UK today (and probably others).

>We will be left only with assholes in charge, because they don't give a fuck what you think.

Which I think perfectly describes Trump, and to a large degree Johnson in the UK, but also Modi on India and Erdogan who have moved themselves out of the way of all criticism.

[rusticpenn]

There is a lot of perspective missing here. Libya was in total chaos before US or France began supporting the civilians. The support from US (and France) was welcome at that time and was a huge relief to the civilians there.

I am not sure how he destroyed Syria. The whole resistance was part of the Arab Spring. It was a mixture of unhappiness with the dictatorship and the food scarcity outside of the cities. The involvement from outside powers came in very late and mostly were half hearted approaches (except the Russians).

Obama is not perfect, and during his reign, journalism and whistleblowers were affected a lot. He also had other issues but these were not part of them.

[csomar]

> Libya was in total chaos before US or France began supporting the civilians.

You got it all backward comrade. Libya was just fine before France and the US intervened. Sure the infrastructure and liberties were not there, but that's kinda the theme of the region.

Actually Libya was going on a "revolution" as Gaddafi was delegating his powers to his son who was interested in liberalizing the economy , building infrastructure and giving people more freedom.

It all went downhill and now it's a hotbed for ISIS and friends.

[rusticpenn]

> You got it all backward comrade. Libya was just fine before France and the US intervened. Sure the infrastructure and liberties were not there, but that's kinda the theme of the region.

Here is a link to the civil war (Arab spring) before the involvement of other countries. I can find more if needed.

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/04/happening...

[csomar]

Unlike Tunisia, Libya had a strict and brutal dictatorship. Someone armed the people and France did intervene militarily to make them win. Otherwise, they'll be dead now and Libya would still have the same ruler.

I know because I live in Tunisia and the previous president did authorize moving arms to rebels through the country.

[fit2rule]

Libya didn't have open slave markets until the US and the French decided to bomb the shit out of their society, then send in billions of dollars to fund insurgents, and then arm those insurgents and let them promote their hateful ideology, in order to 'weaken the Middle East'.

Don't even try not to own up to that fact. Everyone who has been counting the piles of smoking rubble the US and its allies leave around the place, know just how much nicer things were before Americans decided to drop bombs on people they think the world doesn't care about.

[rusticpenn]

I am not American and dont live in USA. I was following the events in Arab Spring very closely even before USA was involved. It was expected that the situation will get worse before it got better when/if the dictators went down.

[luckylion]

... and then it never did. I mean, if we don't set a timer on it, I'm sure they will, eventually. But "in 2155, Aliens shared their wisdom with humanity and it lead to global peace, which also included Libya" shouldn't be attributed to the NATO intervention.

The direct, immediate consequences (that is: the current state) have to be attributed to the intervention. Some consider the belief "hey, we'll just bomb it and everybody will love each other and it'll be great" naivete bordering on retardation, but I think "we really didn't know any better" has to be ruled out after repeated use. At some point even a toddler learns not to put their hand on the hot stove, unless pain is their goal.

[gamblor956]

I think you need to reread all of US history.

Hoover and Nixon committed worse privacy violations than Obama. Also, he never tried to invade Syria. And he didn't send the FBI after Trump, presidents don't have that authority.

[dependenttypes]

Not only did they brought Libya to ruin but they also gave arms to the radical Islamists that they ended up fighting later on. There was also the issue with ICE and the killer drones too. The only difference between a two-party system and a single-party system is the illusion of choice.

[roenxi]

> Sanctioning these type of individuals is a bully move

The Republican administration pre-Trump appeared to be on a mission to glass 2 countries and entirely spirited at the thought of gearing up and invading of Iran. It was so terrible that the Obama Administration's foreign policy, which had a lot of problems, looked pretty good by comparison.

I'm not sure where the "international cooperation not based on power and submission" business the thread root was talking about, but speaking as a foreigner I would encourage US administrations to stick to bullying, this is the good end of the spectrum of US foreign policy. 2000-2010 wasn't that long ago.

[jacobush]

Long term, internal instability of the US translates to much, much worse instability for the world.

[idoubtit]

> it seems that the International Criminal Court (ICC) is being quite reasonable here.

It's as much politics on the ICC side as on the USA side.

For years, the ICC had only prosecuted former warlords from African countries. Only the loosing sides, the criminals that won national power were usually ignored, as the recent Ivory Coast shows. So some African leaders protested and even removed their country from the ICC. So the court had to react, at least to show an intention even if a real prosecution is totally unrealistic. So the ICC Prosecutor — which is the former Ministry of Justice of the Gambia dictator — launched inquiries about crimes by security forces of Myanmar (Birmania), Israel, USA… It's mostly a symbolic gesture.

[nsajko]

Your comment is interesting and informative for sure, but I don't understand why do you think that the Court finally taking up more difficult cases is a bad thing?

[specialist]

I wonder if some sort of war crimes reporting funnel would be useful. Along the lines of Project Censored. Like a citizen's police blotter. Or citizen's oversight board.

It'd still take extraordinary effort to persuade (shame) prosecution to take action. But with some transparency, at least the torrent of evil stuff would be recorded by someone somewhere.

[dontcarethrow2]

I am slow and likely missed the joke. Does an organization like Wikileaks ring a bell? Public reaction to that definitely keeps these sort of reporting funnels useless, get tortured at best.

[specialist]

Sure.

And how about something a bit more formal? Maybe modeled after police department citizen review board? With a staff to injest, process, and interpret stuff? Like Project Censored.

I half thought that maybe Wikileaks might do some of this. And I should have probably scouted a bit before asking for something that already exists. (I hadn't actually ever visited the site before. I've never been terribly eager to get myself added to some watch lists.)

Alas.

https://search.wikileaks.org/?q=war+crimes

Not much value add there. It really is just a fancy FTP site with a search engine. The org itself does some competent press releases, swag, and branding; that ain't nothing.

[_y5hn]

It seems current administration in US is weak on crime, being criminals or aiding criminals. What goes against Law in Parliament is crime, not politics.

[jchb]

I think this is less about wanting to protect criminals, and more about US sovereignty at all costs. And clearly upholding this sovereignty was one of Trumps election promises.

Under this philosophy (or doctrine, if you will) of sovereignty, US will never accept that the ICC - an entity that the US citizens have not explicitly delegated their sovereign power to - are trying to prosecute US nationals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_sovereignty_in_the_Uni...

[caf]

US nationals get prosecuted by entities that US citizens have not explicitly delegated their sovereign power to all the time.

[Reelin]

> US nationals get prosecuted by entities that US citizens have not explicitly delegated their sovereign power to all the time.

How so?

If you visit a foreign country, you are making an explicit choice to enter their jurisdiction.

If you are extradited from the US, it means the government (your representatives) explicitly chose to cooperate with another jurisdiction in some manner.

The current case is somewhat confusing to me. The US doesn't participate in the ICC. The matter to be investigated apparently occurred in a country that does participate though. But the suspects were part of an active military operation. Unlike a tourist, it doesn't really seem like armed forces are usually subject to the laws of a jurisdiction they might "visit" during combat (typically quite the opposite in fact).

If someone from outside your jurisdiction threatens your citizens, isn't any capable government supposed to take actions to protect them? To me, the real question here is why the US isn't part of an international effort to prevent war crimes.

[watwut]

War crimes tend to be comited by active military. The prosecution of war crime focusing on active military members should not be confusing. Prosecuting soldiers is the whole point.

[Reelin]

> The prosecution of war crime focusing on active military members should not be confusing.

That's not the part that's confusing to me. (I'm really not clear how you could possibly come away with that from what I wrote?)

The confusing part is the jurisdiction. In what capacity were the soldiers present in the other country? (It obviously wasn't voluntarily for leisure.) Based on the answer to the former, were they subject to the laws of the other jurisdiction at the time of their actions? Or do they instead fall under US jurisdiction? The US government's stance on this seems quite clear at least.

[luckylion]

I believe it's not really a sovereignty issue, but primarily just a matter of practicality. If your soldiers must fear repercussions for their actions, they will be much less effective. They won't "move fast and break things".

The worst of the worst war crimes will be prosecuted in the US as well, but generally, soldiers have little to fear. A non-US court wouldn't have the same perspective.

Essentially: if you want people to do whatever it takes to get your mission done, make sure they're not liable for anything they break while doing so. That goes for the military as much as for tech companies. Tech companies just don't have armies to back up their stances, yet.

[fit2rule]

The US does NOT prosecute its own war crimes.

That is the point of the ICC in the first place: you cannot trust the war criminals to bring justice to their society.

[gambiting]

The president pardoned a war criminal who stabbed a captive while he was being given medical aid by American medics and took a selfie which he then sent to his friends saying "Good story behind this, got him with my hunting knife". This is an exemplary soldier in the eyes of the American president. The fact that his administration wouldn't give a shit about prosecuting war crimes they are involved in doesn't surprise anybody.

[luckylion]

They don't prosecute them as war criminals by building a case against themselves, but they will still prosecute individual soldiers when they feel like it, e.g. Graner and England for Abu Ghraib, but obviously not for war crimes.

We might be able to trust countries to judge their soldiers' behavior when these soldiers act on their own. The problem, and the reason, I believe, why the US won't voluntarily accept the ICC is when they don't, e.g. when drone operators bomb a wedding reception, because it's not going to be those individual operators on the hook - it's the mission and the larger policy that are going to be implicated. And a military doesn't want their officers to ask themselves "wait, can I do this? Will I be prosecuted for this?" when told to do something, they want them to say "Sir, yes, Sir" and mean it.

[sofixa]

> but they will still prosecute individual soldiers when they feel like it, e.g. Graner and England for Abu Ghraib, but obviously not for war crimes

And were they brought to justice and sentenced for their crimes? No. A sham trial isn't sufficient for war crimes.

[_y5hn]

Such oppression goes against the Founding Fathers and Constitution.