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by lokar 82 days ago
But he did publicly declare his intention to commit war crimes.
3 comments

Actually even just declaring no quarter is itself a war crime.
Hes also liable for the death sentence, 18 U.S.C. § 2441 — War Crimes Act (1996) & 10 U.S.C. § 950t — Military Commissions Act (more relevent)
They won't face any US law. AIUI, they have been getting letters from the DOJ office of legal counsel that say it's legal. This effectively immunizes them (the DOJ can't turn around and charge you with a crime, if they advised you beforehand it was not a crime).

The best shot would be to turn them over to the ICC

> they have been getting letters from the DOJ office of legal counsel that say it's legal. This effectively immunizes them (the DOJ can't turn around and charge you with a crime, if they advised you beforehand it was not a crime).

This is not true.

OLC opinions are just that: opinions. They are non-binding and non-promissory. They are an important factor in any assessments as a norm, but definitely not dispositive and not legally binding.

The only real barrier is the pardon power, but I'm personally fine at this point with totally breaking the seal, trying and jailing every criminal in the administration(++), and consider the pardon power gone for good. Small price to pay.

> This effectively immunizes them (the DOJ can't turn around and charge you with a crime, if they advised you beforehand it was not a crime).

Where is the check or balance on this? The executive branch can apparently just launder itself wholesale of any crimes committed by its members.

Alas, the USA isn't signed up to the ICC.
Sure, but, if somehow they fell into ICC custody overseas...
Luckily Congress passed a law with bipartisan support to protect US service members from ICC custody (commonly referred to as The Hague Invasion Act).
Now wouldn’t that be sweet?
> the DOJ can't turn around and charge you with a crime, if they advised you beforehand it was not a crime

this sounds like the kind of rules we, as a society, decided to dispense with, so the DOJ can absolutely turn around.

We've already committed several war crimes.
In case anyone else doubted this, I will save you the time to look it up. Yup, it's sadly true.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/hegseth-no-quarter-interna...

Yep. And war crime seems to have lost all meaning in the US.

But, even if you dismiss the idea of international standards, this is clearly very bad for US soldiers (and sailors, airmen, etc). I wonder if they see that.

> But, even if you dismiss the idea of international standards, this is clearly very bad for US soldiers (and sailors, airmen, etc). I wonder if they see that.

Even if you dismiss the idea of international standards, a no-quarter declaration is against _US law_, specifically subject to the penalty of death with no other lawful penalty defined: https://www.govregs.com/uscode/title18_partI_chapter118_sect....