[YZF]

Saying things is not a war crime. So if Iranian soldiers surrendered to US soldiers and they were shot that would be a war crime. I don't think that happened? Hegseth statements could be used to support the claim of war crime under such circumstances if they were to arise. [EDIT: As a commenter suggests it is possible that simply saying this is a war crime, or at least there are some legal opinions suggesting it]

Attacking civilian targets with cluster bombs has happened and Iran is doing that as we speak. That is a war crime.

Attacking infrastructure is not a war crime if that infrastructure serves a military purpose. Attacking purely civilian use infrastructure is a war crime.

Threatening to attack civilian use infrastructure is not a war crime. Threatening to attack infrastructure used for military purposes is also not a war crime.

Mowing down protestors with machines guns is not a war crime but maybe we should consider it a crime against humanity.

EDIT: FWIW I do care about what Hegseth said. It's wrong and he shouldn't have said that. But people say stuff- what matters are the actions.

[8note]

There are some actual acts that count as war crimes as well, that Hegsdeth has overseen - killing civilians off the coast of venesuela by attacking and sinking fishing boats, but also then killing the civilians after theyve jumped ship.

then in the iran conflict, leaving the sailors to drown after sinking iran's show boat with a sub

[YZF]

The US should do better. But we got here when the parent said: > I don't understand how any human in good faith could look at Iran's government and say they are the evil regime,

Iran's government mows down protestors by the 10's of thousands. They beat woman to death for violating the dress code. They conduct public hangings in stadiums. They routinely use torture and arbitrary arrests. They and their proxies bombard civilians routinely. They recruit child soldiers. The list is just endless. How is that even comparable to the US government?

https://iranhumanrights.org/2024/03/crimes-against-humanity-...

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

https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-af...

https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/03/1134782

[vintermann]

I read this as "talk about Iran!" All you're willing to say about the US seems to be that they "should do better".

How about the double tap strikes? Targeting first responders is a war crime, remember. And US use of double tap strikes is well documented.

If you just want to talk about how bad the victim of war crimes is, that sounds like making excuses for war crimes to me.

[YZF]

I know this double tap terminology is frequently used in social media these days (IMO it's propaganda). I don't know there is solid evidence of targeting first responders intentionally. I haven't seen it.

I did see some mention that the school was hit twice but I don't think that's supported by the satellite imagery or videos we've seen. In theory US service personnel can and should refuse to execute an order that is targeting first responders and my base assumption would be that the US does not practice this. There are huge number of people involved in planning strikes and executing them so you'd think some of those people would refuse such an order and/or speak about it publicly. I.e. I don't believe the US initial salvo of Tomahawk cruise missiles and bombings were designed to intentionally hit first responders. Beyond it being a war crime it also makes no sense to "waste" bombs and cruise missiles on first responders when presumably there are a lot of other more valuable targets; beyond it being morally wrong and a war crime it's also stupid. The only time I've seen this sort of strategy being executed intentionally is during the suicide bombing campaign in Israel. e.g.:

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Yehuda_Street_bombings#200...

In the context of terrorizing a population it makes perfect sense. In the context of the US attack on Iran it makes zero sense since it doesn't serve the US interest to terrorize the population of Iran and the regime couldn't care less.

What do you want me to say about the US? I would like to see zero war crimes from the US. I would like to see a US president that doesn't sound like a mad person on social media and a SecDef that isn't a religious zealot. I still think that big picture there is no comparing the US to Iran in terms of the actions each is taking and has taken. Iran fundamentally wants to make the world a worse place and the US wants to make it a better place (and sure, make a lot of money while doing that...). Would a solution that doesn't involve dropping bombs be better? Sure. Find me one.

[rixed]

The confusion comes from the fact that the regime which is very clearly better for its own people is also the one which actions are clearly awful for the rest of the world (if only because it has vastly larger means).

[etc-hosts]

I think the US destroyed a strategically important elementary school on the first day of the war.

[YZF]

It's not confirmed but I agree it was very likely a US strike. An accidental one.

Assuming the US did not intend to kill school girls that is also not a war crime. You can certainly argue that this happened due to the US decision to go to war and claim the actions to not be moral (or illegal as some have stated). Others might argue that more harm would occur if no action was taken and that the action minimizes the overall harm (e.g. to the Iranian people or others).

You could also argue that attack was intentional. I don't think there's any evidence of that and I'm not sure what purpose it served if it was one.

[etc-hosts]

It is difficult to extract the real purpose of most things about this war, if you're in the US, since almost every single part of it seems against the US' interests and public face.

You're probably technically correct and that the US didn't intentionally look in Google Maps for an elementary school and decided to destroy it. But did we really need to Double Tap it?

Timothy Snyder has an opinion about this: https://x.com/TimothyDSnyder/status/2040883546093436941?s=20

I'm not quite there yet.

[amarant]

That tweet by Timothy Snyder is quite ridiculous. There's just no way that's the motivation behind all this.

Unfortunately it's also the only motivation anyone has presented that there is any real hope of actually achieving. And it's the kind of excuse trump could use to become glorious dictator. Or at least I wouldn't be surprised to learn he thinks it is.

No, I really don't think that's why this war was started. I don't think trump actually wants terrorist attacks in America. But it just might be what he will get, whether he likes it or not.

[zimpenfish]

> I don't think trump actually wants terrorist attacks in America.

He might not but he's surrounded by christian evangelist lunatics who think bringing about the end times is their moral responsibility and, more importantly, they are in charge because Trump is an addled idiot who has fewer thoughts in his head than an orange cat.

[amarant]

Religion ought to be forbidden

[Shivatron]

> Saying things is not a war crime.

On the contrary, there appear to be good legal arguments that Hegseth merely saying "no quarter" is, on its own, a war crime:

https://www.justsecurity.org/133970/legal-advice-hegseth-no-...

[YZF]

You might be right. You're definitely right there are legal arguments to support that.

[bjourne]

0 evidence of the "mowing down protestors with machine guns" claim. Plz don't spread rumors.

[megous]

US president, holding nukes and saying things like "whole civilization will die tonight" is just state terrorism of the worst kind, ... so far, yes. It may become a war crime of genocide. Not sure why should I or anyone wait and see, before issuing sweeping comments about all of america, which made this possible, by working hard to building up the military capable of doing it and giving power to nutjob issuing the threats.

Be sure that this US threat is not just against Iran, it's a US threat aginst the entire world, and it will be taken as such by many, you war crime justifying tool.

Also pretty telling, that you're using intl. law to justify US attacks, instead of using it for what their purpose was,... which is to limit the ways in which states execute war. The same thing Israel was doing to justify murdering 20 000 children in Gaza, just constantly finding "loopholes" and using it retroactively to justify every single thing they did that someone contensted.