Of course the person charged and found guilty of a crime will argue against the court. Disagreement, even if valid, doesn't change the recognized authority of this court even if the "teeth" are extremely limited.
For what it’s worth, Israel signed the Rome Statute establishing the court in 2000 but declared in 2002 it no longer intends to ratify it[1]. (Which, I guess, is marginally better than the US, which has threatened The Hague with military invasion in case any arrests are made[2]. But not by much.) TFA specifically points out that “States are not entitled to challenge the Court’s jurisdiction under article 19(2) prior to the issuance of a warrant of arrest.”
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States_parties_to_the_Rome_Sta...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...
"military personnel, elected or appointed officials, and other persons employed by or working on behalf of the government of a NATO member country, a major non-NATO ally including Australia, Egypt, Israel, Japan, Argentina, the Republic of Korea, and New Zealand"
The act bars military aid to any country that is a signatory to the court, except those countries.
The prohibition you mention is in 22 USC 7426:
> (a) PROHIBITION OF MILITARY ASSISTANCE.—Subject to subsections (b) and (c), and effective 1 year after the date on which the Rome Statute enters into force pursuant to Article 126 of the Rome Statute, no United States military assistance may be provided to the government of a country that is a party to the International Criminal Court.
> [...]
> (d) EXEMPTION.—The prohibition of subsection (a) shall not apply to the government of—
> (1) a NATO member country;
> (2) a major non-NATO ally (including Australia, Egypt, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Argentina, the Republic of Korea, and New Zealand); or
> (3) Taiwan.
The threat I was talking about is in 22 USC 7427:
> (a) AUTHORITY.—The President is authorized to use all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any person described in subsection (b) who is being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court.
> (b) PERSONS AUTHORIZED TO BE FREED.—The authority of sub-section (a) shall extend to the following persons:
> (1) Covered United States persons.
> (2) Covered allied persons.
> (3) Individuals detained or imprisoned for official actions taken while the individual was a covered United States person or a covered allied person, and in the case of a covered allied person, upon the request of such government.
> [...]
with “covered persons” defined in 22 USC 7432 by essentially the same list as above, as long as those countries do not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC:
> [...]
> (3) COVERED ALLIED PERSONS.—The term “covered allied persons” means military personnel, elected or appointed officials, and other persons employed by or working on behalf of the government of a NATO member country, a major non-NATO ally (including Australia, Egypt, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Argentina, the Republic of Korea, and New Zealand), or Taiwan, for so long as that government is not a party to the International Criminal Court and wishes its officials and other persons working on its behalf to be exempted from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.
> (4) COVERED UNITED STATES PERSONS.—The term “covered United States persons” means members of the Armed Forces of the United States, elected or appointed officials of the United States Government, and other persons employed by or working on behalf of the United States Government, for so long as the United States is not a party to the International Criminal Court.
> [...]
The military aid prohibition does not.
This is why Trump won again, by the way. Because Europe expected the US to fund their defense in this war, and people who do not live in cities with access to the global market see no benefit to aiding Europe and voted that Europe should pay for its own defense.
I guess now we'll get to see what happens when the US lets those European nations that are shaded green defend themselves without us.
Oh, this is simple. Ukraine would be able to defend itself if it kept nuclear weapons. However they signed a treaty with USA, UK and Russia and gave up their nuclear weapons in exchange for some security guarantees. Russia did not honor that agreement. If USA and UK fail to provide adequate support, nobody will sign such treaties again. What’s even worse, nuclear arms are becoming the only real security guarantee, so the fate of Ukraine defines the fate of nuclear non-proliferation.
"Why Europe Is Unprepared to Defend Itself" - https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-nato-armed-forces/
Also worth mentioning that without the United States the present continental European militaries would struggle even against the battered ground forces of Russia. Can't really fight back with GDP of your service economy alone.
It hasn't fought a war in decades, and it needs to figure out whether or not any of its shit/doctrines/etc works. It doesn't actually give a rat's ass about Crimea or Ukraine or Russian claims.
It fully relies on friendly logistics to participate in the conflict.
It should also be noted that Ukraine has been preparing for this exact scenario since 2014, building massive fortifications in the east (which is precisely why the Russian advance there has always been such a grind).
In the event of an open confrontation between Russia and European countries currently backing Ukraine, it's not at all a given that the latter can hold significantly better than Ukraine does today, without American help. European armed forces are generally in a pathetic shape, grossly undermanned and underfunded, and would simply run out of materiel before Russia runs out of bodies to throw at them.
Europe doesn't produce artillery shells because NATO (even NATO minus US) can drop bombs after air superiority instead.
Most importantly, Ukraine is doing this well with politically imposed limits on what they can do with those weapons. In a Russia vs. NATO minus US war, Russia will have to defend against deep strikes on critical infrastructure.
As far as "running out of bodies", the more accurate statement would be "running out of volunteers". While much has been made of Russia emptying its prisons, this ignores the fact that the majority of its fighting force are people who come to fight willingly, largely because of pay. Ukraine, on the other hand, has to rely on forced mobilization. At some point, Russia will do the same if needed - and yes, the regime doesn't want to do it because of political cost associated with it, but they absolutely can pull that off if and when they needed.
The notion that you can "just drop bombs after air superiority" hinges on the ability to establish said air superiority. US might be able to pull that off against Russia, but I very much doubt that Europe can. Not to mention that bombs also run out.
Russia has been importing soldiers from third-party countries. It does not speak well for the state of your armed forces if every growing percentages of your troops aren't even your own citizens.
Meanwhile, Russia's economy has been collapsing over the past two years. Their central bank has a 21% interest rate, there a million jobs they cannot fill because those people are off fighting a war (it may only be 500,000 jobs, accounts differ). It's backstopped by being a petrostate so they have oil money as a country, but that only papers over things for so long.
As far as Ukraine being able to deny Russian air superiority, that is evidence towards my point that Russia would similarly be able to deny air superiority to any European force. Westerners are way too used to fighting colonial wars against people whose best AA weapon is an old Stinger, but these things work very differently against a more or less modern power.
The lack of manpower is, again, for political reasons. Mobilization wouldn't be any more popular in Russia than it is in Ukraine. So they want to avoid it if they can by hiring mercs as replacement troops, whether from the heretofore neglected Russian province or from abroad like with NK forces. But make no mistake, Russia can do mobilization if it needs to, and they have more enforcement mechanisms for it compared to Ukraine, not to mention larger reserves. This is partly why the higher-ups are okay with such high losses, and it takes truly massive screw-ups for generals to get kicked out - the government doesn't see those losses as unsustainable.
That's your straight-up speculation.
Meanwhile, the fact that he hasn't visited any of those countries -- suggests he knows better.
https://www.reuters.com/article/world/south-africa-asks-icc-...
> South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has asked permission from the International Criminal Court not to arrest Russia's Vladimir Putin, because to do so would amount to a declaration of war, a local court submission published on Tuesday showed.
Brazil waffled, too.
https://www.reuters.com/world/up-brazils-judiciary-decide-pu...
> On Saturday, while in India for a Group of 20 nations meeting, Lula told a local interviewer that there was "no way" Putin would be arrested if he attended next year's summit, which is due to be held in Rio de Janeiro.
You've got 72 to go.
Small countries try not to piss off large nuclear powers with a history of polonium use.
And if we're going to use your dataset to extrapolate anything: probably half of them will enforce the warrant.
Even Chile's stated willingness is probably a bit like "if I were a billionaire I'd do <great things>" - easy to say when it's not an actual decision ready to be made.
I like being pedantic as much as the next person, but "small developing countries don't love pissing off big angry ones with nukes" isn't the outrageous conclusion you're portraying it as.
That said, if it ever gets to trial, the defendants will almost certainly try to challenge it on that basis.
Realistically though i think the chance of that type of challenge succeding is unlikely. International courts generally are above domestic law. They probably have a better chance of convincing the court that palestine isn't a state and thus cannot sign the rome statue (which is also a long shot imo)
They were replying to this part of the comment which was factually incorrect (Israel did not recognize ICC authority) not on what the challenge on jurisdiction was
When has germany ever ignored the ICC? I dont think there is a single instance of that, whether involving israel or otherwise.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_v._Germany
[1] https://nachrichten.ag/europa/waffenexporte-an-israel-in-gef...
As far as i am aware, this is a false statement. Israel has been opposed to the ICC since its inception (originally because the first version had a judge selection mechanism they thought was biased against them, although i am sure there are other reasons they object, especially relating to their settlements).
Perhaps you are confusing the ICC with the ICJ, which are totally different things.
The ICC authority is being derived from the Palestinian Authority applying for membership and the Court deciding earlier in a 2-1 decision that Palestine is a state, the PA is the legitimate government of Palestine, and that Gaza is territory under its jurisdiction.
I think you are overstating it. They made a provisional decision, but just for the purpose of if the investigation can go forward. The decision does not decide whether or not palestine is a state in general, and if this ever goes to trial the defendants can still challenge this decision.
The court that requires a country to file is the ICJ. Iran is already a signatory to the ICJ and there is nothing that would legally prevent them from filing a case if they wanted to.
https://isgap.org/follow-the-money/
Its author, the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, is ostensibly American, although I can find no indication of its incorporation in the USA. The Israeli government is the largest donor to the organization according to 'The Forward', which is a newspaper incorporated as a non-profit charity in the USA.
Antisemitism is a real issue that exists in the world, and it irks me that Netanyahu, his cronies, and his sympathisers worldwide have "weaponised" antisemitism to silence critics of Israeli apartheid, genocide and other war crimes.
If you read any significant amount of history you'd know that already, and you wouldn't need to prove that Antisemitism is real. Of course it is. So is anti-[insert religious or ethnic group]
That's why it is existentially important to understand when a person is a liar, and then never elect them to govt.
Yeah, I know, that ship is sailed, but we could place a new framework on whom we choose to run our govts.
This is the exact line that was trotted out by Russian propaganda in 2023 when the ICC issued a warrant for arrest of Vladimir Putin
Perhaps if you find yourself n the same position as Russia, you are in fact doing something wrong
the rome statute itself contains provisions that limit its reach. article 98 precludes extradition, which has been abused by the US to prevent US nationals from being tried.
in short the ICC is allowed to go after western geopolitical rivals, however going after an ally whos committing genocide is a bridge too far; they will be shielded. for example: the US pressured its allies to refuse to refer any activities in Afghanistan to the ICC and largely succeeded as its allies form the dominant half of the UN Security council. whats interesting here is the US seems so isolated this time as to have lost the ability to block the referral. perhaps a first in history.
Out of all lawyers/attorneys/prosecutors/judges that I met in my life, that one was the one that I would judge to bet he most idealistic and justice motivated (admittedly based on my gut instinct); a very rare breed.
It's good that there are such institutions with a good purpose, staffed with good people. Bad faith actors - including war criminals - will of course claim agendas (other than bringing justice), deny jurisdiction etc. but it is a good starting point to have them. The next step is to strive to give these organizations enough "teeth" to execute.
The "individual bully" problem needs some addressing, a solution to that remains outstanding.
Either 40,000+ people dead or seemingly nearly all Palestinian's civilian infrastructure being destroyed, both warrant being witnessed and investigated by the international community with a fine tooth comb, no?
The ICC isn't some amateur city court in some backwaters country, it is the current epitome and evolutionary state from effort and passion of humanity towards holding the line for justice.
The ICC has not accused anyone of genocide. It does have juridsiction over personal criminal responsibility for gdnocide, but so far, nothing on that front has been mentioned.
South africa is suing israel at the icj alleging state responsibility for genocide, however that is different from personal responsibility, and different standards of evidence and procedures apply. Its also a totally separate court system.
ICC and ICJ are different, yes.
However if you didn't mean that, what did you mean by "person accused of genocide"? Who is accusing them? You personally?
What did you even hope to get across here?
Genocide is a major crime. Whether or not someone is facing charges for it is a big deal. The facts matter.
Countless people are accusing him of genocide, including the ICC, and it certainly looks like a genocide by me; the problem with this discussion is no one defending the side accused of genocide will actually get into details of defining what could actually constitute genocide - so keeping it up in the air vague, which then allows them to not actually stand for it or against it - because there's nothing defined; most people have a wrong legal definition in their head for what constitutes genocide as well.
Personally yes, from what I have seen, the rhetoric from high up Israeli politicians and government officials, I would argue it's genocide.
The ICF has concluded officially as well that it is apartheid - and that those itnernational rules apply to Israel.
Well if you wrote clearly we wouldn't have this issue.
> Countless people are accusing him of genocide, including the ICC
The ICC explicitly have not. Perhaps they might in the future, but genocide was not one of the charges. If the icc prosecutor believes he has evidence of genocide occuring he has the authority to request a warrant for it (or request the existing warrant be amended)
As for others, well the icc is basically the only court with competent juridsiction (technically a domestic israel court would also, but it seems pretty unlikely at this point that the israeli gov would arrest their own PM for genocide). I dont find random people very meaningful compared to charges at court where evidence actually has to be presented.
> the problem with this discussion is no one defending the side accused of genocide will actually get into details of defining what could actually constitute genocide
The rome statue defines genocide which would be the definition used by the ICC. It is the same as how the genocide convention defines it which is essentially the official definition.
There is case law on how to specificly interpret the definition. Genocide is not a new concept at this point, and there exists people who have been tried for genocide in the past which has generated case law.
> most people have a wrong legal definition in their head for what constitutes genocide as well.
Yes, i agree that is an issue. However just because people have wrong beliefs does not mean the crime is undefined.
> The ICF has concluded officially as well that it is apartheid
I assume you mean ICJ here? They did not conclude that. They concluded that israel violated "Article 3 of CERD". Article 3 includes apartheid but it also includes other things. The ICJ did not specify which part of article 3 israel violated. (Obviously pretty bad either way)
There never seems to be much critical thinking on the quick one-liners that on the surface appear to often be one-liner propaganda talking points used for deflection, to give an easy memorable line for an otherwise ideological mob to learn-train them with to then parrot.
(edited tran->train)
Like this is basically only the second time that a sitting head of state of a functioning country has had a warrant issued against them. Its fairly unprecedented. I don't agree with the claims the icc is biased against israel, but the fact they are acting at all certainly shows they aren't biased for them.
Now Netanyahu has done enough blatantly, what's argued by some to be the most video/photographed-recorded genocide in history, the hierarchy and people resource hierarchy of the ICC hasn't fallen to Israeli political pressure (or whatever other tactics Mossad is known to use to try to get their way).
Once again, your final point is more neutral - where you could only really honestly say that if in a vacuum, if you're not looking behind the scenes with how much pressure Israel has put publicly and privately on members of the ICC to not file nor then issue charges, etc.
They don't have veto powers of the ICC. Neither are even members.
However if your point is that both are powerful political actors, i think that speaks to a lack of pro-israel bias since they are going ahead with the charges despite the objections (and down right threats) from both countries which are super powerful actors.
> Now Netanyahu has done enough blatantly, what's argued by some to be the most video/photographed-recorded genocide in history,
It should be noted that genocide is not one of the charges. The ICC has juridsiction over genocide, but the ICC prosecuter has not accused israel of genocide thus far.
There's a reason why the US does not recognize the ICC.
( if you ignore the fact that it has the worlds highest incarceration rate and has invaded the most countries historically)
"International Law" is a joke if China, Russia, France, UK, and US can unilaterally decide not to enforce it.
Your statement seems to imply that the Iraq War was unusually bad in terms of war crimes. If so, you should be able to give several examples of 21st century conflicts which you're confident had fewer war crimes committed per capita. Can you do so?
The way I see it, there are two rough hypotheses here:
Hypothesis 1: The US is an unusually evil country which has a harmful effect on world affairs. Its actions in Iraq exemplify this. The recent trend towards US isolationism is good, since isolationism will diminish its pernicious effects on world affairs.
Hypothesis 2: War crimes and violations of the laws of war are ubiquitous in conflict. The international treaties prohibiting them were well-intentioned but largely fruitless. The psychology of war drives soldiers to commit war crimes, and/or the incentives to commit war crimes are too strong. The US has a free press, and has systems in place to prosecute service members who commit war crimes, so you hear more about war crimes committed by the US than by other countries. But the per capita rate of the US committing war crimes may actually be lower than average.
What evidence is available that lets us differentiate between these hypotheses?
Never forget the CIA employee who killed a random guy in a car crash in the UK by driving on the wrong side of the road (who the fuck does this accidentally?), then got promptly evacuated back to the US, so that the family seeking justice could be told "get fucked, she's important, you are not". Anne Sacoolas. I really think this says a lot about how the US treats the idea of justice.
That's not some meaningful example of the US being especially bad in international relations, and certainly not evidence of the US being especially bad at committing war crimes.
Is this the golden standard you're aspiring for?
I agree it would've been better for the perpetrator to face justice in the UK.
Did they now? How many of the guilty went to prison for Abu Ghraib? Guantanamo? Bagram torture? The kidnapping of random civilians to get tortured is some heinous shit, yet very few people were convicted of it, let alone served any time even remotely worth of the crime. The worst I can find for Abu Ghraib in particular is 6 years, which is laughable; and all of the convicted were the service members perpetrating their crimes, none of their commanders were also convicted. Let alone the people who allowed torture as an "interrogation technique".
Can you provide a citation for the claim that these were literally random civilians (as opposed to people suspected of committing a crime or plotting to commit a crime)?
>very few people were convicted of it
The obvious possibility is that few were convicted because it wasn't widespread.
---
As an American, I think you are correct that these incidents may constitute evidence of institutional rot in our armed forces. I'm thinking maybe I should vote for politicians who will withdraw the US from NATO, so that the US will be involved in fewer wars in the future, and there will be fewer opportunities for American soldiers to commit war crimes. Do you support this?
Another one was kidnapped because of his watch type, a Casio: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/25/guantanamo-fil...
There was also another one who had the misfortune of sharing his name with a man accused of terrorism.
> The obvious possibility is that few were convicted because it wasn't widespread
Considering the well known and documented facts around Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, that's obvious not possible and not true.
NATO being a defensive alliance, your last point has no merit.
Looks much more like a case of a guilty Afghan framing an innocent Afghan for a crime, than a case of the US flipping coins in order to kidnap civilians 'at random'.
>Another one was kidnapped because of his watch type, a Casio: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/25/guantanamo-fil...
This article doesn't appear to substantiate the claim that anyone was kidnapped solely for owning a Casio. Can you quote the specific excerpt that you believe substantiates this claim?
What fraction of watches worldwide would you estimate are Casio F-91W wristwatches? Supposing we know that Al Qaeda trainees are issued this specific make and model of watch. (The Guardian: "The Casio was known to be given to the students at al-Qaida bomb-making training courses in Afghanistan...") Are you familiar with the concept of a likelihood ratio? Can you estimate the likelihood ratio for someone being an Al Qaeda trainee given that they possess this specific make and model of watch? Do you understand how a sequence of likelihood ratios (pieces of evidence) can be multiplied together to get a posterior likelihood ratio, from which you can derive a probability estimate that e.g. someone is a terrorist?
>There was also another one who had the misfortune of sharing his name with a man accused of terrorism.
Suppose you learn that your local police department has arrested a man who shares the name of a man on your country's "most wanted" list. What would be an appropriate response? Fire the person who arrested him and everyone in the chain of command? Or accept that mistakes are made, and arresting innocent people is an inevitable part of having a justice system?
Now (as in the Dilwar case) imagine that your local police department is operating in a warzone, does not speak the local language, experienced an attack on their police building this morning, and are trained to fight wars as opposed to administer justice. What result do you expect?
I asked whether the people involved were "literally random civilians" vs "people suspected of committing a crime or plotting to commit a crime". All of your examples appear to be people suspected of crime, in some cases for good reason. So -- thanks for answering my question, I guess?
>Considering the well known and documented facts around Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, that's obvious not possible and not true.
Given your very creative interpretation of the sources you've shared so far, where arresting someone who shares the name of a suspect is basically the same as arresting someone 'at random', I reckon there's a decent chance that this claim of yours is also based on a creative interpretation of some kind.
>NATO being a defensive alliance, your last point has no merit.
Are you sure we can trust the US to keep it a defensive alliance? Perhaps they will provoke the alliance into a conflict.
Perhaps it's best for the US to withdraw from the alliance so it stays defensive. That's safer for other NATO members, because it will prevent them from becoming entangled in conflicts that are provoked by the US.
Even if fighting a defensive war, the US will likely commit war crimes. They committed war crimes in Iraq, and also in Europe as part of WW2. (Along with ~every nation that participated in WW2, I believe.)
---
I just want you to take a consistent position here!
One consistent position is that we should think of war crimes as being sort of like regular crimes. If you picked up a newspaper and saw that someone committed a murder in your country, would you view it as a reflection on the millions of people who live in your country? Or as a reflection on that individual? Or somewhere in between?
Alternatively, if you actually believe your own arguments, that the US is a uniquely evil country, then you should accept the straightforward implications of that. You should wish to diplomatically disentangle the US from your own country, which means you should praise US withdrawal from NATO. If the US is evil, you shouldn't wish to be allied with it, same way you wouldn't wish to be allied with Nazi Germany -- even as part of a "defensive alliance".
Again, I just what you to take a consistent position. I don't particularly care so much what it is. I just want you to accept the very straightforward implications of the claims that you yourself are making!
Why should my tax dollars pay to defend your country, if my country will inevitably end up committing war crimes in the process, and open us up to accusations that we are all monsters, like the accusations you're making in this thread? This just seems like a lose-lose proposition to me, as a US citizen. It seems better to just not have this arrangement, and withdraw from NATO.
How would you feel if you were in my position? Can you see how absurd this conversation feels to me?
You're being far too charitable to the occupying forces. Remember, they tortured the guy to death. Whether their own people picked the guy up off the street, or they outsourced the task to their local proxy forces (likely offering cash incentives, thus more or less guaranteeing that exactly this sort of thing would happpen), ultimately doesn't matter too much. If at all.
This article doesn't appear to substantiate the claim that anyone was kidnapped solely for owning a Casio. Can you quote the specific excerpt that you believe substantiates this claim?
This fellow, for example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salih_Uyar
According to Mother Jones:
More than a dozen detainees were cited for owning cheap digital watches, particularly "the infamous Casio watch of the type used by Al Qaeda members for bomb detonators."I was responding to the specific claim: "The kidnapping of random civilians to get tortured". This claim seems to be clear hyperbole.
>they outsourced the task to their local proxy forces (likely offering cash incentives, thus more or less guaranteeing that exactly this sort of thing would happpen)
It says right there in the Dilawar article that the Afghan who framed him is suspected of being responsible for the rocket attack. But yes, I suppose this was all secretly orchestrated by the US somehow...
It says right there in the Salih Uyar article that the watch was just one reason. You can see the other reasons here (Wikipedia citation): https://web.archive.org/web/20060711215342/http://www.ciponl...
A pattern I'm seeing in this thread: Someone makes a hyperbolic "America is evil" claim. I spend, like, 60 seconds investigating. The claim doesn't appear to hold up.
It seems clear to me that you, and others, love to exaggerate how evil the US is, regardless of the facts. And you haven't given a historical example of a country that did a good job of addressing counterinsurgency/counterterrorism with belligerents who hide in a civilian popuation. For example, perhaps you think that China's method in Xinjiang represents a superior approach? Please, provide a model that you think worked well!
I just want you to do one of two things: (a) admit you/others in this thread might be exaggerating a smidge, or (b) embrace the logical implication of your position, that the US should withdraw from NATO.
I don't care which of those you do -- I just want you to be consistent!
As an American, I personally have become more and more convinced that the US should withdraw from NATO, with every comment that's left in this thread. It just isn't worth the risk that something like this will happen again in the future, should the US become involved in another major war.
And, I don't think Americans should die for people who love to exaggerate how evil we are. That's absurd, frankly.
Frankly -- to every extent you think we're busily trying to "dial up" America's innate evilness, it seems you're definitely trying to divert/deflect blame for its actions, also. For example, spinning the torture/murder of Dilawar as a matter of his being framed by locals (as if that were the primary cause of what happened to him); without focusing on the infinitely bigger circumstances behind his death, which is the simple fact of the occupying soldiers choosing to beat the guy to a bloody pulp in the first place.
There's also the weird way you describe his death as "sad and tragic", as if it were a car accident, or something similar fateful. It was nothing of the sort of course - it was a war crime, straight up.
Someone makes a hyperbolic "America is evil" claim.
They said nothing of the sort. The initial commenter made some serious (and in my view perfectly justified) criticisms of the fact that the US never seems to have undergone a genuine moral reckoning for the moral disaster that was the 2003 Iraq invasion.
But this is very different from an essentializing, moralistic statement like "America is evil". So for all your concerns about hyperbolicizing over small details such as why exactly so-and-so got picked up before they were tortured, you're clearly doing some serious hyperbolicizing yourself in this case, and in a much intentional, top-down way.
Why do the errors of your "laziness" all point in the same direction? Motivated reasoning is the obvious explanation.
>spinning the torture/murder of Dilawar as a matter of his being framed by locals (as if that were the primary cause of what happened to him)
Yet again I will emphasize that I was responding to the claim "The kidnapping of random civilians to get tortured". Way up in this thread I stated:
>Can you provide a citation for the claim that these were literally random civilians (as opposed to people suspected of committing a crime or plotting to commit a crime)?
Perhaps you were too lazy to read that part?
The question here is not how gruesome the crime is. Repeating myself yet again: The question is the degree to which this crime reflects on the entire US nation, vs specific culpable individuals. Insofar as it reflects on the entire US nation, that's where the implication that we should withdraw from NATO is straightforward.
>There's also the weird way you describe his death as "sad and tragic", as if it were a car accident, or something similar fateful. It was nothing of the sort of course - it was a war crime, straight up.
I already stated in this thread: "I think you are correct that the US service members committed some fucked up war crimes in Iraq."
I won't respond to you further in this thread. It's increasingly clear based on your responses that you simply aren't reading what I'm writing, and aren't thinking very hard about this topic.
And, I don't think my nation should be defending yours. You're not an ally. An "alliance" means mutual benefit. But there's no benefit to me from partnering with you. Defending you is charity, and considered as charity, it is frankly terrible. I don't believe in charity for wealthy, self-righteous, entitled, smug, thankless people -- especially not when it entails significant personal risk.
You haven't remotely justified why my tax dollars should pay for your defense, given the risk of US service members committing more gruesome war crimes in the course of defending you, same way they did in WW2.
The extent to which you're going out of your way to launch an all-out, gratuitously personalized and caustic attack like this (based on fully imagined attributes, such as how "wealthy" you think I am, or what kind of passport you think I hold) -- is really quite bizarre.
You seem to be making a number of assumptions, all of which are wrong.
Your tax dollars are defending your country and its interests, and it just so happens that defending other countries is in your country's interests. The US doesn't keep NATO existing out of the goodness of its heart, it's a geopolitical tool. The US wants to combat Russian and Chinese influence and prevent them extending it, so it has various alliances and similar deals (like in Korea, Japan, the weirdness with Taiwan).
Second, that war crimes are an inevitable fact of life and nothing can be done. This is bullshit. War crimes can be committed in "the heat of the moment", but if properly dealt with (punished), will not be a frequent thing.
Third, that an army which has committed war crimes is automatically "all monsters". Only if it refuses to deal with its war criminals and they're in sufficient numbers, yes, but neither of those are facts of life. Had the US executed the people responsible for torturing civilians to death, nobody would be saying that the US ignores its war criminals; it did nothing, so everyone is right to say it.
As for the rest, you're trying to deflect based on technicalities. It doesn't matter if the US or allied militias did the kidnapping, US service members tortured those people to death with zero due diligence. They were tortured to death for the sadistic pleasure of groups of people in individual locations that could have been dealt with.... But not in Guantanamo. There the torture was the result of an official policy, implicating multiple high level officials, so the rot ran very high.
Fun fact: do you know what the Arbeit Macht Frei of Guantanamo is? "Honor bound to defend freedom". Can't make this shit up, perfect for an illegal in existence, no evidence required, torture to death/vegetable status unlimited detention camp.
So you will have no objection if we reassess our interests and decide that defending you no longer aligns with them? Because that's what many Americans, including me, are starting to think. I don't want conflict with Russia or China. As an American, that's not in my interest! And, I have no desire to partner with a country full of dishonest, self-righteous individuals such as yourself. That's not in my interest, either. Nor is it in my interest to risk a conflict on your behalf which could result in US soldiers committing more war crimes!
"Helping me is in your interest, buddy..." I know a con when I see one.
I'm hoping with Trump's election, the US will act as more of a neutral and peaceful arbitrator, instead of automatically taking the side of "allies" like you for some bizarre reason.
>will not be a frequent thing
You still haven't even attempted to address the key question of whether the per capita rate of war crimes in Iraq was notably high.
War crimes are wrong. I condemn them. I support more US-internal war crime investigations. But you've persistently failed to even address the question of whether US war crimes make it unusual.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners_of_war_in_the_Russia...
https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/06/24/death-and-destru...
Where are the executions? I suppose the Ukrainian military is all monsters?
Can you even give a single historical incidence of a country dealing with war criminals on its own side in a way you consider acceptable?
How about for your own country?
>No investigation; No prosecutions. Major-general Christopher Vokes commander of the Canadian 4th Armoured Division freely admitted ordering the action, commenting in his autobiography that he had "No feeling of remorse over the elimination of Friesoythe."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_in_World_War_II#Cri...
>it did nothing
You are making more straightforward exaggerations, trivially falsified with 60 seconds on Wikipedia. "Nothing" is what Canada did in response to its WW2 crimes.
I'm done. There's no point in continuing with someone who delights in dishonesty.
What? So war crimes only matter if there were a lot of them? I've only skimmed the Geneva convention but don't recall seeing that part. In any case, you'd struggle to find a developed country in the past few decades with anything resembling the US war crime rate, and torture of civilians rate. So yes, obviously.
And there's a legitimate case to be made that ISIS and their crimes are the direct result of American incompetent handling of Iraq post the toppling of Saddam. So we can add some more to the pile.
> I'm hoping with Trump's election, the US will act as more of a neutral and peaceful arbitrator, instead of automatically taking the side of "allies" like you for some bizarre reason
You seem to have misconceptions about US foreign policy and what it means to be a US ally, and, hell, what Trump is and what he stands for (money). Check out what the US did to France with the Australian submarine deal, is that the an ally siding? With Trump in charge, his favourite dictators will do whatever they want.
In any case, good riddance. A few countries will be screwed through no fault of their own (Ukraine, Taiwan), being surrendered to a despotic regime. It's unfortunate, but it's clear that a lot of Americans cannot tell right from wrong, so it is what it is. The rest of the world can't force the US to continue in the role it took itself as the world police at least paying lip service to freedom and morality and what not. (More often than not this was propping up fascists and similar against anything left of Franco, but still, in some cases like Taiwan and Ukraine, something good came out of it)
But the EU will take the opportunity to stand up and become more autonomous, fully taking in on how unreliable the US is. The world will be better off, on average. It's just horrible how many people will have to suffer to get there.
Surely you don't expect people to give up these very fundamental rights so they could be tried in an international court?
with the 6th amendment, signing the rome statute into law would be both unconstitutional and effectively subjecting US soldiers to a kangaroo court (in the eyes of the US)
Constitutional restrictions on prosecution in the United States do not apply to foreign criminal justice systems.
Gaza has resistance groups with small arms, while Israel has reduced Gaza to a smoking ruin with 2000lb bombs dropped from F35's, driven over countless Palestinians (dead and alive) with Merkava tanks, sniped countless children with drones, and dropped white phosphorous on civilians and UN Peace keepers. Israel has access to a devastating array of weaponry, and has no qualms about using any of it for anything.
Many rockets fall within the SALW category.
And when compared to F35s, tanks, missiles and the iron dome... I think simple, often homemade, rockets are small arms.
No conspiracy is needed: we have several statements from IDF members about the Hannibal Directive being used, and about the types and quantities of munitions being used; we know the IDF destroyed hundreds of vehicles.
Of course, if you define "credible sources" as the western main stream media, nobody will put it all together like this.
https://electronicintifada.net/content/how-israel-killed-hun...
https://www.thejc.com/news/met-police-reportedly-raid-home-a...
“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
The original meaning when the term was coined in the 19th century[1] was that of a racial or ethnic hatred of Jews, as "Semite" is a racial or ethnic category. This is more sensible. It can also be distinguished from anti-Jewishness as a rejection of or hostility toward Judaism as a matter of religious belief, culture, or ethos (which better characterizes historical negative attitudes; the test of this is the acceptance of authentic converts, something the Nazis would never recognize, as their hatred was racial in nature).
[0] https://holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definitio...
[1] https://www.etymonline.com/word/anti-Semitism#etymonline_v_1...
Re response: your claim was participation not jurisdiction, shift goalposts however you like
Here, the court made such a decision, Israel is just upset they didn't prevail. If Israel didn't think the court was allowed to rule on jurisdiction, Israel would not have submitted a petition for the court to do exactly that.
> Due to the root word Semite, the term is prone to being invoked as a misnomer by those who incorrectly assert (in an etymological fallacy) that it refers to racist hatred directed at "Semitic people" in spite of the fact that this grouping is an obsolete historical race concept. Likewise, such usage is erroneous; the compound word antisemitismus was first used in print in Germany in 1879 as a "scientific-sounding term" for Judenhass (lit. 'Jew-hatred'), and it has since been used to refer to anti-Jewish sentiment alone
There is a very serious issue of reporting here. Someone might report a wrong look as an act of hate, and members of a different community (poor, recent immigrants) can be used to being discriminated and treated with contempt, and never report it.
If you actually check the statistics of "antisemitic acts" that are published (usually issued periodically by Jewish organisations) you will find lots of very small and unverifiable episodes.
Imagine downplaying antisemitic acts in a year where they're organizing "Jew hunts" in European countries. Truly evil.
If the word 'antisemitic' didn't exist, the accusation, phrased in different words, would still carry weight.
I alluded to this already, but it's so rare to hear public figures discuss Israel/Palestine without distorting and filtering what they say to promote one or the other side, it makes resolving things impossible.
A bad bill that weaponises 'antisemitism' is a good reason to oppose the bill's authors and supporters. It is a bad reason to minimise actual cases of antisemitism directed at people who had no involvement with the bill.
What I was driving at is that it's easy for a society, once there are widespread complaints about the weaponisation of some problem to slip into dismissing actual occurrences of the problem.
So, many Palestinians are Semites as well. And one may conclude when Ovadia Yosef, a former Chief Rabbi of Israel, says:
“It is forbidden to be merciful to them. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable. The Lord shall return the Arab’s deeds on their own heads, waste their seed and exterminate them, devastate them and vanish them from this world.”*
That this is "Anti-Semitic" speech as well.
It's amazing how buying off 98% of US Representatives can change a cultural and media narrative.
*https://adc.org/racist-incitement-by-israeli-leaders-must-en...
It exists, and has semantic validity. But it does not in any way describe a group that has ever had any kind of common identity. Or as Wikipedia (itself a kind of a dictionary) puts it:
The terminology is now largely unused outside the grouping "Semitic languages" in linguistics.> The compound word antisemitismus was first used in print in Germany in 1879 as a "scientific-sounding term" for Judenhass (lit. 'Jew-hatred'), and it has since been used to refer to anti-Jewish sentiment alone
Do the vast majority of people not understand correlation vs. causation? Because Netanyahu is Jewish does not mean an action against him is because he's Jewish.
That they are willing to use such "cry wolf" tactics, abusing it, dilutes their credibility at minimum - and then should bring their integrity into question, just for this misrepresentation of calling this action antisemitic.
Personally, I don't think that's fair, but it's understandable why they would use it as a defence.
I don't know if I agree with this.
If the ICC is an honest organization that stands for individual rights, liberty and justice then sure.
If, on the other hand, the ICC is a corrupt organization that invites the worst of the worst in terms of rights-violating countries and dictatorial regimes to the table, then no way. In any compromise between right and wrong, good and evil, the wrong has everything to gain and the good has everything to lose.
In other words, I don't have all of the facts when it comes to the ICC and its history. I know that it is separate from the UN, but I don't know very much about it. Therefore I don't know which alternative I ultimately land on.
But in general and in principle, when it comes to those that are objectively and morally wrong, there is every reason to not grant them legitimacy through recognition or participation.
If you can put in the time & effort required to make an empirical assessment of the ICC, go ahead and do so; then come back here and enlighten us all. Otherwise, this is just more of the same kind of denialism & deflection we're all too familiar with post WW2 from the many (and vocal) mass crime apologists.
you're also assuming that israel is a good faith actor in all of this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court#I...
"Criminals" in this context is meaningless. Please hear me out.
We're dealing with the concept of "International Law", which is largely understood as agreements / treaties amongst different countries.
This means that those agreements are no more valid or better or righteous than the countries that enter into them. If the nations involved share certain basic principles and make an agreement that aligns with those principles, the enforcement of these "laws" would come from those nations that are party to the treaty.
BUT - if one nation changes its mind, or changes its internal laws or decides "nah, no thanks" then how do you enforce these so-called "laws"? Do the other nations declare war on this nation?
It gets even worse than that. Because the very concept of "International Law" contains a logical contradiction.
The idea is that we are going make war (force, violence, death, destruction, conflict) subject to some kind of rules. The problem is, you can't. You can have two parties to a conflict agree to certain things: like not to murder civilians, or prisoners etc. if it can be helped. But at the end of the day it's an agreement that doesn't have any kind of binding power or significance because the idea of war means that two groups have decided that they can't reach any kind of rational agreement and so they have resorted to violent conflict.
War, by definition, is the absence of law. The absence of reason. The breakdown of civilization. It comes about when two groups cannot reason with one another; cannot agree with one another on what the rules ought to be.
Law is not a concept that comes out of nowhere. It is the idea that in order to protect individual rights and liberty, the element of force and violence is going to be taken out of civil existence and placed into the hands of a monopoly: the government, which sets the rules and enforcement mechanisms around when force is and is not justifiable within their respective operating jurisdictions.
When you have multiple nations that operate independently, each with their own laws and rules, all you can do is get them to agree to certain things, as long as they have some basis upon which to enter into an agreement.
My thesis is that a free, rights-protecting nation has no basis for an agreement with a dictatorship that routinely violates peoples' rights. That the dictatorship has everything to gain by getting the free nation to agree to what its evil desires want, while the free nation has only things to lose (through compromise, which is part and parcel of coming to terms).
That's what I mean by "invite to the table."
If there is no such thing as international law, then what "rights" are these countries violating?
> When you have multiple nations that operate independently, each with their own laws and rules, all you can do is get them to agree to certain things, as long as they have some basis upon which to enter into an agreement.
It sounds like you do think all countries should be 'invited to the table' unless they fail to meet a standard which you yourself don't think exists. Confusing.
Wikipedia quote: "States and non-state actors may choose to not abide by international law, and even to breach a treaty but such violations, particularly of peremptory norms, can be met with disapproval by others and in some cases coercive action ranging from diplomatic and economic sanctions to war."
I think isolating bad actors can be a limited solution to the absence of physical power/not wanting to start a way, which ultimately as you rightly state corresponds to a situation of absence/breakdown of law that is best avoided.
Well this is true of a lot of international law, it doesn't apply here. The ICC largely deals with things that are preemptory norms which apply regardless of if you sign the treaty.
That's irrelevant. Anyone can form an independent organization and proclaim that nations of the world are subject to the rules set forth by that independent organization.
The point is that they have no intrinsic authority.
Authority comes from either moral sanction (of the people, by the people / consent of the governed) or through force.
In other words, the enforcement mechanism has to come from those that opt-in to that organization. i.e: through mutual agreement.
Which means that any "violator" nation can then say "GTFO and I dare you to come at me and see the full force of my police (if you try to arrest my citizens) or my military (if the participating nations declare war on me in an attempt to enforce these 'laws')."
So it still can only come about through mutual agreements between nations. Otherwise it is nothing more than a rogue body that sends armed thugs to try and enforce its rules while nations get to say "We neither recognize nor agree to those rules, nor do we recognize your authority to enforce them. However, you are subject to our laws while you are trying to execute your 'warrants' on our soil. And we will arrest YOU and throw you in our jails if you interfere with the rights of any one of our citizens."
Tell that to the germans who were hanged at the nuremburg trials. They certainly didn't consent.
You are right to a certain extent, that enforcement requires agreement or force, but at the same time the general rules and procedures of international law do have some force to them. They have this force because they are widely agreed on. This includes Israel which broadly agree all these things are illegal, they just take issue with that specific court. However their donestic courts recognize all the things the icc prosecutes as crimes locally broadly speaking. (Well there is some dispute over what forced population transfer means, but that isn't one of the crimes in question for this warrant)
Im just saying, its important to be skeptical I guess, but all these comments being like "well who are these ICC people anyway?" can't help but be a little (darkly) funny to me. Like is this really the point where everyone just stops pretending to be good guys about this? Its like being a teenager and being angry at your mother for birthing you because she caught you doing something bad.
It is incredible how many actions are being hidden behind this.
I couldn't care less what imaginary person someone believes in, or what their culture or heritage is. If they're killing massive numbers of people - especially children - they're doing something wrong. I have no interest in commenting on their beliefs. I'm saying their actions are wrong, and that is true no matter who is doing it and what they believe.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/nov/21/internati...
If Netanyahu and Gallant really think they are innocent, and the allegations are absurd and false, they should cooperate with the ICC. Have your day in court and show how absurd the accusations are. If you're not willing to do that, it seems reasonable for the public to draw a proverbial negative inference.