Comment by darksaints | Hacker News Reader

Comment by darksaints | Hacker News Reader

I've been saying for years that the US' non-cooperation with the ICC is a ticking time bomb. Our country has hundreds, if not thousands of people that could potentially serve life sentences for war crimes. Some of them soldiers and police, some of them lower level officials, some of them senior level officials, and some of them presidents. The US has passed laws effectively declaring war in advance on The Hague and any country that works to indict American citizens in the ICC.

But it's pretty damn easy to call our bluff. What lengths would they really go to protect 0.0001% of our population from facing justice for permanently maiming, torturing, and killing thousands of innocent non-combatants? Would we be willing to face losing our NATO allies? Being excluded from the G7/G20? Would we be willing to face trade sanctions, crippling our entire economy? We can wag our big american dicks about, but no political party could survive those sorts of international punishments, let alone sacrificing American lives to protect murderers. And it's just a matter of time before someone really calls our bluff and does something about it.

Similarly, unfortunately it is also unlikely that the rest of the world magically bands together against the US (bearing all the economic and political consequences, which would be significant for all parties), for the sake of prosecuting 0.0001% of US population.

As a European I don't expect the bluff to be called anytime soon.

The US has already worn out the worst possible threat it can make: war.

After decades of endless war, we ended up with an attempt at war with Iran by a childish buffoon that doesn't think twice about anything. And he backed down. Not because he was convinced by the threat of an opposing political party voting him out, but because he was convinced by the threat of his own war-mongering republican party voting him out. Americans no longer have any appetite for war, and threatening war is now political suicide.

Mind you, that threat of war with Iran was because of attacks on American soldiers. Do you really think the average American gives two shits about Gina Haspel, or Bruce Jessen, or Edward Gallagher? Enough to send their kids to war to protect them from prison?

If only Trump would leave NATO in this term...

If it happens, it will be to deliver justice to the 37 million victims of American war criminals.

None of that is going to happen, for the same reason China can put an entire people into death camps and Russia can just take land from Ukraine.

Power comes from the barrel of a gun.

And it's not a coincidence here that China and Russia are also not members of the ICC.

True. Oceania and Eastasia, if not quite Eurasia.

Looks like russia withdrew its signature after the US had, and china never signed.

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

The last argument of kings.

The US does not have thousands of people vulnerable for war crimes.

All of America’s foreign wars have been aided by allies that subject to the ICC. They used the same tactics. Where are all those indictments.

NATO + Australia, Japan, and South Korea wouldn’t do anything about normal levels of civilian casualties caused by war. Or else they’ll be next since they’ve done the same things and will again.

Like it or not, accidentally bombing an Afghan wedding because your intelligence was faulty isn’t a war crime.

Depending on how aggressively you want to pursue the war crimes charges, every single member of the 1st brigade, 24th infantry division during the 1991 highway of death could potentially be found guilty of war crimes. They probably wouldn't be pursued because they were just following orders, but there's an actual precedent that disfavors that defense. Actively killing a retreating or disarmed military force is a big no-no, and it has nothing to do with accidental deaths or collateral damage.

That's possibly a few thousand just from a single incident in the first gulf war, mind you. Even if you only prosecuted the officers involved, that is still at least 100. It's pretty easy to imagine the number hitting the thousands, when you add up all the wars and all of the behavior we have excused.

There are far, far worse war crimes on the table for American forces to answer for.

Americans need to answer these questions before they consider their nationalist self-righteousness over this issue:

a) what was done to Mosul in 2015 by American forces and their allies (CJTF–OIR)?

b) what was done to Raqqa in 2017 by the same entities?

Iraq lost 5% of its population.

37 million refugees from America's wars.

And now, Americans supporting genocide in Yemen.

This is NOT just about a wedding getting bombed. The order of magnitude of the USA's crimes is much, much worse than Americans are trained to think.

https://www.psr.org/blog/resource/body-count/

Australia won't do anything because Australia is a captured war-fighter state, and its forces answer to the sovereign, not the Australian people. This is why the ADF is so key to US' war plans - it can get away with things Americans cannot.

Sanctions from who? The US has veto power in the UN.

It's the same reason China gets away with genocide.

Both sides lose in a trade war. Both sides lose in a diplomatic battle that severs existing relationships. So while the USA may not be willing to risk losing NATO allies, NATO allies are probably just as fearful of losing the USA.

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