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Comment by bluGill | Hacker News Reader

We have a not quite and ally fighting a war, I'm sure they will take a donation of 10 missiles and one will go off course from a nearby military target [wink wink] and hit this address for us.

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Preeeeeetty sure that's a war crime, not that the US is any stranger to those

If it's the Ukranian military doing the launching and the targets are KGB/FSB or otherwise aiding the Russian government, that's not a war crime. It's hitting a legitimate military target.

But please feel free to snark on the US military; I know that's cheap karma around here.

No, targeting opposing warfighters (the hackers are certainly such) is not a war crime, even if they attempt to hide among civilian populations. Nor is lying about the specifics of your targeting.

I don't understand how a hacker that's targeting US infrastructure would be considered an "opposing warfighter" in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war?

You think his targets are limited to the US? A general doesn't have to be assigned to the front to be a valid target.

They are an opposing warfighter in the Russia led global destabilization efforts.

If bombing a hacker's house isn't a war crime, is a Russian missile hitting a mall in LA, because a colonel working in logistics took his kids shopping there also kosher, or..?

I assume the triumphant press release would be something like 'a number of confirmed enemy fighters killed'.

It's always interesting to see warhawks (who have never been the victims of war) do their best to expand the list of who they consider acceptable enemy targets are, with no regard to what this means to them, domestically.

If russia played nice with the world they would extradit this guy to the courts. Since russia won't all that is left is war.

So, you're telling me that the US refusing to extradite a national is, indeed, sufficient justification for another country to start bombing LA?

Or is it one of those 'we make the rules, but we aren't bound by them' things?

It seems pretty obvious that America is playing by the rule of "We have the power, so you're going to do what we say" when it comes to these scenarios. I find it hard to imagine, for example, an assassination on an American official of rank similar to Qasem Soleimani would result in nearly as timid of a response as Iran gave.

The us generally will extradite if your justice system isn't corrupt. There are exceptions, but everyone has them.

Demonstrably false.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...

> The Act authorizes the president of the United States to use "all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court".

> This authorization led to the act being colloquially nicknamed "The Hague Invasion Act", as the act allows the president to order U.S. military action, such as an invasion of the Netherlands, where The Hague is located, to protect American officials and military personnel from prosecution or rescue them from custody.

I don't see how your comment contradicts the statement "The us generally will extradite if your justice system isn't corrupt. There are exceptions, but everyone has them."

The fact that there is a US law to prevent US service members specifically from being detained by the ICC specifically, has little bearing on the statement that "The US generally will extradite".

These are the most meaningful exemptions. Sure, it'll extradite petty criminals, but it absolutely won't extradite politically useful[1] criminals, and will absolutely not allow the latter to have a fair trial.

If that's acceptable and civilized behavior, I don't see why you can complain that Russia won't extradite a politically useful[1] criminal.

[1] In the sense that their crimes are furthering the state's geopolitical agenda.

That's a reasonable argument. I think that the response that comes next is "the Russian geopolitical agenda is bad", but that's a separate topic - I think you've convinced me on this point.

There are only three cases in which you can start war legally under international law, and what you propose doesn't match any of them.

Russia illegally has a lot of troops in Ukrainian territory. The war is already started (which shows how useful your international law is)

> Russian missile hitting a mall in LA, because a colonel working in logistics took his kids shopping there also kosher

No, because it violates "Proportionality". In this definition, even the very anti-war ICRC admits that it is sometimes necessary to kill civilians to achieve military objectives. https://casebook.icrc.org/highlight/targeting-under-internat... - The law they cite is "expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated".

Where you draw the line is to be litigated. Is destroying the entire apartment block to get a single hacker justified? Probably not. A single-residence home, even if his wife and kids are there? If they're an important enough military target, for sure.

Only if cyber attacks don't make you an enemy combatant. The line between civilian and military is blurred often intentionally.

Please go into detail about how this would be implemented, with particular attention to what could go wrong at each stage of the process and what the consequences would be, especially consequences originating from stakeholders who possess nuclear weapons and whose territory you are proposing to exert military force against, and compare the difficulty and expense of implementation in terms of expected value to the magnitude of what might be gained by a successful operation of this kind.

Yes, I mean "you clearly did not think about this and your idea is very, very, very bad."

appeasing brutes like russia has a long history of not working.

False dichotomy, there are many responses on the spectrum between 'do nothing' and 'start a war with a nuclear power'.

(Also, what about when we act like brutes? Why do other countries tolerate us? Should they not, like, get together and push back, or something?)

Russia started this war - have you forgotten that they have troops in Ukraine right now?

I seem to have forgotten the part where the US is at war with Russia. Pray tell, what day was it declared? Should I be running for my crazy prepper bunker?

But I'm glad that you mentioned the proxy war that is being fought right now, that's one example of how you can respond to a country's bad behavior without actually starting a war with it. There are many others.

"appeasing brutes like russia has a long history of not working" is a true statement that, in this context, does not do any of the work one would like a true statement to do, but it does do much of the work that one would like a statement to do if one were behaving with malice and dishonesty. It collapses the critique it's replying to into an inaccurate summary ("all of the things you said amount to 'appeasing Russia'") and uses a weighted, emotionally loaded verb to do so ("appeasing"). What this response actually says is "all of the problems that sedev pointed out are irrelevant because Russia is bad," and I am not surprised that you didn't say that out loud because when it's said directly, it's obviously wrong.

Do better.

There are a large number of options. Doing nothing is not a valid option. Given that Russia and Ukraine are already at war, which makes all attacks on the table and so Ukraine should be considering this as a message. (it may not be the best use of Ukraine's limited stock of missiles, but the serious threat that Ukraine is looking into it usefully forces Russia to move their defense to defend against this attack)

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