4 ms·

Doesn't the US credibly threaten to invade the Hague should any international court there decide to pursue charges against an American citizen? Best you could

Doesn't the US credibly threaten to invade the Hague should any international court there decide to pursue charges against an American citizen? Best you could hope for is domestic charges or for Kissinger to make a visit to Viet Nam and get arrested there.

walrus01 4y ago
I don't think one NATO country can credibly threaten to invade another, so not really, no... But clearly the US did not sign up to the international criminal court / war crimes courts etc because they were worried about random US DoD personnel who killed civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan being hauled in front of the court. Somebody like Robert Bales for instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kandahar_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kandahar_massacre As he has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole the US takes the position that they want to prosecute such things within their own system.
- pyuser583 4y ago
  Greece and Turkey have been credibly threatening each other for decades.
chii 4y ago
Which is really why this international criminal court has no real meaning - only the winner in a conflict gets to also win in the court. For example, do you really think that by charging putin, that he'd really get arrested in participating countries? Or would the warrant be ignored? And if putin does lose his war, and goes into exile, the ICC warrants would then be possible to enforce (now that no nukes is on the line). But putin knows this, so if the war goes badly, would it not make better sense to fight it out to the bitter end, rather than lose out to being arrested if he goes on exile? The court that has no enforcement mechanism is mostly just political show boating.
- walrus01 4y ago
  There is the slim possibility that if the war goes very badly a small group of very senior Russian generals arrange to capture Putin, depose him, put themselves in place as some sort of junta, remove russian ground forces from Ukraine, and hand him over to the ICC to repair Russia's relationship with the rest of the world.
  - vasac 4y ago
    Yeah, except the West isn't equal to the world and chances of Russian generals handing Putin to ICC are the same as US generals delivering Bush or Obama to the ICC.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    This is misunderstanding how Russia works - Russia is not a military dictatorship, it's a security services dictatorship. The Military in Russia is a low-status organisation and it is not capable of doing anyrhing in internal politics. They commonly end up on the recieving end of racketeering by low-level gangs. Yes, people that drive tanks and fire missiles pay 'taxes' to bandits armed with pistols. Putin was sending generals to their deaths without worry. Various internal police forces have a higher chance of removing FSB from power than the military does. If thongs get bad enough, thats not impossible.
    - pyuser583 4y ago
      Thank you for pointing this out! It makes sense, but I hadn’t made those connections.
    - agapon 4y ago
      You can say approximately the same about the Stalin's USSR when Beria was the most feared man. But just after Stalin's death Beria was promptly executed and the military played the major role in that.
  - pyuser583 4y ago
    Sounds like Serbia.
cge 4y ago
You're thinking of the American Service-Members' Protection Act of 2002: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Protection_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr... The Hague invasion aspect, and Hague Invasion Act nickname, are perhaps largely symbolic; the less symbolic effects are that it prohibits any part of government in the US from assisting the ICC except in limited circumstances, and bans ICC agents from doing any investigative work in the US.
- derefr 4y ago
  > bans ICC agents from doing any investigative work in the US. Doesn't this make the US a safe haven for other countries' war criminals? You'd think the rule would be that there will be no support for ICC agents investigating US citizens.
  - cge 4y ago
    The US relationship with the ICC has been quite variable. The law was passed in 2002, though it does provide for specific exemptions for specifically-named foreigners. Likewise, in 2020, the US had executive orders outright freezing ICC officials' assets, sanctioning them with OFAC, and banning them and their family members from entering the US (these were removed in 2021). At other times, the US has been somewhat supportive, if not to the extent of modifying the law or recognizing the court.
    - pyuser583 4y ago
      The US loves ICC, as long as it doesn’t apply to us. Most of its prosecutions would be impossible without US help.
bayesian_horse 4y ago
Bullshit. The Netherlands are a NATO member.

walrus01 4y ago

I don't think one NATO country can credibly threaten to invade another, so not really, no... But clearly the US did not sign up to the international criminal court / war crimes courts etc because they were worried about random US DoD personnel who killed civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan being hauled in front of the court. Somebody like Robert Bales for instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kandahar_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kandahar_massacre As he has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole the US takes the position that they want to prosecute such things within their own system.

pyuser583 4y ago
Greece and Turkey have been credibly threatening each other for decades.

chii 4y ago

Which is really why this international criminal court has no real meaning - only the winner in a conflict gets to also win in the court. For example, do you really think that by charging putin, that he'd really get arrested in participating countries? Or would the warrant be ignored? And if putin does lose his war, and goes into exile, the ICC warrants would then be possible to enforce (now that no nukes is on the line). But putin knows this, so if the war goes badly, would it not make better sense to fight it out to the bitter end, rather than lose out to being arrested if he goes on exile? The court that has no enforcement mechanism is mostly just political show boating.

walrus01 4y ago
There is the slim possibility that if the war goes very badly a small group of very senior Russian generals arrange to capture Putin, depose him, put themselves in place as some sort of junta, remove russian ground forces from Ukraine, and hand him over to the ICC to repair Russia's relationship with the rest of the world.
- vasac 4y ago
  Yeah, except the West isn't equal to the world and chances of Russian generals handing Putin to ICC are the same as US generals delivering Bush or Obama to the ICC.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  This is misunderstanding how Russia works - Russia is not a military dictatorship, it's a security services dictatorship. The Military in Russia is a low-status organisation and it is not capable of doing anyrhing in internal politics. They commonly end up on the recieving end of racketeering by low-level gangs. Yes, people that drive tanks and fire missiles pay 'taxes' to bandits armed with pistols. Putin was sending generals to their deaths without worry. Various internal police forces have a higher chance of removing FSB from power than the military does. If thongs get bad enough, thats not impossible.
  - pyuser583 4y ago
    Thank you for pointing this out! It makes sense, but I hadn’t made those connections.
  - agapon 4y ago
    You can say approximately the same about the Stalin's USSR when Beria was the most feared man. But just after Stalin's death Beria was promptly executed and the military played the major role in that.
- pyuser583 4y ago
  Sounds like Serbia.

cge 4y ago

You're thinking of the American Service-Members' Protection Act of 2002: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Protection_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr... The Hague invasion aspect, and Hague Invasion Act nickname, are perhaps largely symbolic; the less symbolic effects are that it prohibits any part of government in the US from assisting the ICC except in limited circumstances, and bans ICC agents from doing any investigative work in the US.

derefr 4y ago
> bans ICC agents from doing any investigative work in the US. Doesn't this make the US a safe haven for other countries' war criminals? You'd think the rule would be that there will be no support for ICC agents investigating US citizens.
- cge 4y ago
  The US relationship with the ICC has been quite variable. The law was passed in 2002, though it does provide for specific exemptions for specifically-named foreigners. Likewise, in 2020, the US had executive orders outright freezing ICC officials' assets, sanctioning them with OFAC, and banning them and their family members from entering the US (these were removed in 2021). At other times, the US has been somewhat supportive, if not to the extent of modifying the law or recognizing the court.
  - pyuser583 4y ago
    The US loves ICC, as long as it doesn’t apply to us. Most of its prosecutions would be impossible without US help.

bayesian_horse 4y ago

Bullshit. The Netherlands are a NATO member.