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Only the U.S. would actually sanction someone for trying to indict a war criminal.
by enlguy 11mo ago
Only the U.S. would actually sanction someone for trying to indict a war criminal.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 11mo agoI don't think that's true. Lots of countries out there led by thugs. It used to be that the US stood out because it took the law seriously and believed in its ideals to do the right thing (not that it always succeeded, but it did its best). Looks like that time has passed.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- usrnm 11mo agoNot sure about that. Internally, maybe it was true at some point, cannot say, but if we look at the US as an international player, when exactly was it ready to sacrifice its own interests for any kind of justice or greater good? And if you are not ready to pay the price, then all this talk of a higher moral ground is just that, an empty talk.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 11mo agoI don't disagree, but I think there was a genuine perception by many people that the US were the good guys. The change is that its not even trying to pretend to be this anymore.
- skrebbel 11mo ago> It used to be that the US stood out because it took the law seriously and believed in its ideals to do the right thing The "The Hague Invasion Act", where the US authorizes itself to invade an ally (the Netherlands) to break war criminal suspects out of prison, was signed in 2002. The US has always been a "rules for thee but not for me" type of place and the digital sanction discussed here fits in a long line of behaviors by the US government. Trump has changed the scale and intensity of it all but the basic direction has always been the same.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 11mo agoWell the fact that they made a law to enable this is a sign of at least some belief in the law. These days Trump would just do the invasion regardless of what the law says, and get away with it. Case example: ordering the navy to blow up Venezuela boats.
- skrebbel 11mo agoGood point! From that perspective the comment I replied to does indeed check out.
- ApolloFortyNine 11mo agoThe US never ratified any law claiming the ICC has jurisdiction over Americans. And they basically put it into writing, they're not the only country that would do something if an active duty military officer was arrested. Here's a map. [1] [1] https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2024/05/ICC-Members.png https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2024/05/ICC-Mem...
- embedding-shape 11mo ago> It used to be that the US stood out because it took the law seriously and believed in its ideals to do the right thing I think it looked like that, because the US always been very effective at propaganda, and until the internet and the web made it very easy for people to communicate directly with each other without the arms of media conglomerates. It's now clearer than ever that US never really believed in its own ideals or took their own laws seriously, there are too many situations pointing at the opposite being true.
- DangitBobby 11mo agoI'm skeptical things would have lasted this long if the "US never really believed in its own ideal or took their own laws seriously". I think you're letting your cynicism for this moment run away with you.
- TimorousBestie 11mo agoAmerican involvement in the Nuremberg trials set the stage for the modern era of international law. It began with the United States, along with the allied nations, constructing a post-facto legal definition of crime against humanity that somehow included the Holocaust but excluded both the American campaign in Japan and various Russian war crimes on the Western Front. It’s not cynicism to point out the clear hypocrisy.
- embedding-shape 11mo agoNot to mention Jim Crow was still in full effect in the US at the time, but somehow wasn't deemed "Crime against humanity". The winners truly do control the history.
- vlovich123 11mo agoWas Jim Crow a federally organized policy bent on extermination? It was state level discrimination that Nazi Germany copied in 1933-1938 to deal with their “Jewish problem”. By 1939 you had formal government-enforced ghettos with forced labor (no equivalent in America at the time) and by 1941 you had mass extinction. Don’t get me wrong - Jim Crow was horrific. But it was state level after effects of the civil war and failure to establish absolute dominance over the southern states in reconstruction. Cultural problems we fought a civil war over and we’re still dealing with today. But one difference of the goal with slavery and Jim Crow is subjugation not extermination
- gessha 11mo ago> used to be that the US stood out because it took the law seriously The US looked like it stood out but it has its own internal and external legal problems such as slavery, Native American repressions, the legacy of slavery, anti-Asian policies, coup-ing foreign countries, etc etc etc
- DangitBobby 11mo agoWe are a country made up of apes, just like all the others. Nothing is perfect, and us constantly fucking it up doesn't mean we didn't care about it, as a nation.
- IAmBroom 11mo agoYou are conflating morality with legal jurisprudence. The US obeyed its own (highly immoral) laws on slavery, genocide of Native Americans, etc. I'll give you the point about promoting coups in foreign countries (couping is actually the verb).
- gessha 11mo agoWhen I mentioned Native American repression, I had the federal government breaking treaties in mind which falls under legal category but you’re right that the gov also did the genocide. More generally, as a foreigner who now lives in the US, I held Americans to a higher standard than, say my own government or major other governments. Not anymore, I feel like there’s just different trade offs in living in different countries.
- demarq 11mo agoRemember all the thuggery and whatever we are seeing now was happening back then. What has changed is we know about it.
- zidad 11mo agoThe US has always been led by Thugs. If you think they ever took international or humanitarian law seriously they would not be scared to join the ICC, and you've only been paying attention to propaganda, not what the US has actually been doing since the inception of those laws.
- RobotToaster 11mo ago> It used to be that the US stood out because it took the law seriously The US took everyone's gold under the bretton woods system, and then Nixon "temporarily" ended dollar gold convertibility when France asked for it's gold back.
- naasking 11mo ago> It used to be that the US stood out because it took the law seriously and believed in its ideals to do the right thing You're in a bubble.
- yodsanklai 11mo ago> believed in its ideals to do the right thing Do the right thing to serve their own interests.
- Phelinofist 11mo agoI'm pretty sure no one outside of the US thought of the USA in that way, ever.
- crazygringo 11mo agoI hate to break it to you, but plenty of countries would do this. One country's war criminal is another country's military hero. Same as it ever was.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- chatmasta 11mo agoThe ICC somehow managed to create an institution even more useless than the UN. The very concept of an International Criminal Court, operating in some idealistic moral space above war and diplomacy, is completely divorced from the reality of realpolitik and total war. If everyone agreed to arbitrate world matters in the ICC, why even have militaries?
- throw0101c 11mo ago> If everyone agreed to arbitrate world matters in the ICC, why even have militaries? That's… kind of the point? To not have to kill and destroy each other to settle disputes.
- chatmasta 11mo agoYeah sounds great. But it’s hopelessly naive. As soon as someone disagrees, if they have more real power than the ICC, then its enforcement becomes ineffective. You can’t solve disagreements by agreeing to disagree.
- TheCoelacanth 11mo agoInternational law is inherently more of a social contract than an actual law. That doesn't make it useless because it does have a real effect on how countries behave, but it does mean that enforcement looks more like getting ostracized than it looks like law enforcement.
- pyrale 11mo ago> International law is inherently more of a social contract than an actual law. Isn't actual law a social contract aswell?
- contagiousflow 11mo agoWhy have municipal laws? Everyone can just carry around an AK-47 and decide what's right and wrong for them
- stronglikedan 11mo agoOf course that's not true. Any country is capable of it, and any country would do it if it were in their interests. Generalizations generally degrade the conversation.
- JeremyNT 11mo ago> Only the U.S. would actually sanction someone for trying to indict a war criminal. The problem is that only the US has the power to material harm people to such a degree by doing so. The amount of control that Big Tech has consolidated into a handful of US megacorporations is a massive danger to the entire world. The US devolving into an overt kleptocracy is a huge threat to freedom everywhere. Who can push back? Obviously not China or Russia, where the problems are even worse. Of all the wealthy world, the EU basically stands alone as the only entity that has strong enough democratic institutions, capital, and expertise to plausibly develop some kind of alternative.
- devsda 11mo ago> Who can push back? Obviously not China or Russia, where the problems are even worse. Why not China or Russia or any other country with the capability? Competition is good even if some or all of the players are bad individually.
- prasadjoglekar 11mo agoChina, Russia are not members of the ICC for the same reason the US is not. They do not want extra territorial entities applying laws to their citizens and soldiers.
- pbhjpbhj 11mo agoTrumpian fascists being given power in USA demands that anyone who supports democracy ceases trade with USA. It is no safer than feeding the Russian machine.