7 ms·

As a westerner, who believes in the rules based order, I would give anything for our leadership which is launching this illegal war to be sent to the Hague. Ou

As a westerner, who believes in the rules based order, I would give anything for our leadership which is launching this illegal war to be sent to the Hague. Our leadership are war criminals, and should be treated as such. Some, specifically, are war criminals who have committed crimes that carry the death penalty, and should be arrested, tried, and (if found guilty) executed.

stinkbeetle 10mo ago
Presumably also the ones who invaded Iraq and occupied Afghanistan, carried out extrajudicial executions, droned weddings, deposed Libya's leader and laid ruin to the country, trafficked arms and money to cartels in South America and ISIS / "JV team" terrorist groups to destroy the Levant Or was that "rules based order"? I think you've been had with the whole "rules based order thing". You can keep winding the clock back and it's the same thing. Iraq 1, Iran, Vietnam, Korea, Somalia. When exactly would you say this alleged "rules based order" was great?
- ncallaway 10mo ago
  Every war criminal should be arrested, and tried. I think they should also be hanged, but they generally don't do executions at the Hague is my understanding.
  - stinkbeetle 10mo ago
    Yes, lots of the ruling class should be hanged for a lot of reasons, and they're not going to do it themselves at their Hague.
- cosmicgadget 10mo ago
  Seems like since they're vocally condemning the war criminals, they have neither "been had" nor are inconsistent in any way.
  - stinkbeetle 10mo ago
    I don't think you followed the part where they said they believed in the rules based order and I questioned that in a bit of a sarcastic way. It was the entire point of my comment really. There is no "rules based order", the rules based order has always been whatever the wealthy and powerful can do to further enrich themselves and cement their power is the rules, and the order is that they remain on top.
    - cosmicgadget 10mo ago
      If you think that is what you accomplished. To me, you simply pointed out exceptions to the rules-based order and in no way proved it is a hoax.
      - stinkbeetle 9mo ago
        It's not a hoax, it's an empty platitude designed to fool people into thinking their side is in the right. Unfortunately many people are incapable of ever admitting they have been fooled.
coffinbirth 10mo ago
It sadly never happened for the perpetrators of the Iraq/Ukraine/Libya/Afghan/Syria/Yugoslav/... wars. Remember Collateral Murder? And that was just the tip of the iceberg. Also, no one really cared about all the veterans back home, many of whom suffered and still suffer from PTSD. The U.S. truly is the biggest sh*thole on earth.
- ncallaway 10mo ago
  The fact that it didn't happen for the those previous administrations is why it's happening again now. If those previous administrations had been tried for their various crimes, and the guilty parties were cooling their heels in a jail cell, then we probably wouldn't be seeing this action tonight.
  - tonyhart7 10mo ago
    "If those previous administrations had been tried for their various crimes" and yeah who is gonna charge them ???? US have (arguably) strongest military on earth, who can put justice to them if not themselves ???? and themselves I mean US Gov. which is would never happen since every administration have "blood" in some form and another
    - JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
      > since every administration have "blood" in some form and another Trump 45 could have come on board with a clean slate. Hell, Trump 47 started out without too much war-crimey cruft from his first term. Dude went on a witch hunt and forgot to bring his pitchfork.
      - SpicyLemonZest 10mo ago
        The problem is that nearly everyone in the US national security establishment believes that the US should be involved in lots of wars. You may recall how little sympathy Biden got for pulling out of Afghanistan. I genuinely don’t think you could assemble Washington staff with the foreign policy expertise a president requires without ending up with a majority who support bombing Maduro.
EnPissant 10mo ago
[flagged]
- ncallaway 10mo ago
  > Should that administration be brought before the Hague? Yes.
- fzeroracer 10mo ago
  Considering your post history it's clear exactly what you're doing, but I don't think it's as much of an ideological gotcha as you might think because the answer is yes. We can throw Trump and what remains of the Obama administration in jail; I don't really give a fuck. We can work our way down the list as far as you want and I'd give it the thumbs up if it means we can ensure future presidents and politicians think at least four times before doing something.
  - EnPissant 10mo ago
    What exactly is my post history doing?
    - JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
      > What exactly is my post history doing? You're trying to present criminality as a partisan affair. If you're for law and order, you should be for putting criminals in both parties in jail.
      - EnPissant 10mo ago
        My post history?
        nobody9999 10mo ago
        >My post history? I'd venture to guess that GP is referring to this[0]. Or are you just incredulous that your past comments are being used to inform current ones? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=EnPissant[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=EnPissant[1] [1] Not making any value judgement as to the content as I haven't reviewed your post history.
JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
> I would give anything for our leadership which is launching this illegal war to be sent to the Hague Simpler: send them to prison at home. There is no world in which the Hague can enforce its law in America without the U.S. government's consent. At that point, skip the extra step and make war crimes actually illegal.
- ncallaway 10mo ago
  > war crimes actually illegal. To be clear, war crimes are illegal here. They can carry the death penalty. I think there's a strong case to be made for Pete Hegseth to be executed for his crimes, according to US Law. But you're right. There's no expectation that the Hague enforce international law without the consent of the US Government. Our government should either try our leaders in our courts, or hand them in manacles and chains to the ICC and The Hague. But I agree, I don't expect the international community to be able to do this over our objections. It's something we must do.
  - JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
    > war crimes are illegal here. They carry the death penalty. Asking to learn: under what law?
    - ncallaway 10mo ago
      18 U.S. Code § 2441 - War crimes https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2441 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2441 --- There are also provisions in the UCMJ that are applicable to members of the military --- (I also had a consequential typo in my earlier post, which I've now edited. I originally wrote they "carry the death penalty", but I meant to write "they can carry the death penalty", and it depends on the specific circumstances of the war crimes committed.)
      - JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
        "Murder.— The act of a person who intentionally kills, or conspires or attempts to kill, or kills whether intentionally or unintentionally in the course of committing any other offense under this subsection, one or more persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including those placed out of combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause" [1]. Hmm. Filing this away for 2028 or 2032. [1] ¶ (d)(1)(D)
skissane 10mo ago
This is a bit confused-if you send them to the Hague, they can’t be executed-because neither the ICC nor any ad hoc tribunals located in that city have the death penalty. As an abolitionist state, I doubt the Dutch government would ever consent to a capital trial taking place on their territory.
breppp 10mo ago
you assume war crimes, but which war crimes? In general international law is much more lenient than people are willing to believe. e.g. it's legal to kill civilians if you are attacking a military target which is important enough
- JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
  > you assume war crimes, but which war crimes? Hegseth allegedly double tapping survivors is almost certainly against the Geneva Conventions [1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/01/us/hegseth-drug-boat-strike-order-venezuela.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/01/us/hegseth-drug-boat-stri...
  - breppp 10mo ago
    Once they declared it a terrorist organization (which is the problematic side of everything), they can claim these are unlawful combatants and do not have any of the protections of the Geneva convention, like any other war on terror assassination. So I don't think double tapping is a war crime, any more than bombing a car with terrorists in the first place and that doesn't seem to be regarded internationally as a war crime. However, they could have done better to highlight Venezuela actual involvement with terrorism (which is real but not enough for this) rather than magically declare them terrorists just to not go through Congress
    - basisword 10mo ago
      If you need to look for loophole justifications to claim there was no war crime, there was probably a war crime.
    - jonathanstrange 10mo ago
      That "unlawful combatant" designation was invented by the US as an excuse and has always stood on shaky legal grounds even in the US. Other Western countries don't support this legal construction. That being said, the double-tapping was ordinary murder, not a war crime. Every bombing of those ships could have been avoided by boarding them and presenting those drugs as evidence, as the Coast Guard normally does. But that would only have worked if there had been any evidence to start with...
drunx 10mo ago
I think the notion of the comment about westerners is to highlight that as a common person you can believe in rules based order, or you are made to believe in that and live your life by that, however the leaders don't really care about it all that much. They are happy the masses are "ruled" and controlled, but as for their decisions - rules don't always apply. And in many cases western societies tend to express the idea that inn other, dictatorship countries, people sort of "let the dictators dictate", while "westerners" not. But I think this current case (and Trump's presidency at large) is an example of how little we can decide or influence. Even in the supposed "democracy". I wish to believe that voting matters, but Trump showed that you can make people vote for anything if you put massive upfront effort into managing information/missinformation and controlling the minds through populism, etc. Then voting becomes... Powerless. As it has no objective judgement. And despite possible disagreements some might voice - revolutions don't happen anymore. People can't anymore fight the leaders as leaders hold a monopoly on violence through making sure the army is with them. Well... We as people lost and losing the means to "control" our leaders. Westerners, easterners - doesn't matter.
- 7952 10mo ago
  For non-US countries the solution is to be more independent in terms of foreign policy and defence.
pqtyw 10mo ago
To be fair that applies to Maduro to if you count crimes against humanity in general. Certainly applied to Sadam. So now the question is how to do you capture this leadership without foreign intervention while they are still in power? Talk is nice... but there is no real mechanism to impose what you are proposing besides this.
- j_maffe 10mo ago
  You do it as part of an international order, i.e. an impartial UN. Though obviously we don't have that yet.
  - DrBazza 10mo ago
    The only 'leaders' that end up in the Hague and convicted are those forcibly captured via military action. And those 'orders' declared by the UN can, and be vetoed by China, Russia, USA, UK, and France. Guess which two use their veto all the time?
  - pqtyw 10mo ago
    And there are not that many indications that we are moving towards that direction or we can even ever have. I guess that sort of idealism might have existed in the late 40s immediately after the UN was established but it never had a chance. External or internal (which seems rarely feasible unless the government is highly incompetent) regime change realistically is the only thing that worked.
    - aebtebeten 9mo ago
      That sort of idealism existed as late as 1962, but its leading proponent was cancelled in 1963: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46482997 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46482997
      - aebtebeten 9mo ago
        Come to think of it, WJC signed the Rome Statute in 2000, but then GWB unsigned it in 2002, which, coincidentally or uncoincidentally, was followed by the first reports of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone... in 2003
DrBazza 10mo ago
On the other hand, in an alternate reality, this could be preventing a North Korea style dictatorship. Or to flip it, had the USA stayed in South Korea and carried on fighting, it might have prevented North Korea and the Kims and saved literally millions of deaths of North Koreans at the hands of their own government. What do the Venezuelans actually think about this, given that Maduro rigged the last election in 2024 and denied them their democratic choice?
- KaiserPro 10mo ago
  > Maduro rigged the last election in 2024 and denied them their democratic choice? Thats probably true, but trump also tried to rig an election, so its not really up to him to unilaterally decide is it? Especially as hes bumchums with putin who shocker, rigs election, killed hundreds of thousands of his own people invading other countries. > had the USA stayed in South Korea Korea was a UN action, not US unilateral. but alos hugely costly in everyone's lives
  - DrBazza 9mo ago
    The number of deaths due to the Kim dynasty is in the millions, including their kwanliso murder camps and man-made famine, and vastly outnumbers war casualties unfortunately.

stinkbeetle 10mo ago

Presumably also the ones who invaded Iraq and occupied Afghanistan, carried out extrajudicial executions, droned weddings, deposed Libya's leader and laid ruin to the country, trafficked arms and money to cartels in South America and ISIS / "JV team" terrorist groups to destroy the Levant Or was that "rules based order"? I think you've been had with the whole "rules based order thing". You can keep winding the clock back and it's the same thing. Iraq 1, Iran, Vietnam, Korea, Somalia. When exactly would you say this alleged "rules based order" was great?

ncallaway 10mo ago
Every war criminal should be arrested, and tried. I think they should also be hanged, but they generally don't do executions at the Hague is my understanding.
- stinkbeetle 10mo ago
  Yes, lots of the ruling class should be hanged for a lot of reasons, and they're not going to do it themselves at their Hague.
cosmicgadget 10mo ago
Seems like since they're vocally condemning the war criminals, they have neither "been had" nor are inconsistent in any way.
- stinkbeetle 10mo ago
  I don't think you followed the part where they said they believed in the rules based order and I questioned that in a bit of a sarcastic way. It was the entire point of my comment really. There is no "rules based order", the rules based order has always been whatever the wealthy and powerful can do to further enrich themselves and cement their power is the rules, and the order is that they remain on top.
  - cosmicgadget 10mo ago
    If you think that is what you accomplished. To me, you simply pointed out exceptions to the rules-based order and in no way proved it is a hoax.
    - stinkbeetle 9mo ago
      It's not a hoax, it's an empty platitude designed to fool people into thinking their side is in the right. Unfortunately many people are incapable of ever admitting they have been fooled.

coffinbirth 10mo ago

It sadly never happened for the perpetrators of the Iraq/Ukraine/Libya/Afghan/Syria/Yugoslav/... wars. Remember Collateral Murder? And that was just the tip of the iceberg. Also, no one really cared about all the veterans back home, many of whom suffered and still suffer from PTSD. The U.S. truly is the biggest sh*thole on earth.

ncallaway 10mo ago
The fact that it didn't happen for the those previous administrations is why it's happening again now. If those previous administrations had been tried for their various crimes, and the guilty parties were cooling their heels in a jail cell, then we probably wouldn't be seeing this action tonight.
- tonyhart7 10mo ago
  "If those previous administrations had been tried for their various crimes" and yeah who is gonna charge them ???? US have (arguably) strongest military on earth, who can put justice to them if not themselves ???? and themselves I mean US Gov. which is would never happen since every administration have "blood" in some form and another
  - JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
    > since every administration have "blood" in some form and another Trump 45 could have come on board with a clean slate. Hell, Trump 47 started out without too much war-crimey cruft from his first term. Dude went on a witch hunt and forgot to bring his pitchfork.
    - SpicyLemonZest 10mo ago
      The problem is that nearly everyone in the US national security establishment believes that the US should be involved in lots of wars. You may recall how little sympathy Biden got for pulling out of Afghanistan. I genuinely don’t think you could assemble Washington staff with the foreign policy expertise a president requires without ending up with a majority who support bombing Maduro.

EnPissant 10mo ago

[flagged]

ncallaway 10mo ago
> Should that administration be brought before the Hague? Yes.
fzeroracer 10mo ago
Considering your post history it's clear exactly what you're doing, but I don't think it's as much of an ideological gotcha as you might think because the answer is yes. We can throw Trump and what remains of the Obama administration in jail; I don't really give a fuck. We can work our way down the list as far as you want and I'd give it the thumbs up if it means we can ensure future presidents and politicians think at least four times before doing something.
- EnPissant 10mo ago
  What exactly is my post history doing?
  - JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
    > What exactly is my post history doing? You're trying to present criminality as a partisan affair. If you're for law and order, you should be for putting criminals in both parties in jail.
    - EnPissant 10mo ago
      My post history?
      - nobody9999 10mo ago
        >My post history? I'd venture to guess that GP is referring to this[0]. Or are you just incredulous that your past comments are being used to inform current ones? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=EnPissant[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=EnPissant[1] [1] Not making any value judgement as to the content as I haven't reviewed your post history.

JumpCrisscross 10mo ago

> I would give anything for our leadership which is launching this illegal war to be sent to the Hague Simpler: send them to prison at home. There is no world in which the Hague can enforce its law in America without the U.S. government's consent. At that point, skip the extra step and make war crimes actually illegal.

ncallaway 10mo ago
> war crimes actually illegal. To be clear, war crimes are illegal here. They can carry the death penalty. I think there's a strong case to be made for Pete Hegseth to be executed for his crimes, according to US Law. But you're right. There's no expectation that the Hague enforce international law without the consent of the US Government. Our government should either try our leaders in our courts, or hand them in manacles and chains to the ICC and The Hague. But I agree, I don't expect the international community to be able to do this over our objections. It's something we must do.
- JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
  > war crimes are illegal here. They carry the death penalty. Asking to learn: under what law?
  - ncallaway 10mo ago
    18 U.S. Code § 2441 - War crimes https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2441 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2441 --- There are also provisions in the UCMJ that are applicable to members of the military --- (I also had a consequential typo in my earlier post, which I've now edited. I originally wrote they "carry the death penalty", but I meant to write "they can carry the death penalty", and it depends on the specific circumstances of the war crimes committed.)
    - JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
      "Murder.— The act of a person who intentionally kills, or conspires or attempts to kill, or kills whether intentionally or unintentionally in the course of committing any other offense under this subsection, one or more persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including those placed out of combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause" [1]. Hmm. Filing this away for 2028 or 2032. [1] ¶ (d)(1)(D)

skissane 10mo ago

This is a bit confused-if you send them to the Hague, they can’t be executed-because neither the ICC nor any ad hoc tribunals located in that city have the death penalty. As an abolitionist state, I doubt the Dutch government would ever consent to a capital trial taking place on their territory.

breppp 10mo ago

you assume war crimes, but which war crimes? In general international law is much more lenient than people are willing to believe. e.g. it's legal to kill civilians if you are attacking a military target which is important enough

JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
> you assume war crimes, but which war crimes? Hegseth allegedly double tapping survivors is almost certainly against the Geneva Conventions [1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/01/us/hegseth-drug-boat-strike-order-venezuela.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/01/us/hegseth-drug-boat-stri...
- breppp 10mo ago
  Once they declared it a terrorist organization (which is the problematic side of everything), they can claim these are unlawful combatants and do not have any of the protections of the Geneva convention, like any other war on terror assassination. So I don't think double tapping is a war crime, any more than bombing a car with terrorists in the first place and that doesn't seem to be regarded internationally as a war crime. However, they could have done better to highlight Venezuela actual involvement with terrorism (which is real but not enough for this) rather than magically declare them terrorists just to not go through Congress
  - basisword 10mo ago
    If you need to look for loophole justifications to claim there was no war crime, there was probably a war crime.
  - jonathanstrange 10mo ago
    That "unlawful combatant" designation was invented by the US as an excuse and has always stood on shaky legal grounds even in the US. Other Western countries don't support this legal construction. That being said, the double-tapping was ordinary murder, not a war crime. Every bombing of those ships could have been avoided by boarding them and presenting those drugs as evidence, as the Coast Guard normally does. But that would only have worked if there had been any evidence to start with...

drunx 10mo ago

I think the notion of the comment about westerners is to highlight that as a common person you can believe in rules based order, or you are made to believe in that and live your life by that, however the leaders don't really care about it all that much. They are happy the masses are "ruled" and controlled, but as for their decisions - rules don't always apply. And in many cases western societies tend to express the idea that inn other, dictatorship countries, people sort of "let the dictators dictate", while "westerners" not. But I think this current case (and Trump's presidency at large) is an example of how little we can decide or influence. Even in the supposed "democracy". I wish to believe that voting matters, but Trump showed that you can make people vote for anything if you put massive upfront effort into managing information/missinformation and controlling the minds through populism, etc. Then voting becomes... Powerless. As it has no objective judgement. And despite possible disagreements some might voice - revolutions don't happen anymore. People can't anymore fight the leaders as leaders hold a monopoly on violence through making sure the army is with them. Well... We as people lost and losing the means to "control" our leaders. Westerners, easterners - doesn't matter.

7952 10mo ago
For non-US countries the solution is to be more independent in terms of foreign policy and defence.

pqtyw 10mo ago

To be fair that applies to Maduro to if you count crimes against humanity in general. Certainly applied to Sadam. So now the question is how to do you capture this leadership without foreign intervention while they are still in power? Talk is nice... but there is no real mechanism to impose what you are proposing besides this.

j_maffe 10mo ago
You do it as part of an international order, i.e. an impartial UN. Though obviously we don't have that yet.
- DrBazza 10mo ago
  The only 'leaders' that end up in the Hague and convicted are those forcibly captured via military action. And those 'orders' declared by the UN can, and be vetoed by China, Russia, USA, UK, and France. Guess which two use their veto all the time?
- pqtyw 10mo ago
  And there are not that many indications that we are moving towards that direction or we can even ever have. I guess that sort of idealism might have existed in the late 40s immediately after the UN was established but it never had a chance. External or internal (which seems rarely feasible unless the government is highly incompetent) regime change realistically is the only thing that worked.
  - aebtebeten 9mo ago
    That sort of idealism existed as late as 1962, but its leading proponent was cancelled in 1963: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46482997 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46482997
    - aebtebeten 9mo ago
      Come to think of it, WJC signed the Rome Statute in 2000, but then GWB unsigned it in 2002, which, coincidentally or uncoincidentally, was followed by the first reports of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone... in 2003

DrBazza 10mo ago

On the other hand, in an alternate reality, this could be preventing a North Korea style dictatorship. Or to flip it, had the USA stayed in South Korea and carried on fighting, it might have prevented North Korea and the Kims and saved literally millions of deaths of North Koreans at the hands of their own government. What do the Venezuelans actually think about this, given that Maduro rigged the last election in 2024 and denied them their democratic choice?

KaiserPro 10mo ago
> Maduro rigged the last election in 2024 and denied them their democratic choice? Thats probably true, but trump also tried to rig an election, so its not really up to him to unilaterally decide is it? Especially as hes bumchums with putin who shocker, rigs election, killed hundreds of thousands of his own people invading other countries. > had the USA stayed in South Korea Korea was a UN action, not US unilateral. but alos hugely costly in everyone's lives
- DrBazza 9mo ago
  The number of deaths due to the Kim dynasty is in the millions, including their kwanliso murder camps and man-made famine, and vastly outnumbers war casualties unfortunately.