Risk of War Crimes Charges for U.S. Grows over Saudi Strikes in Yemen | Hacker News Reader

Risk of War Crimes Charges for U.S. Grows over Saudi Strikes in Yemen

nytimes.com

59 pointsAndrewBissell37 comments

There is an apathy around bombing civilians in Islamic countries, especially if done by another Islamic country. It is considered just a matter of business/strategy to supply weapons to Saudi Arabia, even when the extent of Human rights violations there are fully known. This problem can be resolved only when there is a broad recognition that all Humans are equal, regardless of religion, caste etc.

On the other hand interventions turned 2 Islamic countries from otherwise stable entities into total disasters. Syria, Lybia are failed states. If Gaddafi and Assad were allowed to deal with the crisis it would have been all over by now with less death toll.

Egypt escaped their fate narrowly just because the military took control.

You may not like Morsi but he was not running a failed state.

Ugh, can we not be against both wanton foreign intervention and backing military juntas?

Egypt was going downhill.

You can be against whatever you wish. Real world takes precedence.

Once you cry havoc and unleash the dogs of war all bets are off.

The us has had successful state building with Germany Japan and South Korea and totally failed with Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran.

And the whole Latin America is... complicated.

In hindsight the proper solutions are aplenty, but so far how to intervene or whether is a cointoss for the outcome.

What happened in Syria was precisely the result of allowing Assad to 'deal with the crisis'.

Not at all. It was to prevent bloodbath of rebels and regime change as a side dish. But then Assad turned out stronger and with better allies and the quagmire was born.

The West never ever wanted regime change in Syria, as corroborated by Ford and others. The entire purpose was to keep the rebels in leash, and the bloodbath was the expected result.

I'm certainly no defender of the US's Middle East strategy, but I don't think apathy has much to do with it. Disengaging with the Middle East would just require a different kind of apathy. We'd have to read about many of the same bombings, massacres, civil wars, and say "I hope they figure it out but this is not our problem".

I think you're mixing up the motivations and sentiments of those in power and the general public.

US foreign policy is not motivated by an empathetic response to address "bombings, massacres, civil wars". That's only relevant in the calculus of managing the public narrative.

Empires don't enter military conflicts to save or better lives. They do it to control resources and counter regional or global imperial competitors.

Sure, but I think the sentiments of the general public are the free variable here. Electing only kind hearted politicians seems like an infeasible strategy.

> There is an apathy around bombing civilians in Islamic countries

I suppose you mean the bombed civilians are in Islamic countries rather than the apathy. FWIW, I first thought you meant the latter.

The only line that measures up to reality. No one is going to bring up the issue of war crimes against the US since that would open a can of worms.

"Although there has been no move so far by any foreign court to do so"

A number of foreign governments are likely holding it as a bargaining chip in other foreign policy matters. Given the involvement of 4/5ths of the UN Security council in middle eastern wars over the last decade, there is good chance that once the charges come out - every power will have some criminal activity to account for.

This is unlikely to be a permanent situation, half the EU block, China, Japan, India, and Brazil have had minor involvement in any war in the last 2 decades. I doubt that people in those countries would look fondly on what has occurred if it was ever made an issue.

Even if they are charged with war crimes, who is going to hold them accountable?

Countries should simply sanction these individual criminals. We do the same thing against war lords and terrorists such as the Lukashenko mob (unfortunately the EU lacks balls to actually sanction Lukashenko himself). If they get away with these crimes back home that's sad, but they should no longer be allowed to sip a coffee in Rome or have their wives go shopping in Paris (or visit their bank in Cyprus or Malta). This tactic works without the usual damage associated with economic sanctions.

Let's start with Bannon so he is no longer able to travel around Europe to give talks on strategy in front of local alt-right groups, or people like Eric Prince, Peter Thiel, and similar human scum. For sure the list would be long.

The US is applying financial sanctions... against ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda.

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, David Frum, and Gina Haspel have all had far more negative impact and are responsible for much more in the way of war crimes than Bannon.

What war crimes did Bannon commit? Seems like an odd choice to target.

It's amazing to me how the people who discovered this problem did so when they no longer had to deal with it.

War crimes charges are also possible against former US presidents, if they ever travel overseas. I could see a president of the opposing party not doing a damned thing if a former president of the other party is nabbed for this, and US courts would have no say in the matter.

The Iraq war was a war crime, by the Nuremberg standards, it's aggression.

dang, I think this has been flagged by error. (I'm being candid)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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