seriously since when Trump start protecting potential war criminal. Trump is picking fight with EVERY world organization, many are created by US in the beginning after WWII. i'm not lib, but at least during bush/obama era, countries were respecting US, now with the shitty covid handling, and all the UN/ICC/WHO bashing, tariff against canada/mexico, trade wars, handling of IRAN/NK etc etc, we lose significant influence/prestige in the world. https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/02/politics/us-icc-sanctions/index.html
An international criminal court prosecution on another country's leaders over policy decisions is sort of tantamount to an act of war. There is a concept called sovereign legal jurisdiction. These days it seems to be more of a cold war, with one country threatening to detain another country's leaders or former leaders if they get the chance. And these type of actions are very comparable to state sanctioned assassinations, in several ways. Many will disagree with me here, but this sort of thing does illustrate why leaders should get more protection from the law than ordinary citizens. Although of course at the same time I can recognize how such a policy could make the leaders callous to the things their people have to deal with.
I personally feel the sanctions are probably a little premature. but I do support the efforts to obstruct investigation. "knowledge is power", as they say. (because people could act based on information and act in a bad way)
Also I notice when I give a nuanced thoughtful reply, that addresses all the complex subtleties, my posts get mostly ignored. Probably because they are too complex for people with short attention spans who just want to see simple realities with simple solutions. Unfortunately the posts that will get the most 'likes' seem to be tailored to those with one cell brains, or be some very simple or elegant idea that will easily strike on some emotional chord. Well, I said my piece. I probably killed this thread with an actual intelligent reply so close to the top, but it's just as well.
1) Nope. 2) Yes. That changed at Nuremburg. There was no enabling legislation or fancy legal theory. We wanted to treat Nazi leaders as criminals and hang them. So we did. It turns out that is a useful idea. Because we're the top dog, they didn't used to go after us. Clearly, that has changed. This goes back to Cheney wanting to bring back torture. We were the country that pushed to end torture, at least officially. This goes all the way back to George Washington. Trump's move is pure idiocy. International organisations, like the ICC, serve our purposes a lot more often than they work against them. Frankly, this is about the last hill you want to fight on. Not only does torture not work, we're better than that. The very first time it happened, the FBI was getting good intel from the guy. The CIA grabbed him, tortured him, and gut nothing. 3) Not really. 4) They do, but maybe not here. 5) Exactly.
The US holds itself above the rule of law, claiming exceptional status. Most of the world knows the US is a force for evil in this world. It is a sad situation. Bush began it, Obama loved it, and Trump is loving it. It's part of the Neocon Unitary Executive idea.
