Some previous discussions:
Microsoft blocked the email account of Chief Prosecutor of the ICC
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44039719
Microsoft's ICC blockade: digital dependence comes at a cost
Damn right. Strong evidence that Europe should look after their own, and not rely on the good old US of A. Written by an Australian who thinks we should do the same down here.
Every American President will defend Israel at any cost. The American military industrial complex depends upon the existence of an aggressive, Zionist Israeli government constantly starting shit and creating the pretext for American imperialist doctrine. Conservative and evangelical Christians believe it is their literal sacred duty to defend Israel (see recent comments by Ted Cruz citing the Bible to that effect) It doesn't matter who is in the White House, or what party, and no coercion or blackmail is required.
(It's also perfectly rational that this is denied and alternative explanations are offered, because nobody would openly agree to be hijacked in favour of a separate entity).
In happier news, Netanyahu's rampage helped Syria oust Assad, although that farmer from that Zen story says "Let's see."...
The point of the genocide in Gaza is to erase internal resistance. To erase internal cultural, ethnic and religious ties to their enemies. Eliminate "the enemy within". This is why they are ending a peoples. Straight colonial-racist-genocide of the retro variety.
And also, I do believe it is the whole key to the middle east:
It is a colonial war "playground".
Western Capitalist Block VS Eastern Capitalist Block fight using the people middle east. It is the current global center for proxy wars. Maybe its been working as a sort of vent preventing an all-out WW3.
These world leaders just use us poor people for the profits of their capitalist class.
> White House official" reported that Alexander Acosta, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida who had handled Epstein's criminal case in 2008, had stated to interviewers of President Donald Trump's first transition team: "I was told Epstein 'belonged to intelligence' and to 'leave it alone'", and that Epstein was "above his pay grade"[0][1]
[0] https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeffrey-epsteins-sick-story-pl...
[1] https://observer.com/2019/07/jeffrey-epstein-spy-intelligenc...
My point is that one can suggest that as opposed to being supportive to Israel like former presidents that Donald Trump is friendly to Israel, giving them what they want without asking for anything tangible in exchange.
Please note that I will not continue to talk to you if you reply again without referencing the additional context I added. Talking past your conversational partner is rude.
>The Act recognized Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel and called for Jerusalem to remain an undivided city. The proposed law was adopted by the Senate (93–5),[2] and the House (374–37). The Act became law without a presidential signature on November 8, 1995.
Your context is deflecting that this is US law, adopted by more than supermajority in both houses and trying to dump it on trump. This law was essentially the will of american people; and presidents that you enumerated avoided implemented provisions of it.
also, waiver in question was not blanket, but 6 months long and based on "national security" grounds". i guess under trump there were no more national security grounds to get a waiver
I remain perplexed about how that was given up for seemingly nothing, much like how Donald Trump curiously decided to betray the YPG for seemingly nothing too. You got any guesses on that one, given the YPG were the troops that did great work in defeating ISIL for us all? I feel like they didn't deserve that.
and btw, to address "I feel like they didn't deserve that", israel didn't really want embassy moved. because (obviously) palestinians got angry and started a wave of violence that lasted for year or so and resulted in bunch of dead and wounded.
> it can be as simple that there was no more "national security ground" to delay it.
Maybe but what had changed exactly at that point? Without a contextual argument that explains it, I can't help but feel like its a tell that Donald Trump is more friendly to Israel than previous presidents.
another point, arab countries dropped "no normalization without palestinian state" approach (the see in past decade palestinian leadership as corrupt and incapable) and signed abraham accords. saudia was supposed to seal the deal as well but oct7 happened.
Israel considers their capital to be Jerusalem. Was there any other country where we just reject the city they consider their capital?
Like would we tell Germany that we won't recognize Berlin as their capital and would instead tell them we are going to consider Hamburg their capital?
So I'll ask my question again, have we ever denied the capital of a country is the city of their choice?
If there was some sort of precedence for not accepting capitals, I wouldn't have a problem, but as far as I can tell Israel is the only exception. I like consistent standards even if it is bad politicaly.
I don't think a two state solution is possible, at least in the near to medium future. Changing the capital won't extend the war since, in my view, it will be a hundred years until there is any chance at peace, and even that is probably too short. Nobody killing each other then will care that the capital was changed.
Besides this, Trump's muscular rhetoric probably just assumed that Israel was a piece of the US, more or less. I'm sure he also got very solid support at the elections from all the usual lobbies.
“Did they vote for me?” is his first consideration.
1. Jimmy Carter mentioned in his biography that Obama asked him not to speak at the DNC because he acknowledged Palestinians deserved a right to live peacefully in one of his speeches. I revisited that speech, and it was by all accounts tame. He explicitly mentioned Obama's Jewish chief of Staff describing AIPAC as opposing this, and Carter was denied a speech at the DNC for this very reason (including his support for a two state solutions, which the American jewry by all accounts opposes through their actions, despite their rhetoric). A US President was shunned from US elections because he was slightly critical of Israel. Let that sink in. 2. Nixon describing AIPAC influence and Pelosi describing how the US capitol could burn while ensuring Israel thrives: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53x_zrkJwDs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEpPk1BBFP8
The point of the above is American sitting Presidents or influential politicians describe the pressure they face of subjugating US interests to Israel's because America's economy is dominated by Jews and Evangelicals, who believe Israel must survive at all costs (including to the detriment of American interests). I understand how religiosity can lead to undermining America in favor of Israel. I cannot comprehend how Americans can defend this in good faith. Being America first is incompatible with the conduct of Israel, including its founding, for it is a colonial apartheid state that was founded on the murder and dislocation of families. I think it is difficult for most of us to imagine that the victims of a Holocaust, an abominable crime, can in turn be filled with so much hatred that they resort to the very crimes they were the victims of. I believe we went into Iraq and we fund Israel because powerful forces in these United States wish for us to do their dirty work, including when this work harms American interests, and most importantly, the values most of us hold dear: that every human being has the right to life, liberty and the security of his person.
If the US's support for Israel ever hurt the USA in places that it genuinely cared about, then I think you'd see its support for Israel diminish or even dissipate. As it stands support for Israel is very convenient for the US industrial military complex and the USA's long-term strategic objectives in the Middle East which IMHO are large factors in its willingness to support it.
The pro-Israel lobby has spent roughly 10-15M per year since 1990 except for the past 2-3 years when it has ramped up due to the war. This is hardly enough to offset the billions of dollars spent in U.S. politics.
For this to be true it would also require Israel to "buy" presidents who acted against Israel's interests (e.g. Obama and Biden who financially bolsered Iran). This seems unlikely.
The U.S. does not unconditionally fund and defend Israel. Most (75-90%) of U.S. Federal military aid to Israel is contingent on Israel buying from American companies. This effectively makes most funding a roundabout subsidy of American defense contractors. There are also human rights conditions and many others.
Israel and the U.S. actually have common interests in the Middle East. Contrary to some opinions, allowing Israel to cease to exist is not in the interest of the U.S. although I do support having Israel be less reliant on the U.S.
sources: https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus?cycle=All&ind=Q...
https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/RL/PDF/RL3322...
Those $10-15 mil are given to politicians and the billions are spent from US tax payers money.
> For this to be true it would also require Israel to "buy" presidents who acted against Israel's interests
You might want to look into campaign contributions made by AIPAC and similar isreli institutions to these presidents.
> Most (75-90%) of U.S. Federal military aid to Israel is contingent on Israel buying from American companies.
Which effectively makes these weapons free for Israel. US is literally funding Israeli army.
regardless of where the money comes from, my point was that money is not enough compared to the rest to claim that Israel has "bought" candidates.
> You might want to look into campaign contributions made by AIPAC and similar isreli institutions to these presidents.
The pro-Israel lobby certainly donated to them, it was just not enough to justify the claim that Israel has "bought all previous US presidents." And the fact that those presidents acted against Israel's interests shows that if there was an attempt to "buy" them, it failed with respect to policy.
> Which effectively makes these weapons free for Israel. US is literally funding Israeli army.
You are right that the U.S. is funding Israel's military, but my point was that there are in fact conditions to the funding and the U.S. does get something in return if you consider the indirect subsidy of the American defense industry.
This is a self-defeating and untrue meme.
Most Americans don’t say Israel is very important to them, favourably or not [1]. Historically, Israel was popular in both parties; that has now changed. As a result, being anti-Israel was dumb not because of some APAC [EDIT: AIPAC] conspiracy but because voters generally don’t respond to foreign policy issues (versus kitchen-sink ones) and the voters who would tended to were predominantly pro-Israel. So the safe electoral strategy has been, until maybe the last year, to say something nice about Israel and then move on.
So no, there isn’t some undefeatable (and frankly, steeped in historically-racist characterisations of Jews) shadow government. This is basic electoral incentives. Incentives which are shifting. Because if there is an undefeatable shadow government, there are better things to talk about and focus on.
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/04/08/how-ameri...
This is not a binary of either NWO conspiracy or paranoid antisemitism . AIPAC is a lobby, just like many other lobbies. They boast on their website[1] that they've paid $53M to politicians. Just like any other lobby, the electorate has a right and responsibility to judge whether the influence it has bought is in their best interests.
Sure. One among many. They’re influential, but not deterministic.
> that they've paid $53M to politicians
No, they don’t. They’re reporting campaign donations.
There is a tendency, when we disagree with an election, to tally up the donations made to the other side while ignoring all the times the best-funded candidate got trounced. (Jeb!) The influence of money in politics is one of sharply-diminishing returns. It is invaluable for name recognition. It doesn’t swing people on fundamental issues.
Israel has had unique sway in America because for most of its history it has been uniquely popular. Partly because of our Jewish diaspora. Partly because they were a reliable ally. And partly because they give us a lot of money. But two out of three of those factors also apply to the Gulf states, and we tend to be a bit less deferential to them because they’re just not as popular.
aipac is boasting about funding majority of congress and is openly forcing candidates to pledge loyalty. If they dont pledge, they unleash the usual tools: funding the competing candidate, non-stop smearing campaigns via israeli-loyal media outlets and ethnically jewish journalists (==all mainstream media), bogus accusations of "antisemitism" and etc
Sure. The NRA does the same. There are various pro-Palestinian groups who also did the same last cycle; they may have helped swing Michigan for Trump.
Spending money doesn’t change minds, it helps activate latent sentiment. Particularly on low-priority issues, which foreign policy usually is for most electeds.
for example the most recent bogus "IHRA definition of antisemitism" was heavily lobbied and coordinated. This is the prime example of what money can do in politics
You can raise and lower magnitudes. But you can’t change the sign of a position. Not unless it’s an issue the elected has literally never heard of before. (Or cannot remember. Lots of geriatrics.)
Also, $50mm nationally is simply not a lot. There are individual leftist donors with strong pro-Palestinian views injecting that much into the media stream.
This part is true.
> There is a tendency, when we disagree with an election, to tally up the donations made to the other side while ignoring all the times the best-funded candidate got trounced. (Jeb!)
While this is too specific to a particular type of election to hold true in general (no pun intended). The POTUS election is almost by definition the most high profile election in the US, therefore the money does the least to boost your name recognition, as evidenced by $2B in "free" media publicity for the 2016 winner.
However, the WH is not the only race that matters. According to https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/money-and-elections-a-c... "For house seats, more than 90 percent of the candidates who spend the most win."
This article goes into great length to explain why correlation does not mean causation, but it also makes the case that a lot of the races that are indeed somewhat low-profile, and that's where money makes the big impact.
I will amend my prior statements to be constrained to national politics. You can absolutely buy policy at the state and local level, because if you’re a candidate’s sole sugar daddy you have obvious influence over and goodwill owed from them.
The moment a candidate gains a profile, however, that channel becomes a two-way street. Donors will donate to maintain access and goodwill. Refusing to donate means being cut off; the elected has the leverage.
Israel's sway has more to do with the power it holds over the political classes rather than because of its "natural" popularity. It spends billions trying to sway public opinion, which is increasingly ineffective, but despite this their vise like hold over the American political class remains firm.
This includes not only lobbying bribes and Epstein-like blackmail and lavish funding for anybody who wants to run against an anti genocide candidate.
Russia behaves very similarly in countries it seeks to influence and plenty of naive people are driven to believe that that their relative success at doing this just means that theyre naturally popular there.
Not what I claimed.
Vocal, motivated minorities who are willing to back a primary challenger, show or not show to off-cycle elections and potentially even switch parties over an issue command in American elections. What the majority loosely believes is irrelevant; this should be common knowledge given how our partisan primary system works.
The loose majority in American elections doesn’t care about foreign policy. A motivated minority does, and that minority has historically—in both parties—broken decisively in favour of Israel. This issue, moreover, was one that was important enough to enough of them to be a deal breaker. (And “them” doesn’t just mean American or even Israeli Jews. It encompasses a wide variety of liberal, neo-conservative and evangelical interests, for example.)
Not everywhere. But in enough places that if you’re a politician from one of the majority of places where Israel is a total non-issue, you don’t want to alienate your colleagues for whom it is an issue. Because there was no upside to fighting a battle against Israel, again, nobody in your district was going to reward you for going de Blasio on out-of-scope problems.
> Israel's sway has more to do with the power it holds over the political classes
Sure. The point is the “political classes” are those people who are willing to back a primary challenger, show or not show to off-cycle elections and potentially even switch parties over an issue. It’s far more similar to how NIMBY politics work than Russia’s election interference, which has a track record of backfiring more than helping.
Yet what you directly claimed hinges upon this fallacy.
>Vocal, motivated minorities who are willing to back a primary challenger
Or foreign countries.
(is Russia also a "vocal, motivated minority" in Moldova...? or is it just plain and simple foreign meddling? Russia believes it's motivated minorities).
>What the majority loosely believes is irrelevant
Sure. But, this would make your clain of "Israel has had unique sway in America because for most of its history it has been uniquely popular" uniquely self-contradictory.
No. It doesn’t. It’s why I never cite general popularity for Israel. Only strong favour for and against.
> this would make your clain of "Israel has had unique sway in America because for most of its history it has been uniquely popular" completely untrue
Nope. Israel has a vocal minority that loves it. It has not had, until last last year, a vocal minority that hates it. Most people don’t care, and when they gave a view on caring, it was mild support. That’s a unique popularity profile that I don’t think any other country, other than maybe Cubans, have held.
Even today, very few voters would trade pocketbook issues for a pro-Palestinian policy portfolio. Several would for a pro-Israeli one.
It’s a tempting tale, and simplifying model, to assume unilateral causes of policies. Sometimes that is true. In this case, the theory requires a level of coördination across decades and the American public that borders on anti-vaccine levels of delusion. (It’s also, again, a self-defeating mythology. If Israel’s influence is untouchable, it isn’t worth touching.)
Yet you cited "Israel is uniquely popular" as a reason for why they get their way.
Which is not true.
>Israel has a vocal minority that loves it. It has not had, until last last year, a vocal minority that hates it
It not only had a vocal minority that hates it it had a vocal minority of Jews that loathe it.
The minorities arent the point though, the money and the foreign influence over America's government is.
Remember the "vocal minority" in Moldova who fight for pro Russian policy? Theyre not "vocal minorities" thats just Russia.
Israel is no different. It's a foreign country taking control over the American government.
>Even today, very few voters would trade pocketbook issues for a pro-Palestinian policy portfolio
That's probably increasingly less true these days (genocide isnt a historically popular policy) but beside the point.
The "minority" which operates on behalf of a foreign government is getting real close to ramming $200 per barrel oil down everybody's throats not because theyre "motivated" but because America is run along plutocratic lines and is fully captured by that foreign government.
>It’s a tempting tale, and simplifying model, to assume unilateral causes of policies
I assume that'd where the "uniquely popular" thing came from.
take aipac, which barely scratches the top 10 of single-issue focused organizations. Aipac donated 43 mil to campaigns in 2023-24. The League of Conservation Warriors donated 50 million. Is the U.S. gov't being captured by environmental advocacy groups?
If you look at foreign agent registered spending, Israel spent 5.7 million in 2024. Compare that with China who spent 5.8 billion with a B.
The problem is that Florida hasn't been a swing state in a long time, and yet we continue to embargo Cuba. In fact, Biden made things worse [0]
The reality is that we don't live in a Democracy but an Oligarchy. The American oligarchy includes people who want to keep the boot on Cuba until a Batista-style regime is back in power. Likewise, the oligarchy supports Israel and therefore, so will the US government and it doesn't matter who you vote for.
[0] https://jacobin.com/2024/05/biden-trump-policy-cuba-embargo
Policy has inertia. There are practically zero votes to be gained by going pro-Cuba. If there were evidence of it existing, we might see a policy change. But especially against the background of anti-immigrant sentiment, going pro-Cuba doesn’t make rational sense. No oligarchic conspiracy needed. (Also, oligarchs like trade. Especially if it requires an extra-special White House exemption to participate in.)
I don't think the US ever had a president who cared less about Israel than Trump. The few times Trump has been on the Israel side seem to be only because Israel was "winning" some conflict, and Trump just prefers being on the winning side. He doesn't seem to care (or understand) the slightest whether Jews have a state, whether they can defend themselves, etc.
But I do think that having an outside court publicly try the guilt or innocence of somebody within the U.S. is much more palatable than having some non-court within the U.S. decide on whether non-U.S. citizens living outside the U.S. should live or die.
The U.S. openly assassinates foreigners in foreign countries without even faking a trial.
It's hard to complain that a court with very little power to enforce any ruling is giving U.S. citizens an open trial. Do you think it is inappropriate for a high school moot court team to put U.S. Presidents on trial? Or for speech and debate teams to argue the morality of the actions of U.S. politicians?
How exactly do you judge what is appropriate and what is not?
If I were neutral on America and if a neutral disposition, you might be correct. However, I’m not.
The President of the United States is elected to be a civil and military leader, as the Head of the United States Government, as the Commander-in-Chief of the United States Armed Forces, and to represent the United States abroad as our Head of State.
All other things being equal, I would prefer the POTUS to also be moral and to generally be a good moral leader in his capacity as the POTUS, but that is not the same as being nice, and “nice” is not what the elected President is elected to be.
So, would I for example, prefer to capture people like Qasem Soleimani and try them in an open court? Absolutely. Is that more practical than having killed him when the opportunity presented itself dealing a blow to an enemy nation, taking out one of the most important men in his nation which is openly hostile to America and our ally? Not really, but I’d rather see someone like that dead than in a position to threaten American assets and personnel in the region. You can even debate whether American assets or personnel should be in the region, but as long as they are, it is absolutely the President’s job to defend them, because it is under his orders that they are present at all and the American military is formed from the people of our country, and nowhere is it written in our Constitution that the President’s decisions should be second-guessed or tried in an International Court. Even our own courts shy away from this as it relates to foreign policy and the policy of the military.
> It's hard to complain that a court with very little power to enforce any ruling is giving U.S. citizens an open trial.
It would be pretty easy to complain if they pursued trying American citizens when we don’t recognize their jurisdiction over American citizens. The ICC, whatever else it is, is still a court with the backing of real sovereign nations. They’re not a high school debate club.
> How exactly do you judge what is appropriate and what is not?
A combination of morality, the law, diplomacy and hard power. You can even concoct scenarios if you wanted to where the United States may even been in the losing moral position but still win on all other fronts, but for starters, we’re not party to the Rome Statute, we do have our own laws on trying war crimes, and we also maintain a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
My point was that even without the moral victory, there are real problems and limits with an International court attempting to second-guess our actions against hostile powers and serve process to our leaders, and that in reality, they’re not winning that fight. Certainly not today they’re not.
It’s not really something you can or cannot concede to, unless you are of the opinion America is the only sovereign state in the world.
Of course, that doesn't necessarily tell us anything about whether it's good or bad. Eroding Westphalian sovereignty in such a sense is the whole point of the ICC, the EU, and arguably even the UN (though, of these three, only the ICC would have the particular result described in my previous paragraph). But it's worth pointing out that it's a major difference from centuries of historical precedents, not American exceptionalism.
In a similar vein, Poland has said Netanyahu would have been welcome to visit the liberation of Auschwitz, without having to worry about out any arrest.
Depending on how Hungary’s actions are resolved, the ICC will lose much of it’s use if member states just ignore the treaty.
Hungary though technically still a party, is withdrawing from the Rome Statute: https://www.reuters.com/world/hungarian-lawmakers-approve-bi...
Now, 20 years from now? 30 years from now? 50? Who knows.
They would not have to. It will be up to your military to come to allied country and shoot their way through. This might be physically possible but I would imagine that the consequences of it to the standing of the US would be cataclysmic. So unless it is a former president I suspect the US will rather use some severe sanctions and still risk a payback.
Should the Marine Corps. actually be put into a position to roll in and say “hi” to the people of The Hague for less than peaceful purposes on their leisurely stroll to the ICC’s courthouse, who in their right minds is also going to stand in their way and exchange fire?
Not to mention that whoever arrested the President has now effectively declared war on the United States.
I already said "...someone who is not the president, sitting of former....". You are just repeating.
US politics should not be "winner takes all", the entire point of having a distributed body of leadership and not just the Supreme Leader is that a wider variety of American interests are supposed to be represented.
Two major party leaderships nominate their candidates, backed by hundreds of millions of corporate and special interest funding. Then some process called electoral college (that has some vague resemblance of the plebiscite) weights two candidates and picks a winner.
The candidate then has to obtain approval for every cabinet position from the congress (which is also getting funding in hundreds of mils from major corporate and special interest lobbying groups), that ensure that people occupying cabinet positions have policies aligned with their financial donors
We do.
> Two major party leaderships nominate their candidates, backed by hundreds of millions of corporate and special interest funding.
Other Americans. You’re also discounting the impact small-dollar donors have had in American politics as of late and the public primary system.
> Then some process called electoral college (that has some vague resemblance of the plebiscite) weights two candidates and picks a winner.
1) The Electors of the Electoral College are in turn elected by the people of the United States.
2) This only applies to the President and Vice President of the United States and no other public office.
3) Most States have laws against faithless electors, but the slate of electors appointed by each State’s elected legislature reflects the popular vote within that State.
> The candidate then has to obtain approval for every cabinet position from the congress (which is also getting funding in hundreds of mils from major corporate and special interest lobbying groups), that ensure that people occupying cabinet positions have policies aligned with their financial donors
Half of what you’re doing is just describing politics, but yes, the elected President makes appointments, and the elected Senate confirms or denies them.
Yes, we all saw it. It's a very small impact and it attracts the opposition of every big-dollar donors. Bernie Sanders proved it.
The massive infusion of cash from small-dollar donors and politicians playing to their base on TV to boost their fundraising is doing far more to undermine both the Democratic and Republican parties than large donors ever have.
Anything that violates the Uniform Code of Military Justice can land a soldier in the Army on that list up to and including killing random civilians abroad with military equipment outside the scope of an operation. You can look up the dockets for the other service branches yourself, but you don’t get impunity for all of your actions just for being part of the military.
Or if you want something more specific, here’s a rather high profile example: https://www.salon.com/2006/03/14/prosecutions_convictions/
You seem to be under the misapprehension that I am talking about your Orange Guy. I am not. Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden all murdered people and should be held accountable.
I’m not. (EDIT: just edited this in, though I thought I’d already written this part earlier when I quoted you. My bad.)
> You are the one who said we defend American interests. If you can't defend that statement, then just retract it.
We do defend America’s interests, but the President—any sitting President—sets the agenda for how the American State and Military goes about it. Resource allocation is a part of leading. What part of that is difficult to understand?
Also how does the Hague get off imposing itself like that? Doesn't that make their judges a legitimate target by the same "can't have your cake and eat it too" principle if they actually apprehend somebody from a non-signatory? Under that logic the Hague invasion act seems less ludicrous.
The US has several ways to acquire jurisdiction over foreign defendants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_jurisdiction_over_int...
If Macron were to sell old GREs online then, as the Raju case determined, the US can try him, and if Macron fails to appear for the trial, he defaults on the case and is subject to arrest should he appear in the US, or any county which has the appropriate extradition treaty.
If the US can legally do that for selling GREs, it can surely do it for far more serious crimes.
If the US can do that to citizens of other countries, then other countries should be able to do that to US citizens, including the president.
The solution for American presidents is simple - never visit any place subject to the ICC.
Just like Pinochet should never have visited the UK where he was subject to European Union extradition law letting him be moved to Spain to be tried for his abuses in Chile on Spanish citizens.
US presidents should also be concerned about their support of "extraordinary rendition."
So let me put it to you this way, if the Chilean President had the power of the POTUS backed up by a military equivalent to or superior to the US Military, would the UK have arrested and extradited him on behalf of Spain?
So the solution for American Presidents is even simpler than the one you propose: disregard the ICC in its entirety and continue to make state visits with impunity.
If you look at the real history of the ICC, it’s effectively toothless over any nation that can safeguard its own sovereignty, and otherwise a fig leaf for the supposed lawfulness of foreign intervention into nations that cannot.
Pinochet was arrested after he was no longer president. He expected Chilean amnesty laws meant he was untouchable for his crimes. He was wrong.
If I commit an international war crime and get the US President to issue a pardon, then I'm free from legal problems in the US, but why should I expect to be able to visit The Netherlands without being arrested?
State visits are a different topic, with promises of safe passage/diplomatic immunity arranged before hand.
Castro visited the US several times during his presidency, for example, and Hungary recently promised to ignore the ICC arrest warrant on Netanyahu before his visit.
If guarantees cannot be made, the visit doesn't occur. It's as simple as that.
Why should becoming the president of France give Macron the right to sell old GREs online to people in the US, without fear of lawsuit and being tried in abstentia?
If such an exception exists, then Macron could make good money selling illegal drugs online to US citizens.
You can't have it both ways, we're intrinsically tied together. I think its important part of friendship to call one another to account.
All of that said, our Government, our problem, and while weighing what kind of intervention you might hypothetically support, also weigh how that stands up to the power of the Commander-in-Chief of the United States Armed Forces. So, really, we can have it both ways, even if that makes us hypocrites. Also for what it is worth: people can be hypocrites, organized entities led by different factions of people over the course of their history like nations cannot.
Surely given Israel is a sovereign nation, that is separate from the US and the EU, isn't that entirely acceptable? I feel like your position continues to double-dip. The US can do whatever it wants at home and abroad and the EU is not afforded the same agency, because if it does have strong opinions then that's evidence that it will ultimately interfere with US internal policy.
You don't even have to talk about genocide given that Israel (as you also state) has clearly committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in its war against Hamas. Its entirely in keeping with the ICC aims that an arrest warrant has been issued for both Yahya Siwar (now deceased) and Benjamin Netanyahu.
Given Donald Trump's bizarre demand that the Europe re-arm itself (which imho is terribly short-sighted and might make US foreign policy more tricky in the future), I imagine in the future we will see more instances where Europe tries to gain a ROI on its military spending and becomes more assertive in the future. Right now, it can be politically difficult for European countries to respect the warrants (as seen most recently with Netanyahu's trip to Poland) but in the future that could change.
You also called out crimes of aggression: most of what is listed as crimes of aggression amount to just war. You can probably debate about this with regards to the settlements, but don’t forget this current offensive doesn’t happen without Hamas attacking Israeli civilians on October 7th 2023. Israel was and is fully within their rights to prosecute a war against Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and even Iran for which all of these groups are proxies for until they achieve their war aims.
Another correction, the United States has never been party to the Rome Statute. We were part of the negotiations, we did sign but we ultimately decided against ratification therefore it never held the force of law and we withdrew our signature. From what I gathered, Israel is in the same boat, though I’m not clear what their ratification process looks like.
> However signatories are expected to respect the warrants should individuals travel to states that are signatories. Therefore it is not exceeding the bounds of its jurisdiction in issuing these warrants, otherwise one could simply withdraw, do a little war crime and rejoin, thereby creating a loophole. The whole point of the court is that it is international and looks at these crimes happening throughout the world, so its signatories play their part in encouraging them to not happen and prosecuting them when they do, when they can (i.e. when someone guilty of them travels to these nations).
The Court’s territorial jurisdiction is not “the world”, it is the territory and vessels of parties to the Rome Statute, nations which accept the ICC’s jurisdiction in a court filing, and others in situations that are referred to it by the United Nations Security Council. The personal jurisdiction is for all persons of nations over which the ICC has territorial jurisdiction, and likewise can be expanded with a referral of a situation by the UNSC.
The argument for prosecuting a non-party here is that well, Palestine is a party. It’s the stronger argument, but I think it should be insufficient, and it is the position of America and Israel that this is insufficient. In any case, the actual allegations are themselves insufficient in any situation where the ICC would have an interest in investigating and prosecuting if they don’t have the jurisdiction to do it.
> In that respect is it like interpol, where a nation can arrest someone who has committed a crime in a different country, if they flee to a country signed up to interpol, despite them not theoretically not having the juristdiction to do so (given the crime wasn't committed where the arrest was made).
Interpol is an outgrowth of bilateral extradition treaties, not a replacement for them. You still need the requisite extradition treaty in place, and if the crime alleged is not a crime for which they can be extradited per the relevant extradition treaty, then the arresting nation is under no obliteration to turn them over. In that sense, Interpol is more like an informational and cooperation forum between nations, whereas the ICC is an organization operationally separate and distinct from its members.
> Given Donald Trump's bizarre demand that the Europe re-arm itself (which imho is terribly short-sighted and might make US foreign policy more tricky in the future)
So, I’m not against re-arming Europe. From a menu of options that looks something like this:
1) Continuing to prop up Europe against Russian aggression regardless of their minimal defense spending.
2) Re-arming Europe but under continued American leadership.
3) Pushing Europe to re-arm and reconsider that whole American leadership bit.
4) Just pulling out of Europe entirely and ripping up NATO.
I favor number 2. I think even Trump favors number 2 but number 3 is what is actually happening. I would have been fine-ish but not happy about number 1 because there’s a real risk of the American public not being willing to defend say, the Baltics, against a Russian invasion regardless of what I think (I’m very pro keeping to our military commitments, even somewhat grudgingly if we must), and the risk of number 4 would have grown over time even in a world where Trump was never elected the first time, let alone the second, and actually getting to number 4 would be a worst of all worlds situation. I actually like Europe. I would like it to continue to be Europe, without getting obliterated again.
> as seen most recently with Netanyahu's trip to Poland
Did Netanyahu actually make the trek to Poland? I know he was went to Hungary, but Hungary has also decided to withdraw from the ICC. I heard reports he went to Greece, but haven’t actually seen that substantiated. I couldn’t find anything about a Polish visit earlier when I looked.
I only listed the four crimes the ICC deals with in terms of stating its directive, I wasn't asserting that Israel was necessarily guilty of all of them. In terms of things relevant to the current conflict in Gaza, war crimes and crimes against humanity are relatively easy to clear and genocide is a maybe because of the aid blockade. I entirely supported Israel's right to respond to the October the 7th attacks but we're so far past the point of the response being anywhere near proportionate and that we're so far in and Israel's objectives still have failed to have been met, demonstrates the issues with their approach. Its almost as if the cruelty is the point as opposed to the objectives of the supposed mission (especially now they're flinging rockets at Iran seemingly distracting themselves further from recovering the hostages).
There are other factors at play. Palestine is a signatory to the ICC and the crimes were committed in Gaza, also Israel themselves are failing to investigate these war crimes through their own legal system. These are apparently the arguments that give the ICC the confidence to issue these warrants. I mean what does it matter anyway? Netanyahu can just avoid travelling to signatory countries and he's fine.
The whole NATO thing remains short sighted, in the years to come, the USA will learn that some things are priceless. I imagine that GOP donor pressure to reduce the budget to maintain/enact tax cuts is the root source of these desires, which if true, is digustingly short-sighted. I LOVE the USA but the pre-2025 USA, that US hegemony policy from the 20th century promised peace and prosperity at an irksome but acceptable price. However I don't like it right now and if that nation continues to prop up erratic rulers like Donald Trump who enable warmongering rulers like Netanyahu instead of restraining them, then I will start to hate it and I am _far_ from alone on that. Combining that with encouraging Europe to re-arm is just lacking in imagination given that the USA will transition in such a future from the guaranteed winner to a potential loser. You didn't vote for this mess, did you?
Fair enough, even the bit about the Polish resolution is still good intel.
> You didn't vote for this mess, did you?
Oh hell nah. Doesn't matter though, Trump won every single step of the way.
> In terms of things relevant to the current conflict in Gaza, war crimes and crimes against humanity are relatively easy to clear and genocide is a maybe because of the aid blockade.
Even if granted up to but not including the claims of genocide, the question still remains over the ICC's jurisdiction, and the more that behave like Poland, Hungary and Germany, the more likely it is the ICC's claim in this specific conflict just becomes a dead letter regardless of Palestine having acceded to the Rome Statute.
> I entirely supported Israel's right to respond to the October the 7th attacks but we're so far past the point of the response being anywhere near proportionate and that we're so far in and Israel's objectives still have failed to have been met, demonstrates the issues with their approach. Its almost as if the cruelty is the point as opposed to the objectives of the supposed mission (especially now they're flinging rockets at Iran seemingly distracting themselves further from recovering the hostages).
I'm not going to claim to support every single action that the IDF has taken in this war, there's a lot that I don't, but as far this goes:
1) Flushing out and eliminating Hamas.
2) Flushing out and eliminating Hezbollah.
3) Suppressing and eliminating Iran's nuclear weapons development.
I'm pretty on board with that. Israel will never have peace with Hamas as long as Hamas continues to exist for the purpose of eliminating Israel. Israel will never have peace and Lebanon will never be able to fully exercise its own sovereignty over southern Lebanon as long as Hezbollah pursues to exist as a militaristic entity separate from the Lebanon Armed Forces and seeks the elimination of Israel. Israel will never have peace with an Iran that continues to seek its destruction and support proxies in the region that exist for the sole purpose of attacking with the goal of eliminating Israel.
It's pretty difficult for me to argue that the Israeli response has been disproportionate, especially as Hamas infamously uses Palestinians as a resource to be expended as meat shields. Far far fewer Palestinian civilians could have died in this war if Hamas gave a damn about them.
> The whole NATO thing remains short sighted, in the years to come, the USA will learn that some things are priceless.
Yep! Unfortunately it was never going to last, and that's why out of the menu of options I outlined above, I was very much in the #2 camp. #1 has more advantages to America if we can sustain the political will to maintain it but the truth is that the further we get from World War II and the Cold War, the fewer Americans believe that it is worth the full cost to be responsible for the bulk of Europe's defense. You can't really fight that kind of generational sentiment shift, just try to manage it and advocate for a more acceptable middle solution.
tbh, I'm not entirely seeing it. The public mostly prefer local issues and can be quite fickle when it comes to priorities and are often easily influenced. IMHO the low tax lobby are just looking for a scapegoat to justify tax cuts and undermining US geo-political goals is puzzlingly the attack vector to maintain it, which is the biggest break from the old GOP. If I were a betting man, I reckon the moment the US finds the money to start to put a dent in the deficit, will be the moment tax breaks get back on the agenda and the defecit will end up untouched.
The point is kinda moot anyway now since US tax dollars are being spent bombing Iran which is specifically what we were all told _wasn't_ going to happen with this new strategy, so idk anymore. But this administration is like that, fickle, deceitful, reactionary, eccentric.
> I'm pretty on board with that.
I mean I hate Hamas as much as I hate Otzma Yehudit. They're both fascist, genocidal freaks who want the eradication of the other and I'd prefer a world without either. So Otzma Yehudit propping up this current Israeli coallition makes me struggle to pick a side here. I can support the eradication of Hamas, but at the same time I doubt the current strategy is going to be effective in doing that, given that the current campaign is creating another generation of scarred Palestinians who will rightly hold an emotional grudge against the state of Israel. I wouldn't mind if their strategy was swift and effective like the highly successful Hezbollah dismantling, but I can't help but think this is all strung out intentionally to keep Israel in a state of war so Netanyahu remains outside of a jail cell. Yoav Gallent himself stated that continuing the war in Gaza seemed kinda pointless given he felt that Israel's military objectives had been met and got fired for having that perspective. I'm starting to feel the cruelty is the point, especially since Ben Gvir is kingmaker. I can support Israel's right to exist and defend itself, but I can't support a fascist genocidal freak like Ben Gvir, that man is a monster.
I think the strategy on Iran has been an incredible failure, from rescinding a diplomatic agreement in the first Trump adminstration to the bombing today. Taken as a whole its a massive fumble, especially given how weak the Iranian administration has been looking recently and how its not very popular among the Iranian people. Given that US intelligence appeared to suggest that Iran isn't close to building a nuke and Trump has somehow forced Gabbard into a 180 on the subject, it feels like we're back in 2003 hyping up a WMD fear that we'll find out later isn't the case.
2025 has just been a big advert for nuclear proliferation, given that these strikes would never have happened if Iran had a nuke, that Ukraine would never have been invaded if it didn't give up its nukes, with a reluctant ally in the US trying to force a peace on Ukraine with a loss of territory earlier on this year.
> Oh hell nah. Doesn't matter though, Trump won every single step of the way.
Good to hear, I was starting to wonder. Tbf, the final vote count was a lot closer than in the moment his victory was declared. He clearly won but was as puzzlingly close as the last time he won, I guess I should be thankful that I'm insultated from the sort of American that votes for him because he doesn't at all look like the sort of person that the Americans I know and love could ever vote for.
Trump pardoned Clint Lorance who ordered murder of civilians. Before that, William Calley convicted of multiple murders had his sentence commuted by Nixon to 3 years of house arrest.
> and the same is true of US leaders.
The thing is, there isn’t enough in the way of shared morality between nations of the world to make this claim. From our perspective, the POTUS is imbued with the power to deal with foreign nations, and this includes both diplomatic and war functions, and to do so in a way that is beneficial to America. That’s what he is elected for, so imposing the ICC’s international justice on our elected leaders is in essence the same as trying to impose a foreign justice on America. We have our own laws, and govern our military with our own code of justice passed by our Congress, therefore we cannot abide by the ICC’s infringement on our sovereignty, nor will we tolerate a threat from it against our elected leaders.
Then here you write that Nurenmberg was appropriate and necessary.
You don't seem to be able to hold the thread of your own argument.
If you don’t care about any of that, sure, you can make the argument the Nuremberg trials were unnecessary, but I’m not going to be the one to do it.
Do note that the key difference between America in 2025 and Germany in 1945 is that we’re not a diminished State without really any sovereignty left to claim and haven’t recently invaded pretty much the entirety of Europe with the intention of subsuming it into a greater Empire and spent the last 4 years systematically destroying the entire Jewish population therein. That’s some important context and shouldn’t be overlooked in your zeal to put American Presidents on trial.
I was raised inside the United States. I have a very deep love for America. But the America I love is not a place. It is a collection of principles. It is an ideal. In as much as that ideal has been realized in the place I grew up, it makes that place America to me. But America the place and people have not been perfect executing America the idea. What group of humans ever were perfect? One of the beauties of America the place, and one of the things I cherish most about it is the constant willingness to put itself and its ideals on trial. I love an America that asks "What is right?" before asking "What are you going to do about it?"
I believe it is un-American to refuse to ask the first question, but constantly ask the second question without considering the first. Using the second question to intimidate all those who ask the first question is repugnant to me. It threatens the America that I love.
America is on trial whether you like it or not. The America I love will always be on trial as long as it exists. To end the trial would kill that America.
Agreed, but I’ll put forth that the context for the first question also matters.
The context within this particular sub-thread which is within a larger thread regarding the ICC, the warrant issued againstNetanyahu and American sanctions on ICC staff is whether America and Americans as a non-signatory of the Rome Statute should be subject to the ICC’s jurisdiction. Actually it was originally Presidents, current and former, but there’s been some scope creep.
My answer is “No”. Your answer may be “Yes”, but I’m making the case for my “No”, not advocating for discarding all morality and total lawlessness and might-makes-right behavior, even if I think “might” is a mighty great deterrent for backing up that “No” to non-Americans that believe the answer should be “Yes” and would be willing to try out that “Yes” in the real world.
The rest of the Nazis were given amnesty and continued working for the USA, or continued living/serving as usual as part of West Germany's Wehrmacht forces.
The whole process was heavily politicized and completely sham, massive tortures were used to obtain "evidence" of guilt.
How could you think that 161 convictions was enough for this? Far more than that had direct agency and culpability for those crimes.
this basic contradiction basically tells you that it was all bogus, either there was no systematic extermination, or there was not enough people brought to justice for their crimes.
How many people do you think are required to do anything systematic on the territory spanning from France to Belarus ?
161 people is probably the headcount of my local DMV office.
also, the fact that mainstream western history over-indexes on the plight of one ethnic group (6 mln dead), and completely ignores the deaths of Soviets (27 mln dead) or China (20 mln) pretty much seals this whole thing as bogus politicized process.
Typical eurocentric history rewriting, while simultaneously white-washing the crimes of the same white europeans
I am not even mentioning genocide of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki via nuclear bombs and genocide of civilians in Dresden: all three cities were basically civilian with no large military armies in there. Mostly women elderly and kids died
If we don't want to keep our own house clean -- and the re-election of Trump makes it crystal-clear that we don't -- is it such a surprise that other people will?
Is a foreign nation convicting an American tourist for crimes in said nation also a threat to American sovereignty?
A core principle of American justice is judgement by a jury of your peers from your community according to our laws, not by foreigners on the other side of the planet according to foreign laws. Violations of our core principles through means we were not a party to is a violation of our sovereignty.
When a US president signs a death list - the assassination of someone, does that person get a trial by a jury of their peers first?
Or do they just get a predator drone missile in their direction?
I think it's accurate to say that a core principle of American justice is that there is one set of rules for the in-group, and another for the out-group. And any institution that tries to normalize this is anathema to that principle.
(I'm not saying that's what happened, just explaining why I think it is morally right for the ICC to exist, however impractical when dealing with powerful nations.)
when it comes to Crimes against humanity (genocide, mass killings, tortures, etc) - our peers are whole Humanity, and everyone who support United Nation's Human Rights Declaration.
You cannot have American human rights to live, and at the same time deny the right to live to non-Americans. Which is what America is doing: extrajudicial murder of foreigners (drone strikes + collateral murder) and sponsoring of terrorism and genocide (Israel-gaza war).
the point is not to argue specific bullet points on obscure US codes, but 30 very basic unalienable universal human rights.
if USA denies these rights to the whole world, then there is no reason to expect the whole world support america in any way, like lending money by buying US treasuries, exchanging oil for freshly printed worthless USD, respecting US tourists' right to live when they are exploring the world, etc
Allowing external courts to judge presidents is a bad idea. It is a slippery slope even for cases that seem obvious. My 2c.
It does not have a history of "slapping any label on any suitably vilified candidate".
Put another way: The US has a history of deciding it is allowed to start actual wars to overthrow the kind of people committing the kind of crimes that gets you targeted by the ICJ.
The US just wants its own people to not be subjected to what it has a long history of imposing on others.
I don’t know what the solution is. But an essentially advisory body like the ICC probably isn’t it if the goal is checking the U.S. and its allies, or China and its allies. (Maybe it’s useful for checking Western Europe? Idk.)
The ICC is a cool idea in theory. The implementation pretty much causes human rights violations.
How is that?
Russia, of course commits human rights abuses in Ukraine. But Daesh committed serious human rights abuses against Russia [1] [2], as did a number of other islamist, nationalist and even a socialist group. Not one iota of attention of the court ever went to that.
But this is a general problem. The court undertakes action against states, especially if they are currently unpopular in the UN (who appoints the judges), but never against the many groups that commit large scale human rights abuses against those states.
A third problem is that ICC convictions are entirely optional if you're in power. Any government is allowed to ask the ICC to not sue anyone for things either they did, or that happened on their soil. Sorry, any government EXCEPT the US and Israel are allowed to ask that. The ICC changed it's own statutes TWICE last year to sue Israel, and has done so before against the US. A relevant question would be "is the ICC allowed to change it's own statutes?" ... and of course the answer is no.
Or you could point out less serious, but ubiquitous human rights abuses that the ICC won't touch for various reasons. For example, every last muslim-majority state violates freedom of religion, a human right. Even Morocco and Turkey do [3] [4]. You will not hear the ICC on this issue.
Or to focus on a different problem, there's constant human rights abuses essentially everywhere on the planet in the prison system, including juvenile justice systems and just general youth services. This happens everywhere, with famous incidents in Romania, the US, France, Australia, ... you will not hear the ICC on this.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocus_City_Hall_attack [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_siege [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion_in_Morocco [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion_in_Turkey#...
The ICJ pursues cases against states.
> Not one iota of attention of the court ever went to that.
The ICC only has jurisdiction over the territories and nationals of the State Parties to the Rome Statute. In the case of Israel, the actions are taken on the basis of alleged crimes in Palestinian territory, the same basis they have used for pursuing Palestinian crimes. They have not "changed their own statutes".
In the case of Daesh/ISIS, the court has issued statement that affirm that there are serious crimes involved, but pointing out that for those crimes taking place in Syria and Iraq, the ICC had no territorial jurisdiction because neither state were parties to the Rome Statute.
In the case of your examples of Daesh actions in Russia, Russia is also not a State Party to the ICC, and so it was Russias own choice to ensure that Daesh can not be pursued by the ICC.
> Sorry, any government EXCEPT the US and Israel are allowed to ask that.
The US and Israel are not parties to the ICC. They should have no expectation that a court they have explicitly refused to be part of will allow them control over how the court exercises the mandate given to it by those who are actually parties to the court.
> Or you could point out less serious, but ubiquitous human rights abuses that the ICC won't touch for various reasons. For example, every last muslim-majority state violates freedom of religion, a human right. Even Morocco and Turkey do [3] [4]. You will not hear the ICC on this issue.
The "various reasons" being that the ICC does 1) *not have jurisdiction over states, 2) the Rome Statute does not allow the ICC to pursue individuals for violating freedom of religion.
In other words: While I'd be all for protecting freedom of religion and for the ICC to be able to prosecute people preventing it, it is not a power the ICC has been granted by its signatories.
Effectively your complaints against the ICC all boil down to the ICC following its own rules about what its jurisdiction is and which crimes they are allowed to prosecute.
And yes, I do agree with your general point: the ICC idea is beautiful. The problem is that the parties to the Rome statute (the real "meat" behind the ICC) has no intention to provide justice to the world, but want to use the ICC as a political weapon, in some cases to prepare for war.
If you intend to do nothing, a center that keeps files on individuals, nothing more, documenting all known human rights abuses, would achieve more.
No. No part of my comment was about that at all.
> is the case can you explain ICC action against US and Israel, neither of which are parties to the Rome statute
The ICC does not take actions against states. As for the actions against Israeli officials, those are taken on the basis of actions relating to Palestine, over which ICChas jurisdiction be cause Palestine is party to the court. I explained this.
> Also from the other side: the ICC most certainly COULD sue South Africa for working with Putin and Bashar Al-Assad to help them escape justice.
No, it could not. The ICC does not have jurisdiction over states. For the ICC to act would require evidence of specific individuals violating the Rome Statute.
> They chose not to. Frankly, MANY signatories to the Rome statute have zero intention to ever hold up their end.
Here we agree, for once. This is indeed a problem.
> And your claim "they follow their own rules" ... you also neglected to discuss why the ICC changed it's own statutes TWICE to sue Israel ...
They did not, and the ICC does not sue anybody, and the ICC can not pursue states. Every part of this sentence is wrong and or misunderstands how the ICC works.
> Any government is allowed to ask the ICC to not sue anyone for things either they did, or that happened on their soil. Sorry, any government EXCEPT the US and Israel are allowed to ask that.
Isn’t this because they are non-members?
> A relevant question would be "is the ICC allowed to change it's own statutes?" ... and of course the answer is no.
How does that work? Who sets the statutes if the ICC itself cannot modify them?
No. For non-members it is assumed that they by default ask the ICC to not investigate any human rights crimes either involving their state, or on their soil. Which the ICC then has to respect ...
Or that WAS the case until last year. In the middle of their existing court case against Israel it became clear that Israel requested ICC drop the case on their territory, and of course Palestine has neither borders nor are they a member of the ICC (despite Palestine signing the Rome accords to immediately afterwards start screaming on TV that they wouldn't respect them as they relate to Palestinians themselves), and therefore there were no grounds for the case. So South Africa, amidst allegations of Qatarese bribery, was allowed to bring a claim, and that South Africa has now twice helped people convicted at the ICC escape ICC justice did not negate that (they helped Bashar Al-Assad, and Putin)
So then the ICC modified their own statutes, which they're not allowed to do, so that the particular kind of non-member that Palestine is, would be allowed to put disputed territory as valid territory retroactively for such complaints (because despite how the press presents it, Palestine's claims relate to the treatment of Palestinian prisoners, specifically underage ones, on Israeli soil, NOT about what happened in Gaza. You see, the court has accepted an argument that since neither Hamas nor the PA allow investigators or journalists on their soil, claims there cannot reasonably be the basis for any conviction)
In other words, the court allowed what is effectively Hamas (not the PA) to enter Tel Aviv as territory for this court case.
You see, this is about Hamas scoring a PR victory. The idea that Hamas, through Qatar, via South Africa, is worried about the treatment of a West Bank resident Palestinian boy is utterly absurd. The only thing they care about is that it is an argument they might win, at which point the papers will be full of "Israel convicted at ICC for human rights abuses". This is the same Hamas that has mounted a suicide vest on an unwilling underage girl who was being treated in Israel for cancer, forced her to try to cross the Israeli border, and blew her to pieces when she tried to get help from the border guards, you see, THAT organization, is really worried about whether children who killed someone people get to see their parents sufficiently often in prison ...
Yes, Hamas is a party to the Rome statute (they agreed to respect it so they could partake in elections, elections, I might add, that ended with Hamas executing election officials in the emergency ward of a Gazan hospital) and plenty of other treaties at the UN. Including treaties that they'll prevent any and all terror attacks against civilians ... Meanwhile they AND the PA, pay Palestinians a monthly pension based on how badly they hurt Jews [1] (sorry, this organization that signed treaties to arrest any terrorists they know of "has stopped doing that" 4 months ago. They promise. Needless to say, the payments continue)
Obviously this ICC rule change is insanity and will lead to disaster, and they'll retract the rule when it is used by anyone else, for example, when Kurds enter a claim about abuse in Ankara for example, Iran or Iraq, or Druze against Syria, or ...
And while this is the most egregious example of abusing the ICC, it is far from the only one. There's a similar conflict with the US. The problem with the ICC is really quite simple: a lot of signatories to the Rome statute have zero intention to respect any court decisions made by the ICC, and the ICC allows states to openly defy their treaty obligations without any consequences. The US and Israel, when they realized they didn't either, publicly withdrew so they'd remain honest. South Africa, Mongolia, Palestine, Hungary and others just started violating the treaties they agreed to without withdrawing.
When push comes to shove, a LOT of nations want war, but can't do it, or can't win it, and they see the ICC itself as a weapon of war. A weapon against "the international order" (ie. what the security council represents). The ICC lets them.
> How does that work? Who sets the statutes if the ICC itself cannot modify them?
Oh it is an international treaty. So actually modifying the statutes would be a prolonged process involving all existing parties at the UN.
However, the ICC also publishes statutes on their website, which they modify without considering the correct process.
That, they can do. Nobody stops them.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Authority_Martyrs_...
This seems like an incredibly charitable reading of the US withdrawal given the ASMPA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...
I’m curious, are you Israeli yourself?
> Oh it is an international treaty. So actually modifying the statutes would be a prolonged process involving all existing parties at the UN.
> However, the ICC also publishes statutes on their website, which they modify without considering the correct process.
> That, they can do. Nobody stops them.
I feel like you’re not telling me the whole story here. They can’t legally modify their statutes without consulting with the UN, but they can publish whatever statutes they want? What does this even mean?
Nope. Not even close.
> I feel like you’re not telling me the whole story here. They can’t legally modify their statutes without consulting with the UN, but they can publish whatever statutes they want? What does this even mean?
This is international law, which is a name used for a huge mess of international treaties. What is there to say? There is no international police. If you don't respect international law, there is nobody to compel you to do anything. In essentially every case, you're beyond the reach of the counter party to the treaty (especially in this case since the ICC has zero reach). This is true whether "you" refers to a person or a country.
Hell, there's even valid reasons this keeps happening like that the political situation sometimes changes far faster than treaties can be negotiated.
There were some truly exceptional times in history, like the ending of WW2, where everyone agreed on a few rules and some limited things happened, but that time is long gone. Most countries find the international order deeply unfair, especially the "you're not allowed to move any borders unless you're one of the original nuclear powers" part. Russia is allowed to attack ... Iran is not. The "non-aligned movement" is essentially aligned on a single point: they all want to start limited wars against one or multiple of their neighbors but would face total economic collapse or worse if they did that and the US responded. That is the last straw holding the UN treaties in existence, the only enforcement mechanism that has survived 80 years of UN disintegration.
And now Trump got elected and has been sighted near said last straw with scissors, asking for money, complaining the straw costs too much. But don't be fooled: there's a lot of shouting at Trump, but nobody working to strengthen the treaties with a few more straws. And while I hate Trump, you have to give him this one: if he cuts, he may be giving the start signal for WW3, but saying he's causing it, is absurd.
as they should, if the US' actions warrant it
https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/13/danish_department_dum...
First source, but there are many: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/04/world/greenland-annexatio...
This has, for obvious reasons, been huge news in all of Europe and especially in Denmark.
I'm sure MAGA Americans want to hand-wave it away, and since Trump is so difficult to understand and says so many whacky things, we're all hoping he doesn't mean it, but it's underscored the need to quickly get independent of the USA.
Trump says many things that nobody actually believes.
Edit: @ujkhsjkdhf234 Answering your question from below here:
>Trump says many things no one believes then he does. Stop steelmanning for Trump.
That's actually a good political strategy in tough times: Keep your opponents always unsure about what you're gonna do next. Why do you think Putin invaded Ukraine under Biden and not under Trump?
It's not a valid argument to use the general case here. Because in the case of this particular statement, it clearly isn't true that "nobody actually believes" it. It's clear that many people actually believe it.
> That's actually a good political strategy in tough times: Keep your opponents always unsure about what you're gonna do next.
I mean, sure. But in this case Denmark thought they were an ally, not an opponent. Should they also be unsure about whether one of their territories is going to be attacked?
Or are they, after all, an opponent?
What matters is that the President of the US has said so.
I've made this point so many times before but I'll say it again: Trump being either an idiot or a liar is not a valid defense of Trump. Nor is it a "good political strategy".
Also, it's not tough times. I know it doesn't feel that way because Trump is acting as though he requires powers only endowed in times of war, but no, it is not tough times.
Edit: @danieljacksonno answering your comment from below here:
>He repeated it several times.
Trump repeats everything all the time. So what? That's what all politicians do. Your brain (if you have one) is supposed to filter that.
>Germany and France has spoken out officially against it, with Macron even visiting Greenland to show support.
That's you typical politician virtue signaling, because speaking is free. Since EU politicians are toothless all they do is talk to look good and score brownie points in front of their voters on $CURRENT_ISSUE. France and Germany can't keep their countries safe from illegal migrants, what are they gonna do against Trump if push comes to shove? Talk him to death about how orange he is?
>Denmark is freaking out, and want to remove all dependencies on the US as quickly as possible.
Are they also removing the F35 jets from their military and H100 Nvidia GPUs from their supercomputer? Who's gonna buy all that Ozempic that makes Denmark rich if not the US?
I feel like you're talking fantasy politick instead of realpolitik.
Europe certainly takes it seriously. Germany and France has spoken out officially against it, with Macron even visiting Greenland to show support.
Denmark is freaking out, and want to remove all dependencies on the US as quickly as possible.
Our goal is to offer a privacy-focused, vendor-neutral alternative to platforms like Microsoft Exchange.
The EU got INCREDIBLY lucky after Microsoft's rise. Linux gained marketshare. Linus Torvalds and a team. So you could probably get away by paying 100x less to Linux and really make things happen.
Did they do anything? Support it, say with half the money they paid to Microsoft? No. Anything at all? Perhaps, but not worth mentioning.
Yes. They immediately tried to push extra expenditures on Linux. To solidify the position of Microsoft. Tried to declare Linux illegal due to supporting copyright infringement/piracy. They tried to force "software warranty". Tried to make software without accessibility features illegal.
Oh wait! Linus Torvalds got paid! But ... by a US company. Plenty of companies tried to push Linux. All but one are US companies (the only real one that tried, SUSE Linux, was not just not supported, it was bought out by a US company after effectively going bankrupt).
So now we're here: if the US wanted to force Linux to implement sanctions against the ICC, they are in a much better position to do it than the EU is to stop them. No US or US ally is allowed to furnish the ICC with a Linux distro ... so who would do it? The EU doesn't control THEIR OWN BANKING SYSTEMS!
This is a repeating problem in the EU, not just for software. They utterly, absolutely, completely refuse to pay for any software at all, and as a result the EU economy pays more by literally a factor of millions. Then they refuse to see this as a problem ... and effectively US companies levy a tax on EU business, for decades. Where's the problem with that?
And this is actually an underestimation of the problem. The Microsoft ecosystem isn't just the software. It's the network, it's the applications by other firms. It's even the CPUs. SAP, Oracle, Adobe, Intel, AMD ... spending should be added to to the total. As should the spending on computers. Fucking Taiwan is in a better position than the EU when it comes to software independence.
And the EU "is working on replacing them" by spending less than ONE software engineer makes in Bangalore? Sorry, no.
They aren't.
This just means the EU doesn't care about software independence, and doesn't even care that the US taxes all software and hardware in the EU. Also they don't have a chance in hell to change it at this point. It would have been extremely cheap to do it 20 years ago, but now it'll cost tens of billions at minimum.
The ICC will be working without email, the EU can't change that and it's 100% the EU's fault. Hell, EU politicians have chosen to pay hundreds of billions EACH YEAR for the privilege of having the US control EU computer usage!
And both are centre-right governments to boot! If the White House is the clownshow in the circus, the EU is the acrobatics act.
It has been popular lately to complain about European states military spending, which is more than just naive given that NATO decides what can exist and an alternative to NATO would be unrealistic, especially in the shorter term.
If the EU really threatened the US in any manner, that situation would be rectified in a heartbeat. That may sound violent, but it mostly isn't. A lot of it is just the free market at play, but it is a market in harmony with US interests.
('Linux distros' get into the HN zone where nobody needs dropbox because they could write a shell script. Or install a crappy webmail package on a VPS. Google is entirely Linux and that's not what you are suggesting. It's irrelevant to the larger picture.)
A 10 million per year grant starting in 2000 would easily have done it. That it's such an amount is entirely, 100%, the EU's own fault. Taking linux and developing it, plus an office suite for it could easily be done for 100x less.
EU funded Microsoft to the tune of 234.26 billion USD per year
???
The relevant number is probably the EU only fraction, and maybe just the EU governments' part. Which I'd guess is at least like 1/10 or smaller? Idk
Expecting to make several times the national average gets you ousted as an evil greedy capitalist pig that wants to gentrify society, even though EU is full of stealthy elite royals and billionaires who own most of the continent's wealth, cosplaying as average people. So as long as you have a financial/tax system and a social contract that vilifies those seeking enrichment and upwards mobility through work and innovation, you're not gonna get FAANG competitors sprouting up thin air.
China could do it and become independent of US tech and they started off financially way worse than the EU. So the EU's tech failure is 100% self inflicted from policy short sightedness and mismanagement, by catering policies to the well off boomers and retirees, instead of the youth.
Stop taxing income, and start taxing inherited wealth more and you might see a change, just get off your asses politicians and actually do something, less talking and more doing. Otherwise keep buying American software running on Chinese hardware, while you hold grandiose speeches of tech independence.
There are reason why Linus Torvalds, Bjarne Stroustrup, Guido van Rossum, Anders Hejlsberg packed their toys and moved to the US to work for big-tech, instead of enjoying the amazing quality of life back home in Europe. Maybe the EU should talk to them and put them in charge of EU tech leadership, instead of the clueless unelected career bureaucrats like Von der Leyen and their lobbyists who's biggest success is selling the most diesel engines.
[1] https://codeberg.org/forgejo-contrib/federation/src/branch/m...
This sounds like security nihilism: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27897975
> Even if you build from source, your compiler might be compromised
This problem can be solved by the bootstrappable builds: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41368835
> or you buy a cool new usb peripheral and plug it in- boom! Compromised.
This is why Qubes OS has been developed (my daily driver). It isolated the usb devices into a separate VM.
> Your sniffer and firewall? Compromised.
Try security through compartmentalization: Qubes OS. Last time a VM escape in the modern Qubes implementation was discovered in 2006 by the Qubes founder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Pill_(software)
It is possible using IPv6 to make end to end connections without having to do weird hole punching through NAT, etc.
A: The Europeans grow restless that we are suspending email accounts of Trump's political enemies.
B: What are they going to do, host their own email servers?
[maniacal cackling]
And of course they cannot be trusted. (Same applies for Google, Apple and any other entity in the US that can be served with a gag order and a subpoena.
The masks sometimes drop and we see the true face of who is what. And when Microsoft pulls a fast one like that it shows us the real face/where the loyalty is (and it is never to the client).
Where do you live? Since you're so confident in the righteousness of your politics.
Israel is the wedge and leverage to eliminating governments of Iran, Pakistan, China and then India and weakening Russia further.
Colonialism hasn't gone anywhere, evidence? Europe fully protects settlers and their ambitions despite what they say publicly. It is a long road but the most realistic one they have.
China and India? and Russia? Israel doesn't care about them.
Israel is using America and Europe to gain control of the middle east, so they want to eliminate Iran (and just like with Iraq, they want the US to do it for them).
Pakistan is somewhat friendly so not really a threat to Israel's control over the middle east.
US and Europe do not benefit from this. Europe actually suffers as instability in middle east causes a refugee crisis in Europe.
And do you think America would run their government on the software of European tech monopolies?
What we should instead focus on is digital sovereignty.
And if you want to close your eyes and believe things aren't that dire (they are), at minimum you have to admit that this is a regime that is incredibly blatant and open in its corruption and embrace of the spoils system. You'd have to be an utter idiot[1] to not try to weasel in to get your hand into the public purse.
---
[1] Or hold on to something resembling moral principles when mountains of money and power is at stake, which in that part of the business world is a synonym.
That's the kind of situation that gives CEOs lifelong reputations (that they think it's in a good way).
See the secret industry meeting from 1933 as the prime example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Meeting_of_20_February_...
And the military higher-ups were bribed with constant personalized handouts. Hitler even paid a wealthy general’s entire divorce settlement from taxpayer funds, as mentioned here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bribery_of_senior_Wehrmacht_of...
” Such was the success of Hitler's bribery system that by 1942, many officers had come to expect the bestowing of "gifts" from Hitler and were unwilling to bite the hand that fed them so generously.[10] When Field Marshal Fedor von Bock was sacked by Hitler in December 1941, his first reaction was to contact Hitler's aide Rudolf Schmundt to ask if his sacking meant that he was no longer to receive bribes from the Konto 5 ("bank account 5") slush fund.”
With the level of corruption in the current US administration, it seems entirely possible that it’s heading in a similar direction. For example, why shouldn’t Trump award a billion units of his crypto coin to loyal military leaders? What law prohibits that and who enforces it?
Good news, that sort of behavior is technically illegal even if the current administration is wildly corrupt already. So give it 4 years and they open themselves to the possibility of being courtmartialed for their grifting.
So obviously microsoft will lose a lot of money in this. So if the decision is based on them making money, one has to wonder about the less obvious source of money that this decision serves.
I understand where you are coming from, but this also sounds like a way to remove individual responsibility from the people that make up a corporation.
No responsibility should be expected when there is no accountability.
Also, Europe does seem cautious about poking this tiger since Tech is critical industry and it's possible that Europe going "WE ARE DONE!" could prompt massive backlash in tariffs and such.
They did appeal a few times, but this time it seems like they're no longer interested. To be fair, Trump could probably illegally deport half the Microsoft employees to a foreign prison camp if he'd feel like it and the courts seem powerless to stop him, so I don't blame Microsoft for falling in line.
I do blame the Dutch government for being blasé about the American threat and their refusal to move away from American technology for critical infrastructure.
He's not unpopular and many people do support him, unfortunately. Best case scenario, the silent majority didn't bother to prevent Trump and his lackeys from taking over the American government.
I don't think denying Trump's popularity is going to solve anything. America spoke out in support of this guy, twice, and it'll keep doing that unless the underlying issues are tackled.
As for election fairness: I haven't seen any credible proof of large-scale election fraud, not when Biden won, not when Trump won.
I'm not concerned about the fact that the election was close.
I'm concerned that, post election, the country is so deeply polarized. For the first time in my life, I fear there's a small but real chance that we're headed for civil war.
For the curious, based on [1], turnout in 2024 was 63.1% of the voting eligible population, compared to 65.3% in 2020, 59.2% in 2016, and 58.0% in 2012.
[1] https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/voter-turnou...
Though, as he absorbed Kennedy into his government, I would argue his current leadership gained 50.29% of the votes.
Still, backed by pretty solid statutory authority[0] (one created by Democrats and signed into law by Carter, in point of fact). Congress wanted the President to have this power.
I'll get scorched for this, but: I never once read a word of complaint about separation-of-powers, when Biden was sanctioning objects left and right for his own, self-declared, national-security emergencies. I don't recall reading once, i.e. at the time of the sweeping China or GPU sanctions, a peep of protest along the lines of, "This should *not* be something a President should be able to do unilaterally! That's far too much discretionary power in the hands of one person! Congress should have to debate it". We didn't invent an imperial presidency in 2025; it's the agglomeration of decades of civic apathy.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Emergency_Econom... ("International Emergency Economic Powers Act"; C-f "14203" for the current topic)
Unfortunately for the US, we’re stuck with what Israel decides to do. A lot of Americans are in favor of supporting Israel for one reason or another. If Irsael is somehow controlling the United States via lobbying or whatever, that kind of invalidates the whole client state idea.
US is the most powerful country in the world but that doesn’t mean we directly control our allies as client states.
Virtually unconditional support is provided on the global stage, and clearly, we are comfortable with starting another regional war. But saying we're "stuck with what Israel decides to do" sounds a bit fatalistic, no?
0. https://www.texastribune.org/2022/01/31/texas-boycott-israel... 1. https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4254384-brian-mast-israel...
Few people imagine something like a Department of Mis/Disinformation not being such a good thing if its their person in charge and don't imagine a situation where someone else takes over later on something like the Israeli/Palestinian conflict where there's a schism within parties about what is "misinformation". Instead they'll cheer lead it and downvote or debate detractors and accuse them of being an otherside shill because its immediately good for them. They don't take an adversarial view of how can this be abused, and if not by whose in power now, who maybe 5-10-20 years from now.
Here’s an example article from Reuters that details the potential national security implications with regard to Nvidia GPUs, novel AI technology, and military advancement.
https://www.reuters.com/technology/biden-cut-china-off-more-...
Fear-mongering aside, that’s much more digestible reason than muzzling someone rightfully investigating war crimes commanded by the leaders of our proxy state.
US tech dominance has long been seen as a benefit and this administration is ruining that position.
this administration is ruining many things. China doesnt even have to fight to win new soft power - the US is doing it to themselves.
https://politiken.dk/viden/tech/art10437680/Caroline-Stage-u...
Europe only has two modes: 1. Time-limited research funding (which funds basic sciences) 2. Classical "planned" funding (which funds classical industries)
Both are symptoms of low-risk taking ability, the first one is bound on risk by time, the second one by planning. It doesn't have any institution that it can trust that can hand out funding which creates a bridge between the two. The real reason is that there's no EU-wide institution that has the trust and power of the EU-wide population for that purpose. And the fractured democracy is part of the reason for that.
DOGE? Absolutely performative. Even things like USAID are a trival amount of money and miss the point that it's a very cheap way of getting influence. Plus I'm sure there's some CIA money buried in there too.
Abusing the power in such a trivial manner like suspending this account does nothing but hasten this downfall.
It's always worth adding that 20+ years ago the US passed a law colloquially known as the "Hage Invasion Act" [1], which not only authorized but requires the US to invade the Hage if ever any US servicemember are brought up on charges to the ICC. And this extends to servicemembers and leaders of allies.
Empires don't die quietly or quickly. This is going to be long, drawn out and chaotic.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...
> Microsoft said the decision to suspend Mr. Khan’s email had been made in consultation with the I.C.C. The company said it had since enacted policy changes that had been in the works before the episode to protect customers in similar geopolitical situations in the future. When the Trump administration sanctioned four additional I.C.C. judges this month, their email accounts were not suspended, the company said.
> Microsoft and other U.S. companies have sought to reassure European customers. On Monday, Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive, visited the Netherlands and announced new “sovereign solutions” for European institutions, including legal and data security protections for “a time of geopolitical volatility.” Amazon and Google have also announced policies aimed at European customers.
I think most of the activists know the drill (not to use gmail/outlook/icloud... in their activism-related communications).
They might start spending the time and money to move away from Microsoft's control, but there's few solutions that reliably work at that scale and for their needs, and I honestly wouldn't fault them for assuming that the arrangement that worked for decades wouldn't suddenly fall apart.
Until recently I'm sure people at the heart of the western political establishment saw the US as essentially trustworthy with regard to fundamental things like not stealing their emails.
Just like they wouldn't have expected the executive to deny them access to the product. Now it's clear expectations need to be updated.
Not great news for the US tech industry...
You don’t stop investigating war crimes and bring charges just because the accused is currently unavailable. The latter may change, and has already changed in the past. Furthermore, the mere act of investigating can already put pressure on the investigated.
Netanyahu or Putin accidentally wandering into a hostile country sounds like a ludicrous scenario but if that ever happens to any signatory they are treaty-bound to arrest him and extradite him to The Hague. What's the plan for dealing with the blowback? Either the host country violates the Rome statute or they have initiated a war with a hostile, well-armed foreign entity.
You might want to read who warrants were being pursued against in the first part of the Prosecutor’s statement which also announced the pursuit of warrants against various Israei officials before saying things this stunningly ignorant.
https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-icc-prosecutor-karim-...
On the basis of evidence collected and examined by my Office, I have reasonable grounds to believe that Yahya SINWAR (Head of the Islamic Resistance Movement (“Hamas”) in the Gaza Strip), Mohammed Diab Ibrahim AL-MASRI, more commonly known as DEIF (Commander-in-Chief of the military wing of Hamas, known as the Al-Qassam Brigades), and Ismail HANIYEH (Head of Hamas Political Bureau) bear criminal responsibility for the following war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on the territory of Israel and the State of Palestine (in the Gaza strip) from at least 7 October 2023
Sinwar and Haniyeh were subsequently killed, but an arrest warrant was issued for Al-Masri the same day as the warrants issued for Netanyahu and Gallant.
This isn’t strictly a problem if the thing is actually disagreeable. For example, most people have a bias against criminality. Whether there is a bias is unrelated to how agreeable the bias is. Any opinion is “a bias”.
What’s more relevant is how well their stated positions match their actions. Is there another country doing the things that Israel is doing (or that has done them) but was never prosecuted by the ICC? That seems like it would be indicative of a “bias against Israel”.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_indicted_in_t...
So I won’t say it’s all just the US coming in and buying everything up. It was partly European investors wanting to make a profit.
But the point remains that the EU also innovates. So to suggest that it doesn't and its reliance on US tech is somehow its own fault for not trying, is missing the detail.
Europeans live in a fairy land dream and need to wake up.
That's an issue with America. For all American businesses.
"Who allowed you to live like that"...
The dumb actions by the current US Administrations give the EU a big incentive now to buy their services elsewhere in the future, so Trumps fever dream about the disbalance might come true thanks to his own actions
His official work email was suspended because he's suspended from the organization...
> New details allege that Mr Khan pressured the alleged victim, a Malaysian woman in her 30s, into what the Wall Street Journal described as “non-consensual sexual intercourse” on several occasions.
Dunno what you think "non-consensual sexual intercourse" is...
Also, since when does such a thing qualify for the takedown of an email account? Nor has he been convicted by a court or anything. Rule of law? The thought of knocking him out of his communications under these circumstances is absolutely ridiculous.
And he also lost his bank account, that’s hardly because of the allegations
At my organization, if an employee is suspended, I don't expect Microsoft to manage it. We have to do it ourselves. It is different elsewhere?
Look at this article discussing the allegations, by AP, from last year: https://apnews.com/article/war-crimes-international-criminal...
Sounds like Trump’s EO had nothing to do with with suspending the account?
> Microsoft said the decision to suspend Mr. Khan’s email had been made in consultation with the I.C.C. The company said it had since enacted policy changes that had been in the works before the episode to protect customers in similar geopolitical situations in the future. When the Trump administration sanctioned four additional I.C.C. judges this month, their email accounts were not suspended, the company said.
That sounds exactly like it was because of Trump‘s EO but MS doesn’t want to do it anymore