Presidental War Crimes

ddt said:
Apparently, you don't think it's important to keep your word. I don't understand why you even bother to discuss any matters of law as the whole concept of law then becomes pointless. I'm done with this discussion.
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The whole point is no matter how much we wish it is different, congress is under no obligation to keep their word.
 
BobTheCoward said:
The whole point is no matter how much we wish it is different, congress is under no obligation to keep their word.
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"America's word is good enough" has been a staple of U.S. foreign policy at least since the Monroe doctrine. It is a very strong convention. It is akin to "America pays its debts".
 
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TubbaBlubba said:
"America's word is good enough" has been a staple of U.S. foreign policy at least since the Monroe doctrine. It is a very strong convention. It is akin to "America pays its debts".
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But convention does not place any limits on the US government. If I understand European systems, that is not the case there? But we are also absent European style Constitutional crises. Here there is less fretting over Constitutional hardball.
 
Megalodon said:
Without looking it up, Jimmy Carter probably would be the clean one in recent history...Clinton had some very problematic bombings in the Balkans, Bush 1 had the invasion of Iraq and subsequent abandonment of the Iraqui rebels that rose to his appeals. Reagan had some shady ops happening under him, but without google I can't remember exactly what.
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Reagan couldn't remember them either.

My attempt at humor.
 
TubbaBlubba said:
"America's word is good enough" has been a staple of U.S. foreign policy at least since the Monroe doctrine. It is a very strong convention. It is akin to "America pays its debts".
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But apparently, SCOTUS thinks since about 60 years after said Monroe doctrine, that it's OK that America's word cannot be trusted, because they can renege on it nilly-willy.

BobTheCoward said:
Evasion of what? I don't evade questions because there is no reason to. Can you clarify your question?
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You know very well what you evaded. I posited that it's preposterous that domestic law trumps treaties, and gave arguments for that, and you evaded engaging those arguments.

BobTheCoward said:
But convention does not place any limits on the US government. If I understand European systems, that is not the case there? But we are also absent European style Constitutional crises. Here there is less fretting over Constitutional hardball.
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I do not know all European constitutional systems. I know for sure that the Dutch constitution places treaties above domestic law. And I do not know what you mean with European-style constitutional crises. Can you give one example from the last ten years? (Oh, and when it comes to law systems, the UK definitely does not belong to Europe).
 
ddt said:
(Oh, and when it comes to law systems, the UK definitely does not belong to Europe).
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The UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and many other Commonwealth nations use the British common law system, vice the civil law system commonly used in mainland Europe. We could discuss whether or not a system of laws and a legal system that is used by a European state "belongs to Europe" or not, but that is definitely OT.

As for whether or not the POTUS could issue executive orders to violate the laws of war, or Congress could pass laws saying, "nah, we're not going to follow this treaty we've previously signed off on" while both parties can do so, is such an action legal without the US Senate abrogating all of or part of a previously agreed to treaty? And then of course, is a court carrying out a trial whereby a POTUS or other American citizen is being tried for war crimes obliged to accept the legal argument that "it's legal according to US laws"?
 
ddt said:
You know very well what you evaded. I posited that it's preposterous that domestic law trumps treaties, and gave arguments for that, and you evaded engaging those arguments.
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In the US newer law does override. Your arguments carry no Constitutional weight.
 
Border Reiver said:
The UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and many other Commonwealth nations use the British common law system, vice the civil law system commonly used in mainland Europe. We could discuss whether or not a system of laws and a legal system that is used by a European state "belongs to Europe" or not, but that is definitely OT.

As for whether or not the POTUS could issue executive orders to violate the laws of war, or Congress could pass laws saying, "nah, we're not going to follow this treaty we've previously signed off on" while both parties can do so, is such an action legal without the US Senate abrogating all of or part of a previously agreed to treaty? And then of course, is a court carrying out a trial whereby a POTUS or other American citizen is being tried for war crimes obliged to accept the legal argument that "it's legal according to US laws"?
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They probably wouldn't recognize that defense. But if it was a valid defense, it is insanely easy in the US system to invalidate a treaty.
 
This has become kind of a silly argument. By definition, a sovereign state has sovereignty, which further means that it can do whatever it wants unless and until other states remove its sovereignty by force or threats of force. International law is really for weaker states, not powerful ones. Powerful ones have a kind of gentleman's agreement to pay lip service to international law, but it doesn't really apply to them. To the US least of all.
 
sunmaster14 said:
This has become kind of a silly argument. By definition, a sovereign state has sovereignty, which further means that it can do whatever it wants unless and until other states remove its sovereignty by force or threats of force. International law is really for weaker states, not powerful ones. Powerful ones have a kind of gentleman's agreement to pay lip service to international law, but it doesn't really apply to them. To the US least of all.
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I rarely agree with sunmaster, but some people need to recognize the writing on the wall. The debate about what the US is "allowed" to do in regard to treaties is a non-issue. You might as well argue about where a dog is "allowed" to take a ****.

Don't get me wrong, I am not a jingoist who likes US actions throughout the world. I just think it is silly that people are having these side arguments about what the US is "allowed" to do.
 
TheGoldcountry said:
I rarely agree with sunmaster, but some people need to recognize the writing on the wall. The debate about what the US is "allowed" to do in regard to treaties is a non-issue. You might as well argue about where a dog is "allowed" to take a ****.

Don't get me wrong, I am not a jingoist who likes US actions throughout the world. I just think it is silly that people are having these side arguments about what the US is "allowed" to do.
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I don't think that entirely captures the debate. Of course nations can do what they want and of course an international tribunal can break their own rules. But for this we are assuming nations act in accordance with their own system of government. Unlike the Dutch example, a ratified treaty in the US cannot overrule the Constitution, and by extension, any future act of Congress can nullfy a treaty. That creates an interesting conflict where the US abrogates a treaty right when they start breaking it.

But I think ddt is advocating a position no Constitutional scholar takes.
 
Border Reiver said:
The UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and many other Commonwealth nations use the British common law system, vice the civil law system commonly used in mainland Europe. We could discuss whether or not a system of laws and a legal system that is used by a European state "belongs to Europe" or not, but that is definitely OT.
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I was indeed alluding to the difference between common law and civil law systems. Of course, there's a wide variety of common law systems and especially on constitutional level there are wide differences.

Border Reiver said:
As for whether or not the POTUS could issue executive orders to violate the laws of war, or Congress could pass laws saying, "nah, we're not going to follow this treaty we've previously signed off on" while both parties can do so, is such an action legal without the US Senate abrogating all of or part of a previously agreed to treaty? And then of course, is a court carrying out a trial whereby a POTUS or other American citizen is being tried for war crimes obliged to accept the legal argument that "it's legal according to US laws"?
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It's clear that in the US legal system, later domestic laws can trump a previously established treaty. That has first been established by SCOTUS in 1884 in the "Head Money Cases" which I mentioned earlier. And no, Congress doesn't even have to have the civility to notify the other contracting parties that they do so.
 
Brainster said:
How about the extra-judicial killing of Anwar al-Awlaki and his son?

I actually agree with Obama's actions in this case, but holy crap, killing an American citizen abroad without any judicial oversight strikes me as something a lot of liberals would be protesting if Bush had done it. And then, two weeks later, killing his 16-year-old son, also an American citizen? Again, a proper decision in my estimation, but unlikely to be viewed as such by liberal thinkers under a Republican administration.
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What statements or actions of the deceased lead you to believe his killing was justifiable?

The administration has made no public case against him, not even the appearance of one. Several officials speaking on condition of anonymity even put forward the narrative that he was not the intended target of the strike. Then there's the disgusting statement made that his father wasn't very responsible...like that's Abdulrahman's fault?

So either there was no decision made to kill him (whether faulty intelligence, innocent bystander, or just plain coincidental accident) or there was a decision and it was predicated upon a "sins of the father" line of thinking and I can hardly agree that is a "proper" way of deciding that someone should have their life snuffed out.

Puppycow said:
I don't know, maybe. Which article of which international convention that defines war crimes does that fall under?

Personally I don't consider their citizenship to be a relevant factor. If an American citizen had enlisted in the German army in World War 2, they would be just as legitimate a target as any German soldier.
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That's quite a stretch of an analogy. It might be dubiously applied to Anwar, but most certainly does not apply to Abdulrahman.

As to the entire thread's general direction: we can argue about "legalities" until we're all blue in the face and introduce all kinds of hypothetical variations on real, historical events to cast them in more or less favorable light all we want. About the only way of looking at this that makes any kind of consistent sense is that when "we" do something, any and every justification will be put forward to excuse it away and when someone else does the exact same thing, no justification will ever be accepted as valid.

That kind of outlook is just classic tribalism, which is precisely what all of these international treaties were meant to help us move beyond. Playing semantics games with the treaties, if allowed to stand, basically makes a mockery of even having the treaties at all. If we can just decide we don't want the treaty this week (when we intend to break it) but want it re-enforced the week after that (in time to condemn the inevitable blowback), then why even have the treaties?

ETA: In short, we don't need treaties to play the double standards game. The whole point was to have a single standard to refer to.
 
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Delphic Oracle said:
What statements or actions of the deceased lead you to believe his killing was justifiable?

The administration has made no public case against him, not even the appearance of one. Several officials speaking on condition of anonymity even put forward the narrative that he was not the intended target of the strike. Then there's the disgusting statement made that his father wasn't very responsible...like that's Abdulrahman's fault?

So either there was no decision made to kill him (whether faulty intelligence, innocent bystander, or just plain coincidental accident) or there was a decision and it was predicated upon a "sins of the father" line of thinking and I can hardly agree that is a "proper" way of deciding that someone should have their life snuffed out.



That's quite a stretch of an analogy. It might be dubiously applied to Anwar, but most certainly does not apply to Abdulrahman.

As to the entire thread's general direction: we can argue about "legalities" until we're all blue in the face and introduce all kinds of hypothetical variations on real, historical events to cast them in more or less favorable light all we want. About the only way of looking at this that makes any kind of consistent sense is that when "we" do something, any and every justification will be put forward to excuse it away and when someone else does the exact same thing, no justification will ever be accepted as valid.

That kind of outlook is just classic tribalism, which is precisely what all of these international treaties were meant to help us move beyond. Playing semantics games with the treaties, if allowed to stand, basically makes a mockery of even having the treaties at all. If we can just decide we don't want the treaty this week (when we intend to break it) but want it re-enforced the week after that (in time to condemn the inevitable blowback), then why even have the treaties?

ETA: In short, we don't need treaties to play the double standards game. The whole point was to have a single standard to refer to.
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They don't have to make a public case. It could well involve intelligence info that the public aren't aware of. If there was a court case arising from the incident, such material may well be relevant to prove or did-prove the charges. Such evidence would likely be given in-camera to protect the intelligence, or the methods used to collect it.
 
TheGoldcountry said:
I rarely agree with sunmaster, but some people need to recognize the writing on the wall. The debate about what the US is "allowed" to do in regard to treaties is a non-issue. You might as well argue about where a dog is "allowed" to take a ****.

Don't get me wrong, I am not a jingoist who likes US actions throughout the world. I just think it is silly that people are having these side arguments about what the US is "allowed" to do.
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True, until an individual accused of grave war crimes travels to a another country. They may well find themselves in the crap. War crimes are supra-national, people may be prosecuted for them even in countries that are not, in any way, involved in the conflict. Nor is there a statute of limitations.

A hypothetical situation: A person in a conflict in country A authorises the use of rape as a weapon of war. 30 years later he travels to the US. Even if the State he visits has a statute of limitations for rape, he can still be arrested and prosecuted for contravention of the LOAC and International Humanitarian Law (IHL).
 
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