Comment by dekrg
4 days ago
It will be pretty amusing to watch all those westerners who, not so long ago, were talking about "rules based order" pretend nothing is happening or to justify it.
4 days ago
It will be pretty amusing to watch all those westerners who, not so long ago, were talking about "rules based order" pretend nothing is happening or to justify it.
As a westerner, who believes in the rules based order, I would give anything for our leadership which is launching this illegal war to be sent to the Hague.
Our leadership are war criminals, and should be treated as such.
Some, specifically, are war criminals who have committed crimes that carry the death penalty, and should be arrested, tried, and (if found guilty) executed.
> I would give anything for our leadership which is launching this illegal war to be sent to the Hague
Simpler: send them to prison at home. There is no world in which the Hague can enforce its law in America without the U.S. government's consent. At that point, skip the extra step and make war crimes actually illegal.
The only force that can do anything about this, is the American people.
Which is why they have been subverted and subjugated and all their will usurped.
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> war crimes actually illegal.
To be clear, war crimes are illegal here. They can carry the death penalty.
I think there's a strong case to be made for Pete Hegseth to be executed for his crimes, according to US Law.
But you're right. There's no expectation that the Hague enforce international law without the consent of the US Government. Our government should either try our leaders in our courts, or hand them in manacles and chains to the ICC and The Hague.
But I agree, I don't expect the international community to be able to do this over our objections. It's something we must do.
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I don’t think the US is going to be allowed to act outside the ICC for too much longer. All of your former allies are going to insist on it before they will even think about treating your normally again.
The US previously never faced real pressure on this, a new administration would see it as an easy win.
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It sadly never happened for the perpetrators of the Iraq/Ukraine/Libya/Afghan/Syria/Yugoslav/... wars. Remember Collateral Murder? And that was just the tip of the iceberg. Also, no one really cared about all the veterans back home, many of whom suffered and still suffer from PTSD. The U.S. truly is the biggest sh*thole on earth.
The fact that it didn't happen for the those previous administrations is why it's happening again now.
If those previous administrations had been tried for their various crimes, and the guilty parties were cooling their heels in a jail cell, then we probably wouldn't be seeing this action tonight.
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Libya was a UN Security Council resolution, doesn't get any more legit than that.
To be fair that applies to Maduro to if you count crimes against humanity in general. Certainly applied to Sadam.
So now the question is how to do you capture this leadership without foreign intervention while they are still in power?
Talk is nice... but there is no real mechanism to impose what you are proposing besides this.
You do it as part of an international order, i.e. an impartial UN. Though obviously we don't have that yet.
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Presumably also the ones who invaded Iraq and occupied Afghanistan, carried out extrajudicial executions, droned weddings, deposed Libya's leader and laid ruin to the country, trafficked arms and money to cartels in South America and ISIS / "JV team" terrorist groups to destroy the Levant Or was that "rules based order"?
I think you've been had with the whole "rules based order thing". You can keep winding the clock back and it's the same thing. Iraq 1, Iran, Vietnam, Korea, Somalia. When exactly would you say this alleged "rules based order" was great?
Seems like since they're vocally condemning the war criminals, they have neither "been had" nor are inconsistent in any way.
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Every war criminal should be arrested, and tried. I think they should also be hanged, but they generally don't do executions at the Hague is my understanding.
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I think the notion of the comment about westerners is to highlight that as a common person you can believe in rules based order, or you are made to believe in that and live your life by that, however the leaders don't really care about it all that much. They are happy the masses are "ruled" and controlled, but as for their decisions - rules don't always apply.
And in many cases western societies tend to express the idea that inn other, dictatorship countries, people sort of "let the dictators dictate", while "westerners" not.
But I think this current case (and Trump's presidency at large) is an example of how little we can decide or influence. Even in the supposed "democracy".
I wish to believe that voting matters, but Trump showed that you can make people vote for anything if you put massive upfront effort into managing information/missinformation and controlling the minds through populism, etc. Then voting becomes... Powerless. As it has no objective judgement.
And despite possible disagreements some might voice - revolutions don't happen anymore. People can't anymore fight the leaders as leaders hold a monopoly on violence through making sure the army is with them.
Well... We as people lost and losing the means to "control" our leaders. Westerners, easterners - doesn't matter.
For non-US countries the solution is to be more independent in terms of foreign policy and defence.
you assume war crimes, but which war crimes?
In general international law is much more lenient than people are willing to believe. e.g. it's legal to kill civilians if you are attacking a military target which is important enough
> you assume war crimes, but which war crimes?
Hegseth allegedly double tapping survivors is almost certainly against the Geneva Conventions [1].
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/01/us/hegseth-drug-boat-stri...
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War of aggression is itself a crime.
> you assume war crimes, but which war crimes?
There are some credible war crimes accusations (in fact, some pretty flagrant war crimes), but the most critical crime is actually not a war crime, but one precedent to their being a war at all, the crime of aggression.
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This is a bit confused-if you send them to the Hague, they can’t be executed-because neither the ICC nor any ad hoc tribunals located in that city have the death penalty. As an abolitionist state, I doubt the Dutch government would ever consent to a capital trial taking place on their territory.
On the other hand, in an alternate reality, this could be preventing a North Korea style dictatorship. Or to flip it, had the USA stayed in South Korea and carried on fighting, it might have prevented North Korea and the Kims and saved literally millions of deaths of North Koreans at the hands of their own government.
What do the Venezuelans actually think about this, given that Maduro rigged the last election in 2024 and denied them their democratic choice?
> Maduro rigged the last election in 2024 and denied them their democratic choice?
Thats probably true, but trump also tried to rig an election, so its not really up to him to unilaterally decide is it? Especially as hes bumchums with putin who shocker, rigs election, killed hundreds of thousands of his own people invading other countries.
> had the USA stayed in South Korea
Korea was a UN action, not US unilateral. but alos hugely costly in everyone's lives
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> Should that administration be brought before the Hague?
Yes.
Many right-leaning people continue to never understand that many left-leaning people have actual principles and do not treat politics as sportsball.
- against ISIL, againg al-Qaeda - UN Security Counsil resolution
All those are either against some terrorist organization or its multi-country sanctioned.
We get it, you love Trump and hate Obama.
Other than that, whats the reverence of your whataboutism?
Considering your post history it's clear exactly what you're doing, but I don't think it's as much of an ideological gotcha as you might think because the answer is yes. We can throw Trump and what remains of the Obama administration in jail; I don't really give a fuck. We can work our way down the list as far as you want and I'd give it the thumbs up if it means we can ensure future presidents and politicians think at least four times before doing something.
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yeah
Well, 'western' 'rules based order' involves democratic elections and being in 166th place for government transparency isn't a good sign. Appointing your successor isn't exactly democratic, in fact it's very much the sign of most countries that end in dictatorship:
"Chavez was elected to a third term in October 2012. However, he was never sworn in due to medical complications; he died in March 2013.[95] Nicolás Maduro was picked by Chavez as his successor, appointing him vice president in 2013."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuela#Bolivarian_governmen...
Some certainly will, but not many I think. There are very few westerners outside of the US, who want to have anything to do with what the US are doing now.
Going back 7 months: Germany’s Merz says Israel is doing the ‘dirty work for all of us’ by countering Iran
In this case probably attitude is probably similar
matched by the hegsdeth signal chat that the US bombed the houthis on europe's behalf
i saw on cnn site list of reactions from europe. it looks like at most they are slightly annoyed but probably cheering on the background.
> all those westerners who, not so long ago, were talking about "rules based order" pretend nothing is happening or to justify it
MAGA is a rejection of the international rules-based order. Trump joins Putin and Xi in explicitly rejecting it. To the extent anyone in America is calling for a return to that order, they're doing it while criticising Trump.
The UK, for example, stopped intelligence sharing in the Caribbean so as to not be party to war crimes.
Adding: UK just come out saying they are not involved at all https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy4qgvwxp08o
This feels so foreign: since Suez the UK government has been backing the US and giving them the fig leaf of international legitimacy in their actions.
They have the same respect for domestic laws as they do for international ones
MAGA at its core is a rejection of the lower classes having wealth.
If the last 2 years of Gaza genocide didn't do that, I'm n not sure why this would. They'll spend the first 20 minutes talking about how bad Maduro is and the next 5 minutes saying this is "misguided" and didn't go through the proper channels.
Rules based order has always only applied to small and medium countries. The UN Security Council does whatever the hell they want
It's unreal.
I don't think Trump ever cared about rules based order.
His defenders kept, and keep, using it as an excuse.
> His defenders kept, and keep, using it as an excuse
Genuine request for a source here.
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Never. Trump wants to be a dictator, he loves Putin, he wants power and any "rules" that control him are antithetical to his entire political program and to his political party.
Anybody who wants a rules based order is extremely anti-Trump, just as they are anti-Putin.
that's what you get for having conversations with fascists
"rules based order" means putting people with dark skin in handcuffs on TV
No idea what you're going on about. Those in the West who stand for a rules-based international order certainly didn't ask for this war, and Trump, who did start this war, never gave a shit about rules or norms, international or otherwise.
Trump hardly is a representative for "westerners", actually the majority of them think he's a lawless looney. No one outside of his administration or party is justifying his actions.
Your comment is just bigotry.
Rapist presidents have no authority to defend 'rules based order'. Were you also ok with him defending 'rules based order' by arming Israel as they committed genocide? Or when he committed war crimes by blowing up the boats over the last few months?