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The international rule of law and American, Israeli, warmongering, and hegemony is something quite different.
You cannot stretch the first to encompass the later. Toppling countries for the sake of dominating them or increasing your or Israel hegemony counts obviously as a violation of international rule of law. But also the USA gave the go ahead to Turkey and Israel to commit aggressive war in Syria and expand their territory.
The USA does not obey the international court of justice on its declaration of Israel's genocide and Netanyahou arrest warrant. It threatened it in regards to the Iraq war.
So it is disingenuous for your neocon take to be presented as a defense of international rule of law. The neocons are against the international rule of law but for using it as an excuse.
Moreover, obviously countless wars of aggression are started by painting the other side as aggressors, wannabee imperialists, oppressors of minorities, etc, etc. The rhetoric about everyone being Hitler is used to do just that.
The destruction of Syria, Libya, Iraq, the countless color revolutions, even the Ukraine episode that involved the shelling of Russian areas, is not. Color revolutions and subversion of countries through your intelligence services, is also a form of aggression, imperialism. Since you create puppets and expand your circles of influence and hegemony.
I actually wouldn't mind if the USA was a dissuading power against China and Russia from screwing over other countries. But the American conduct isn't to protect the weak and not intervene in other countries except to protect.
I actually like the idea of international rule of law in combination with some dose of realism which combines a general idea of such law and to be used by powers against others. So the norm is strong and powers have the ability to use it to dissuade each other. Then an understanding of red lines and trying to find a modus vivendi and compromise to the level that aggressive war is avoided.
For example, Ukraine should not have made moves against Russian language and been ruled in 2010s in a manner that was inclusive of Russian speakers. Just one example. Another reason to encourage compromise by various powers is to avoid escalation.
USA defying international rule of law while pretending otherwise, and allowing other countries to do as well, will lead to antagonistic countries to the USA that are powerful to do so likewise.
The general narrative about the good Israel and the good USA and bad never ending Hitlers and antisemites, is a narrative that tries to excuse enormous war crimes, aggressive conduct, and to ensure that in an orwelian manner International law is doubly violated. Both violated in practice, but while claiming to be fulfilled which is another violation.
Hitler wanted imperialist expansion but wasn't a madman who was bent on world domination and the USA and USSR also were motivated by imperialist expansion. Hitler was also motivated by crushing Bolshevism and Jewish influence to communism and the enormous threat of the soviet army. If you removed the German army from the picture in the 1930s, you would get Europe conquered by the soviets. Especially if there is no American intervention against the Soviets. The USA during WW2 also wasn't just motivated by geopolitical interests but also by the fact that its goverment was infiltrated by plenty of communist agents.
Which doesn't mean that Hitler wasn't an imperialist and even willing to do plenty of attrocities and treat the conquered peoples cruelly. The USA on the long term has shown an ideology that is very hostile to the survival of european peoples but on the short term its hegemony was of a less cruel nature. But you presented a caricature. You can present Hitler in a negative way without exaggeration.
Stalin too was an imperialist but not ONLY motivated by that, but also by a fear of the German army.
Both Hitler and Stalin made war in Europe for dominance over it inevitable. I would consider Stalin along with Hitler the two leaders most responsible for widespread destructive war in Europe during ww2. They are also blamewothy for cruel conduct. Howver much of the rhetoric here washes way too much American attrocities including complicity with soviet conduct. Anyway both Stalin and Hitler were definitely motivated not just by imperialist designs but by reasonable fear of each other power.
Stalin attacked various countries too before the invasion of the Soviet Union and planned his own invasion. That Hitler attacked the Soviet Union first does not mean that the Soviet Union isn't also significantly to blame for World War 2. The USA then also wanted world war 2, and was pretty firmly on the soviet side. But one can understand even such figures without making them complete caricatures.
Also, in regards the whole Jews and communist question. The Jews were very overepresented among political comisars and of course American communists and among some of the worst mass murderers of modernity have been Jewish communists who were active in the first half of 20th century. East Europeans who turned against Soviet Union during WW2 including some who fought along with Germans had experienced a genuine murderous oppression. Jews in the USSR had played a disproportionate role in oppressing them and in atrocities. Germans commited of course plenty of their own attrocities against east europeans and their has been an east european versus German violence too at end of ww2.
There has even been a mutual genocide between Polish and Ukrainians, which I also add here to provide some more nuance.
This is to say that WW2 does not fit into the narrative of the avenging oppressed Jew who is only oppressed and justifiably must do violence against his insane conspiracy theorist amalek evil ethnic group enemies that must be destroyed. But I wouldn't consider all ethnic groups as equally bad behaving neither. I see the Germans as more blameworthy during ww2 when they were on top and consider the morality that they adopted under Nazi Germany to be of a more ultranationalist character. I consider the Jews a group very willing to abuse their power to harm others when they are on top, and to have retained an extreme nationalist mentality, and not only something that came and passed. Although during the theater of WW2 were of course targeted for violence by the Nazis, were therefore more mistreated during this historical episode. Although they had their own share even during ww2 of violence as political comisars or as influence through their influence in the USA. And obviously prior and of course strongly pushing the ethnic destruction and replacement and minoritarization of european countries, and not just Germany after ww2. Including attacking the very legitimacy of european ethnic identities and their survival.
But WW2 is so focused because it provides helpful cherry picking, in combination of course with exaggerated un nuanced one sided narratives even regarding WW2. Since of course it is morally absurd to forget the enormous mass murders that happened prior to WW2 and the strong participation of Jewish figures as some of the biggest protagonists. Especially as part of Communist movement.
East Europeans I see as also not people who have unbloody hands (including as part of USSR, it doesn't make sense to pin all of its crimes on Jews or on Stalin as only central figure and everyone else as automatons, or on supposedly ethnic-less amorphous communists, especially since some of the Soviet conduct had an ethnic revenge angle towards the Germans. But the Soviet union also targeted various ethnic groups not just Germans, and it targeted Germans even before 1939 too) but I wouldn't treat them as equally cruel and sadistic as German mentality under Nazis or Jewish mentality. And they have been targeted more than they targeted. And less (but not entirely, it would one sided and caricature to say this is 100%) the ones who started at least in regards to certain scale of atrocities. So I sympathize more with them, even though to an extend it doesn't make sense to put different non Jewish east Europeans in the same category.
And the fact that I am willing to acknowledge the more predatory nature of others is not an endorsement of any atrocity. While some of the behavior and violence have been of a more imperialist, predatory form. Or particularly disproportionate, it would be erroneous understanding of WW2 to forego the elements of violence that follows previous violence (that sometimes follows previous violence). But also plenty of violence that isn't about any revenge but targeting a weaker group.
Since avoiding an end point where different ethnic groups trying to kill each other is one of the lessons to get from WW2 and you don't learn this lesson through the caricatured picture of ww2. Even the biased wikipedia has some examples of Soviet genocides after ww2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes.
And so, it isn't as clear case of good triumphing in WW2, now is it?
Some interesting blog posts in regards to some of the issues I mentioned:
https://jottopohl.substack.com/p/title
https://jottopohl.substack.com/p/a-short-statistical-view-of-jews
I will repeat once again that remove Wehrmacht and the bigger and more mobilized soviet army that was going to defeat the Germans if the Germans didn't attack first while it was within mobilization, was going to conquer whole of Europe (unless a nuclear USA was to stop them). And of course the Soviets stopped the Germans not only from conquering the Soviet Union but remaining in a much stronger position in other parts of Europe. This undermines the pro soviet narrative although only to a degree. Still you shouldn't thank people who are against your enemy who are also your enemy and oppressor. It is true that without soviet blood and army the Germans control Europe, unless the USA starts throwing nukes. But I wouldn't thank neither, and even the American "help" although helped against an immediate great oppressive evil, has come with an enormous price for Europe on the long term. And during WW2 although not as much as Germany or Soviet Union, the USA did have some of its own atrocities. (Morthenthau plan, its firebombings and more). Including in collaboration with the soviet union, deporting people who moved from the soviet union to the west, back to the Soviet Union to be mass murdered. This atrocity involved more than a million people IIRC.
Never in its history has the USA been on the level of morally good that fits the picture you are presenting here, including during WW2, of course the cold war, and in the 21st century it has probably been the power that caused most life loss both through war, sanctions, color revolutions, creating power vacuums, supporting Jihadist rebels, and giving the go ahead to other badly motivated powers (not sure how to apportion American responsibility for harm done by allies in conduct that it supports and collaborates and even supplies). Learning about things like Yinon plan and Israel's plan to increase hegemony through destabilization of neighboring Arab countries, provides better understanding of middle east policy than convenient false narrative about never ending Hitlers justifying such disastrous conduct.
This brings in mind a certain parable. There is a bad Samaritan who claims to be a good Samaritan who likes to go and find people who have been in motorcycle accidents and remove their helmet, in an attempt to help them, he always says. However this doesn't work and the people die. And he keeps doing it. At some point, one should question his great intentions even if he constantly claims to be a good Samaritan and that only bad people would ever insinuate otherwise.
If the people having such plans were doing so with the best intentions as if any foreign policy establishment has a goal to save the world from evil, then they will be pretty stupid to catastrophically bring immoral ends time and time again. They aren't that stupid but are willing to promote a fake moralistic narrative.
It would be preferable if the USA was to behave more in line with the international rule of law. Trump's bullying of Denmark, would of course also deviate from that.
You confused your international law bodies and what they did.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is part of the UN, did not issue an arrest warrant on Netanyahu.
The ICJ did issue provisional measures to 'prevent genocide'- but did not make a finding that genocide had occurred. (That is the point on ongoing litigation that is the geopolitical football being used for domestic politics by various countries- whether efforts by the Israelis (and/or US) are sufficient enough to meet the bar.) While there are certain elements of the ongoing litigation that might raise some eyebrows- such as accuser efforts to substitute expanded definitions of genocide in lieu of more restrictive standards, the reliance on Hamas-provided casualty figures that regularly fail analytic scrutiny to justify civilian death toll claims, or the lack by any accuser to provide a baseline estimate of militant-to-civilian casualties that might be used to judge Israel's impact against civilians in an ongoing urban conflict zone compared to contemporary urban warfare examples that were not genocidal- they are ultimately not relevant until the ICJ makes a further determination.
Until such time as the ICJ makes a further determination, there is no further element for the US or Israel to 'obey' beyond what they are already claim they are doing- not commit genocide.
The International Criminal Court (ICC), which is not part of the UN, was the body that issued the arrest warrant for Netanyahu.
While the ICJ did kindly issue an arrest warrant for already-dead Hamas leader Sinwar in a show of balance, the ICC warrant- by the nature of the ICC-being a Treaty-based institution rather than a UN body- faces significant jurisdictional challenges. While the ICC did graciously grant itself jurisdiction over the Gaza Strip despite no ICC member having ever held territorial control or jurisdiction of the Gaza strip while a party to the ICC, that does not change that the ICC's treaty limits its applicability to ICC-treaty members and their territory... of which about half the world, including the Israelis and Americans, are not. It is the internal law legal duty of court members- notably every European Union country due to the EU's policy of making ICC membership a requirement- to honor such warrants, but not non-members. While there are certainly grounds to protest the objections of the French, the Poles, the Germans, and so on for resisting that, those are other people.
Until such time that the US and the Israelis are members of the ICC, there are no internal law obligations on them to obey the ICC.
What you are looking is for excuses. At the end of the day one can win, claim might is right, and argue they have no obligations.
International rule of law is not about finding loopholes to justify your criminal conduct while promoting maximal propaganda about others criminal conduct. Which will be used not only to oppose actual criminal conduct but also to justify aggressive action.
The powerful can at times make it so the law and principles don't apply to them. And even try to make it officially. International rule of law requires to accept the authority and restrain ones behavior in line with international courts of justice.
It's like a mafia not recognising the authority of the court and having enough influence with bribed cops to get away with it. Or Drug lords in a narco state.
Of course, you can't claim to not recognize a court and therefore warcrimes and invasions are compatible with international rule of law. If you choose to be exempt the fact is that this illustrates your hostility to international rules of law and human rights.
Now of course international bodies can promote completely asinine agendas including great replacement, or agreements where your country is screwed over while India and China can develop relating to climate change international agreements. Human rights can be stretched to the absurd. So, I don't object to countries objecting to exploitative more pathologically altruist type of arrangements promoted by international organizations and even foreign countries, foreign nationalists or their own oikophobes. But that isn't the case against the USA and Israel militarism and human rights violations. Of course one should distinguish between BS that an ideologue might pretend are human rights, and more well understood genuine human rights. Like not invading countries, not creating civil wars, avoiding war crimes, etc, etc.
The point is to adhere to principles consistently. The USA and Israel definitely do not do that. Nor do its elite, opinion makers and those pushing such talking points adhere principles consistently.
'Just trust me, bro. The contract totally says you have to do what I say it says you have to do. Don't read what it actually says. Also don't refer to any other laws that may cover you and what you're doing. Also, you're guilty because someone accused you. Why do you hate justice, bro? You're so illegal.'
You can either claim the law that is applies, or you can claim that law that does not exist should apply. You do not get to claim both, particularly when doing so is its own avenue of criminal conduct and justifying aggressive action.
This is particularly true when laws have conflicting elements, so that compliance with one part of the law does, in fact, create gaps in applicability in other parts. To do so otherwise is to demand the selective suspension of both letter and principles of law.
A vibes-based approach to international law rather than a legalistic-approach is how you get (and justify) neocon foreign policies of powerful states applying the 'spirit' of international law against others in the name of international law.
Laws do not apply to those they do not apply to. That is not tautological- that is categorical due to the nature of the thing. This is why principles of jurisdiction, basis of authority, and other such limiting factors. A lack of sufficient coverage/definitions may be an argument for different laws of different scope, but it is not an argument that, actually, the person/place/think is against the laws.
The nature of international law in turn is that it derives from the consent of the sovereign nation. That consent may be pressured/purchased/lobbied/transactional, but absent of that consent a treaty does not apply.
The International Criminal Court is not 'an international court of justice.' It is a treaty-court of members of the treaty, applying to members of the treaty, bound by the scope of its treaty... which itself explicitly limits itself to its members and its members sovereign territory. You, in turn, are the one saying others are violating international law by not complying with it.
This is not an appeal to international law. This is against the very law (treaty) that establishes the ICC. This is antithetical to the principle that the very same international law is based on, which is the sovereignty of the state to freely enter into treaties or not.
You are assuming the conclusion to conflate unlike issues, and poorly. It is not hostility to international law to not submit to a court that by international law does not have jurisdiction over you. Nor has an international court made a verdict on warcrimes if it has not made a verdict. The accusations in the ICJ are an accusation, not a finding, and it is not hostility to principles of law to deny the accuracy or validity of accusations, particularly when there are many grounds to.
Alternatively, they are being consistent with their principles, you just disagree with those principles, and want different principles to apply, inconsistently, by virtue of disagreeing with the limiting principles that are the bedrock of international law.
You are arguing that USA is innocent by default of its warmongering because it chooses to not accept the sovereignty of international courts. But if sovereignty is at the core of international law, then one nation's sovereignty to violate the sovereignty of other nations causes an obvious problem. This idea stretches to absurdity. If the USA decided to nuke the rest of the world tomorrow would that be in line with international rule of law as well?
Meanwhile, Bush signed a bill into law that gives the American president power to invade Netherlands if any American is found guilty of warcrimes, which raises the question if we are dealing with international law about sovereignity in general of USA using its power to get away with warcrimes. And American warmongering has often been done under the pretense that countries that consider themselves sovereign have somehow have behaved in an aggressive manner towards other countries or their leaders are tyrannical.
You seem to try to impose your own corrupt understanding on others. It isn't my idea but there is an objective criteria into which warcrimes, genocide, causing civil wars, can be defined and understood. Just like a drug lord who bought the goverment is still guilty of murder, bribery, engaging in the drug trade, principles of guilt are above American or any other nation's sovereignty, or even any decisions made by any international body. Either the USA or anyone is guilty of such actions or not. The point of the law is obviously to execute in practice without corruption such principles and find those who behave in a criminal manner, to be in fact in breach and then to be held accountable.
Obviously a drug lord, or his lawyer would like to argue that his conduct doesn't count as criminal. But it does count, whatever postmodernist irrational tricks, they would want to promote.
Else you don't have international rule of law. And obviously the very concept has always been limited by facts like the power of the biggest states, their veto in UN security council, etc. It always necessitates a certain restraint and reciprocal accountability. This means that today actually the rule of international law and international justice is in fact quite limited in practice. It doesn't mean that such limitations are the rule of international law. We just have a very limited rule of law.
Just like Mexico which has limited sovereignty and corrupted by drug lords, has a more limited application of the law against murder than other countries. In practice Mexico is more lawless and has less justice. It is against any interest of justice caring people to accept redefining it. We should not treat the current version of Mexico as representing a new understanding of law and justice. Nor should we treat the drug dealers who get away with it as behaving in a legitimate manner.
You are trying to stretch the semantics to introduce the opposite meaning into it when the point of international rule of law, especially when Globalist American empire warmongers always use it to justify aggressive action. And their argument always relates to states engaging in such criminal actions against other countries or claimed tyranny in their own borders.
The goal of the perspective you are promoting is for criminal actions to be found and exaggerated when it comes to other countries so there are excuses to justify aggressive action against other countries, but then somehow it doesn't count when it comes to the USA and Israel. This duality and the usefulness in one sided application, is why the concept is not disregarded entirely over a pure might is right perspective.
The one who is inconsistent here is you. The only consistent part about your agenda is that you are fully in favor of American and Israeli aggressive actions, including ones that utilize a narrative of violations of international law, or justice.
It is actually an Orwellian perspective that assaults the very concept of international law, and international justice that the rule of international law is about the sovereignty of USA and Israel to commit war crimes, genocide, and violate others sovereignty.
When it comes to maximalist partisanship for the American and Israeli establishments, it isn't a valid perspective that is going to be persuasive to those who aren't already partisan in the same manner. Even if you try to promote this maximalist partisanship for Globalist America Empire and Israel in a more indirect manner. It is still transparent enough.
Alas, international courts do not have sovereignty.
I will submit that this attempt to reach for a trumping buzzword is demonstrative of why you do not understand the argument being presented, or even the nature of international law.
This would be incorrect. My want is to highlight that your position is not based on international law, but the sort of selective and increasingly emotional appeals to international law that see it so often misused as a geopolitical cudgel.
In a few posts you have-
-Mis-identified the legal international bodies taking actions
-Mis-identified the legal actions taken by international bodies
-Mis-identified the conclusions of international bodies
-Mis-identified the legal basis for international bodies
-Mis-identified the legal limits of international bodies
-Mis-identified the legal responses to the actions of international bodies
-Mis-identified the legal implications of certain states not abiding by certain international bodies
-Mis-identified the provided legal basis of non-compliance with international bodies.
Upon correction, rather than even contest disputes by counter-citations, you have transitioned to ad hominem attacks that ignore the arguments provided.
This is not atypical of people with less interest in international law than in making strong claims about international law.
Except, of course, there are not objective criteria- hence why ICC claims jurisdiction over territory not a part of any ICC member despite the objective limitations of the ICC's jurisdictions under its own laws to its own members and their territory, and why the advocates of the case against Israel in the ICJ submitted alternative and broader definitions of genocide, rather than the older and more established forms.
Which is why textualism is so important for advocates of law. Acknowledging the limits of the law- what you deride as the loophole or innocence- is what protects against corrupt re-interpretations of law by taking items beyond their scope, or ignoring what is there.
By contrast, ignoring the text of what is or is not provided for in international law as convenient (or inconvenient) to advance your desires is the paradigm that leads to systemic abuse of the international law by powers that have more power to shape when and what sort of selective interpretations are advanced more often.
My encouragement for the audience is to consider whether Belisarius is making a legal argument on the nature and nuances of laws, or an emotional appeal more motivated by their geopolitical hostilities.
The House in the American congress passes International Criminal Court sanctions bill in response to Netanyahu warrant, to sanction International Criminal Court. So we see a clear desire to defy decisions made based on a legal understanding. Same appies to UN resolutions against Israel.
Even when the often zionist, neocon elite have been using the very authority of opposition to war crimes, criminal conduct to justify warmongering.
Your claim that you possess as superior textual understanding of international law that justifies your maximalist partisan perspective and its huge double standards is not convincing and is simply false.
But you are one of those who argue in favor of ignoring international law, by claiming that it doesn't constrain USA because of American sovereignty and the desire of Americans to not be constrained by it. Essentially there isn't any constrain of international law when it comes to American actions. Therefore this is a fallacious arguement because you are not interested in powers abusing international law. Although from your perspective international law means that USA and Israel are allowed to do as it pleases
So it is clear that your attempt to present your position helping us reach a point that great powers will not systematically abusing the law, is false. At best, you could claim you support what you call an international law that allows American and Israeli warcrimes.
This is projection.
If you were dealing with someone who pretended the Russians never didn't do nothing wrong there might be more equivalency in partisanship. I am actually interested in how the rule of international law can work better. And it isn't by excusing GAE and Israel actions and using the concept as a weapon against other countries.
It isn't geopolitical hostility that the USA and Israel have committed warcrimes but a part of reality.
It is geopolitical partisanship from your behalf that you aren't willing to acknowledge it and are even attacking those who do with false accusations of bad motives, because the facts are overwhelmingly against any claim that such actions haven't happened. Which is why you are trying to advance an argument that somehow it doesn't count.
I am even willing to acknowledge that it isn't only American power that provides limitations to the rule of international law. Of course a UN security council member and a nuclear power like Russia can get away with plenty. Even weaker powers can get away with international law violations through the willingness of greater powers to give them permission to act, based on their geopolitical interests.
This issue relates to the substance of the law in practice. I am sure Pablo Escobar's lawyer could be willing to come up with all sorts of excuses for why Pablo Escobar being allowed to have a stay in a prison designed by Pablo Escobar's specifications was fully legitimate and acceptable, because the Colombian authorities accepted it. I am rather completely disagreeing with your perspective that any rule of law exists where the substance of what ought to be prohibited, isn't followed. Which granted isn't your perspective alone, but central to the corruption of the rule of law in various societies by those who benefit in getting away with what the law is expected to prohibit, and in fact prohibits textually as well. This is the way to get away with corrupting a system, or to leave it corrupt.
There isn't any validity to the view that the opposition to the corruption of the law is irrationally emotional. There are irrationally emotional people, at least from the perspective of the common good, which is those who are emotionally invested in defending groups and organizations that corrupt a system. Escobar who I mentioned had his fanboys. In fact, criminality inspires rational opposition and strong feelings of anger in combination that are a superior response to passivity and giving a damn for what actually matters is how you avoid having your society corrupted by the Pablo Escobars of the world.
Same applies to the rule of International Law which actually exists in a very limited capacity, although I guess it could had been even more limited.
And the actions of the American congress against the international criminal court are part of what makes it limited. Granted, the nature of nation state sovereignty and the potential of political manipulation in the UN by various countries, or ideologues, makes things more complicated than a perspective that to get rule of international law we need to have states as fully subordinate of bodies like the UN.
But that doesn't change the fact that the USA and Israel are breaking all sorts of both textual rules on the books but also the rules as described by the people talking about war crimes, genocides, aggressive war and there is even precedent with trials towards leaders including in Serbia. These actions cannot just be washed away by claims of bias.
Trying to consistently apply at least some of the standards that the USA claims to care about in other countries and not threatening the international criminal court over its decisions towards Israel's warcrimes would be a move towards greater international justice and greater rule of international law. Of course, there is zero chance that the current establishment is going to do this.
Thank you for further demonstrating the points of my previous posts for the audience.
I am confident that me demonstrating in substance the core of the issue, and you claiming bias and subsequently declaring victory, is a divergence that I am happy to leave things at. I am content for both of us to declare victory with this differing approach.
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