YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Afghanistan was a just action. Let’s just get that settled.
Iraq was legal but the public was lied to about the justification.
War Crimes requires a nation to purposefully target and kill civilians. If such an illegal order occurs those responsible are charged. If a government does not charge those issuing illegal orders they can be charged with War Crimes.
Civilian deaths do occur in War, a nation must only target legal military targets. For example the World Trade Center was an illegal target on 9/11. The Pentagon was a legal target on 9/11. Attacking a Civilian office gave the United States legal rights to retaliation.
As for Bush, his actions didn’t violate international law in Iraq. They were questionable and diplomacy would have been the better option, but still not illegal. All acts deemed War Crimes had those responsible charged and sent to prison. For example those responsible for the Abu Ghraib incident were charged, convicted, and sentenced to prison. The person to ordered the abuse and torture of prisoners was William Hayes II, General Council of the Department of Defense and authorized by Judge Brett Kavanagh, yes the same one that now serves on the Supreme Court.
Bonus, Ron DeSantis was responsible for authorizing torture at Guantanamo Bay.
If you want to charge people with War Crimes, start with the three who still are at-large from justice.
drolex@sopuli.xyz 1 year ago
“Afghanistan was a just action”. Was it really? Is it justice to invade a country and kill civilians for an act of terrorism, even a massive one? Should the Latin american countries where the CIA operated, installed dictatorships and helped to kill thousands, bomb the USA? Wasn’t it foreign terrorism? Should Vietnam invade the USA for its use of Agent orange and napalm? Would it be just?
nonailsleft@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Do you think the US invaded Afghanistan with the goal to kill civilians?
drolex@sopuli.xyz 1 year ago
That’s the neat part: nobody is a civilian when you define everyone as an unlawful combatant.
But otherwise, every war ever fought has killed civilians; so starting a war is automatically about killing civilians at some point. Stating that it’s not the main goal is hypocritical
nonailsleft@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Do you think the US should have just left Bin Laden to ‘do his thing’? Do you think religious terrorist can be stopped without using violence?