So, the ICC filing charges, that too is an unfulfilled part of the fantasy.
There is the German saying kein Richter ohne Kläger, which more or less means that no judge will sentence a person without a prosecutor first formally accusing that person of a crime. The prosecutors of the ICC have long been accused of being soft on Europeans, Americans and white people in general. There is some truth to that. They have tried and condemned former heads of state like Laurent Gbagbo, the former President of Ivory Coast, and Uhuru Kenyatta, the former President of Kenya. Other notable figures include William Ruto, also from Kenya, and various leaders involved in conflicts in Rwanda (see a pattern here?) and the former Yugoslavia. And they have indicted two members of the current Israel government, Netanjahu and Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Mohammed Deif, all three of them on the 21st November 2024. Vladimir Putin was indicted on the 17th March 2023. The last four are either dead (Deif) or fugitive.
No ICC prosecutor has dared to offically indict trump or HegSith, but I am sure that if they could get tehir hands on them, the formal accusation would be quickly forthcoming. But they are no fools. They also know that their building would be quickly surrounded by paratroopers armed to their teeth, and that after the prisoners had been “liberated” they would be summarily executed. Why risk the wrath of a nation that already hates and despises you and what you stand for if you have no chance?
Ah, but if they only could… sorry, back to daydreaming.
Yeah. You could make a great case for war crimes against Trump just for the blowing up of fishing boats, claiming that he’s “defending” the US far from its border against small, unarmed vessels, and subsequently killing survivors of such attacks who surrender and ask for help. But that hasn’t happened yet, and therefore is unlikely to happen in the future (or they’d have done so by now).
You could make a great case for war crimes against many presidents since Vietnam, probably all, except perhaps Jimmy Carter. Why do you think the USA has not joined and does not plan to join the ICC?
True, though I think Trump has been particularly egregious. What he’s doing has no military value whatsoever and is the equivalent of taking out an alleged drug dealer with an orbital strike.
But strictly speaking, the US has taken on military policies that threaten or ignore things like treaties and sovereignty, and they have just become routine to the point where you could paint any relatively recent POTUS with that brush.
True that. And particularly stupid and inefficient too. But no US president, not even a democrat, not even Bernie Sanders or AOC, would hand a former president over to the ICC, much less join that organisation, if a lot of things don’t change first. I don’t see that happening in my lifetime.
If a former president of the USA is ever put to trial for crimes against humanity, war crimes, or genocide (the remit of the ICC) it will have to be before a US court.
Remember that the ICC is designed to act only if the state where the accused resides does not act. Had the leaders of Kenya, Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia tried their leaders, the ICC would not have done so. They would not have needed to.
The USA, by sheer military and political might, are the only country that can judge US presidents.
I am not holding my breath.
…or the Democratic President does their best Gene Wilder impersonation in mock protest:
I wouldn’t call Netanyahu and Gallant, and Putin for that matter, fugitives. They’re neither running nor hiding. In point of fact, their indictment was a symbolic move, aimed at achieving political goals. There has never been any actual intent to arrest them.
They have been summoned, they did not come, that technically makes them fugitives. You don’t have to run to be a fugitive.
There have been attempts to bring the three before the ICC. When Putin travelled to South Africa for a BRICS meeting there were demands that he be arrested on landing. The South African president prevented that, and there was some uproar in the usual circles. South Africa is a member of the ICC. He could and should have arrested him. Well, he did not. Same happened when Netanyahu visited Victor Orbán’s Hungary, also a member of the ICC.
Had any of the three been handed over to the ICC the “symbolic move”, as you put it, would have turned into a historic landmark.
It may still happen.
I am not holding my breath for that neither, but it is more probable than the arrest and trial of a former US president.
If I summoned you to appear before me, and you refused, would you be a fugitive? Of course not - I have no authority to arrest you, just as Israel does not believe the ICC has the authority to arrest its citizens, let alone overthrow its democratically elected government. So let the ICC consider Netanyahu and Gallant fugitives. The Iranians think we’re infidels, and the Nazis thought we were subhuman. We’ve learned not to worry too much about other people’s opinions.
It would have also turned into a shooting war.
You may want to consult the list of logical fallacies to avoid using so many in a single argument.
Actually, by definition you do have to be fleeing to be a fugitive. That’s the literal meaning of the term. It is derived from the Latin verb fugere, which means to flee. The term “refugee”, which means someone who flees their country to escape persecution or danger, is derived from the same Latin root.
Someone who just ignores a summons, I’d consider them a “scofflaw” myself, although that’s a very generic term that can describe anyone who just ignores the law in general.
And that is the etymological fallacy. Also on the list.
Regarding Mr. Gallant and Mr. Netanyahu, the ICC itself declares:
Warrants of arrest
The Chamber issued warrants of arrest for two individuals, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu and Mr Yoav Gallant, for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024, the day the Prosecution filed the applications for warrants of arrest.
The arrest warrants are classified as ‘secret’, in order to protect witnesses and to safeguard the conduct of the investigations. However, the Chamber decided to release the information below since conduct similar to that addressed in the warrant of arrest appears to be ongoing. Moreover, the Chamber considers it to be in the interest of victims and their families that they are made aware of the warrants’ existence.
At the outset, the Chamber considered that the alleged conduct of Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant falls within the jurisdiction of the Court. The Chamber recalled that, in a previous composition, it already decided that the Court’s jurisdiction in the situation extended to Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Furthermore, the Chamber declined to use its discretionary proprio motu powers to determine the admissibility of the two cases at this stage. This is without prejudice to any determination as to the jurisdiction and admissibility of the cases at a later stage.
With regard to the crimes, the Chamber found reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Netanyahu, born on 21 October 1949, Prime Minister of Israel at the time of the relevant conduct, and Mr Gallant, born on 8 November 1958, Minister of Defence of Israel at the time of the alleged conduct, each bear criminal responsibility for the following crimes as co-perpetrators for committing the acts jointly with others: the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.
The Chamber also found reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant each bear criminal responsibility as civilian superiors for the war crime of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population.
This is an entertaining video:
"https://youtu.be/ND0R-AZ4L_4?si=bDoekN7hJYpv4qKB
Title is:
I Let 7 AIs Estimate Trump’s IQ. And It’s Exactly What You’d Expect
The presenter asks 7 different AI chatbots, including Trump’s own that he just created, to rank Trump’s IQ. 2 of the bots didn’t answer, but the other 5 did. Contrary tohis self-professed super intelligence, all the bots rated him low to low average with scores ranging from 80 to 105. I suspect he’s lower now because of age, but I doubt even younger he was anything other than slightly below average in the IQ department.
(I wasn’t able to put a link in, so I just put a quote in front of the link)
It’s not a fallacy when it’s correct and you’re objectively wrong and misusing the word. You’re accusing Merriam-Webster of not knowing what they’re doing.
Unless you’re just using the “words only mean what the speaker means for it to mean” argument that makes language itself meaningless.
I rest my case.
Your cite is a Wikipedia category?!
You’d best rest something.
Drunken ICE agent passes out on a front lawn in Fresno at 3 AM, starts a fight with the 72-year-old homeowner who told him to get off their property, winds up getting shot in the gut, handcuffed, and left there for the cops to deal with.
“ICE Melts into Puddle on Lawn”
Right-wing provocateur Nick Shirley, who you may recall showing up uninvited at daycare centers with a camera crew and demanding to be shown the children, films himself attempting to commit a federal crime to prove that food stamp users are all crooks, winds up getting into an argument with a cashier over how to ring up groceries and fleeing the scene because one of his security guys got his gun stolen by a homeless person.