Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

No, because the US will invade and then perform war crimes on you if you imply that one of their soldiers has maybe performed war crimes and deserves to be tried for it.



In my experience in Afghanistan, it was other countries that performed more "war crimes" than the US (as in violating Geneva Conventions). Why do you think they make it such a big deal when the USA does it? Is it only because the US just prosecutes their own and doesn't recognize the international court? The international court does a much better job of keeping their decisions and the soldiers being punished, private. The US makes quite an example of theirs.


But the US does not prosecute its own. Instead they go after the messenger e.g. Julian Assange. They also usually find the lowest scapegoat they can get instead of having the responsibility be at the command level.

Edit: Spelling of scapegoat


In my personal experience, I've seen a captain go back to a 2nd lieutenant (and I think some other punishments) just for giving an illegal order trying to cover up a "small" oil spill, still cost several million dollars to repair the damage to the ecosystem.

I don't know about Julian Assange, personally. However, Julian isn't a US citizen or in a military, so a different set of laws and standards apply.

Before Abu Grab, interrogators were allowed to "do anything as long as it didn't cause 'permanent' damage to their body." It is pretty clear people took that to mean they were allowed to do some pretty fucked up shit. Now the laws are much more stringent. AFAIK, those whistleblowers weren't hunted down.

But in more general, if you murder someone in self-defense, you still murdered someone. A court probably won't prosecute you, but you still did the act, even if it was self-defense. The same applies to "government secrets." Even if the secret is disgusting and terrible, it was still a secret. Whether anyone will convict them for revealing those secrets is a gamble, and probably better to run away instead of taking that chance.

In my experience, there are some pretty fucked up people everywhere, it doesn't matter which country they are from.


I'll likely get downvoted straight to Hell for this, but grammatical errors going uncorrected become common errors as they spread to others… This particular one is already extremely common.

https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/pardon-the-expression/sc...


Thanks, I don't know why I wrote "escape goat" when I know it's "scapegoat".




Join us for AI Startup School this June 16-17 in San Francisco!

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: