> The Act gives the president power to use "all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court".[2]
If you dig a little further, you'll notice that it also applies to "military personnel, elected or appointed officials, and other persons employed by or working on behalf of the government of a NATO member country, a major non-NATO ally including Australia, Egypt, Israel, Japan, Argentina, the Republic of Korea, and New Zealand."
I wanna emphasize: This pre-dates Trump, Biden and Obama. This has been a law for over two decades. It passed both the House and the Senate with very little opposition. Both parties voted in favour of it.
One of the most absurdist takes I've seen even on the context of this topic, which brings out the worst in all of us.
It's called sovereignty. A set of sovereign nations should absolutely be able to decide that they want to form a court and arrest someone for war crimes if they set foot in their country. It's not like the court is sending agents to non-participating countries to arrest people. If the US govt decides they want to arrest e.g. Putin the second he sets foot on US soil, it's their right to do so. In fact it does so, just look at the FBI most wanted fugitives list, or Interpol red notices. Same goes here.
The prosecuted are free not to set foot in participating countries.
> Hamas is a terrorist group that was elected by Gaza’s residents.
"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gambled that a strong Hamas (but not too strong) would keep the peace and reduce pressure for a Palestinian state." - From "Buying Quiet: Inside the Israeli Plan That Propped Up Hamas", NYTimes [1]
Man, Trump isn't going to shit about leaving NATO. He'll moan about some countries not spending enough, that's about it.
Leaving NATO would mean closing US-bases in Europe overnight, not getting valuable intel from partners in NATO, jeopardizing US defense deals, and a million other things.
As always, it's grandstanding from Trump to get some extra bucks from his allies.
US pulling out of NATO would likely embolden China to make a move on Taiwan. Seeing how much of the US economy revolves around technology, I really don't think there's any other option than to defend Taiwan, as it stands. Sure - Europe also depends on chips from Taiwan, but they'd also be swamped in the Ukraine/Russia conflict.
I should start a running list of all the people who say "Trump isn't going to...!" and then how they act like it was all part of the plan when he actually does it.
* People who say "Trump isn't going to...!" and then how they act like it was all part of the plan when he actually does it.
* People who say "Trump is going to...!" and the how they quietly stop mentioning it and move on to the next (bad) thing he's going to do when he doesn't do it.
You also need a list for things Trump attempts to do but ultimately gets stopped by more reasonable people in his administration.
The size of that list in his prior term is a lot larger than many people are comfortable with, and the purge of insufficiently loyal members from the party as well as loyalty tests for appointees suggests much of that list is now back in play.
his first term, despite all the clownery and drama, ended up being run of the mill republican politics. Why do you think things will be different this time?
Preparation and intent. I don't think Trump believed he would win the first time around and people in his first administration were either loyal and stupid or competent and not willing to carry out his most extreme orders. This time he is putting a team in place that is malicious and willing to do whatever he says. He also has the added incentive of all of his court cases and debt from court cases that he would love to make disappear.
I don't think that leaving NATO would necessitate closing US bases in Germany or Italy; it is my understanding that those bases are required (to be provided by the respective 'hosts') as a condition of the treaties which ended World War II.
Parties can withdraw from a treaty. There's such a thing as state sovereignty. :)
They can withdraw based on treaty itself or based on law of treaties (art 42)
What happens then of course only depends on what the sovereigns will want to do... In this case I'd presume it would not mean restarting WW2 after zillion years have passed. :-)))
Trump is heavily funded by Zionist extremists, but he isn't one himself. As soon as the ship really starts sinking (which could be induced by a Netanyahu arrest), he will attempt to jump ship and save himself.
