Global terrorism thread

You can't be charged with war crimes by an American court unless Congress has actually declared war, and they haven't.

I'm sure there are other ways an American system can get him though.

However, to those who are smarter than me, who gets to prosecute first? Home nation of the citizen, the nation where the offense was given, or the UN?

Does one sentence prevent another from being filed?

Yeah, but "some punter in America" is hardly a combatant.

You mean for an actual war crime? It depends on which crime and under what treaty it fall. Nations that have signed the Geneva Conventions or similar treaties are expected to prosecute their own citizens if there is a violation. For those cases where one or more of the combatant nations have either not signed or are not observing the conventions, the UN has set up special criminal tribunals for specific conflicts, such as Yugoslavia. All states are expected to pursue individuals who have violated international law regardless of whose citizens they are or where the violation occurred, and turn them over to the relevant tribunal. If there is no special tribunal then the ICC in the Hague takes jurisdiction.

tl/dr: they try to defer to the court of the nation the violator is a citizen of, and if that doesnt work the UN or the ICC goes after them.

You may say that, but if you read my Al-Qa'eda pamphlet you'll find that...

On a more serious note, it looks like things aren't going so well in Tikrit. Sputnik News article, so beware shoddy journalism, but the generalities seem to match up with most of what I'd already heard about the battle.

So that's why they stopped declaring war.

Well, that loophole is retarded.

Nobody declares war anyway these days, but yeah part of it is that if war was declared then enemy combatants would be Po Ws when captured, which woudl mean no torturing them as they'd have certain rights guaranteed.

To declare war means that you have to pick a specific entity, like a country. And that would just limit you as well as hold you accountable to all these pesky things like laws and treaties. You would also be restricted to keep your shit within that country.

And American's just can't stand people telling them what to do.

Even in the days of declared war it wasn't kept to just the countries involved. For example during WW 2 the Brits shelled the Vichy French fleet and seized Madagascar,and of corse their was Operation Torch,and through all this Vichy France was officially neutral. And then of course they and the Americans invaded Iceland for...some reason.

Maybe because Iceland was still a colony of Denmark at the time and when Denmark got invaded, Iceland had the potential to become a liability...

Yeah Iceland and the French fleet was pretty much taking or destroying assets of countries that the Nazis had defeated and the allies were afraid might be taken and used against them.

Nope. The only (relevant) nations/states officially neutral during WWII were Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Vatican City.

>Portugal

>relevant

HUE HUE HUE HUE

edited 27th Mar '15 6:40:44 AM by Achaemenid

Hey, Churchill acknowldeged our alliance. And we let you and the Americans use one of our air bases (and which is still being used today - Lajes).

And we made bucketloads of money by selling tungsten to you guys (and the Nazis, in the early years).

Hue's laughing now?

[Sorry for going off-topic]

Iraq special forces advance in Tikrit, U.S. coalition joins fight

Jack, if you declare war on a country, their holdings become fair game because they are under the umbrella of that holding.

Like if someone (by US Law) declared war on the US, they could go after Puerto Rico or our portion of the Virgin Islands even though they are not states.

It's a nice little loophole. Like in WWII when we officially declared war on Germany, we added their allies as well. So anyone that happened to be working with Germany officially or otherwise became fair game without us having to declare war on every little individual nation/group.

I know that, but I remember hearing that the Vichy government kept up a facade of neutrality up through WW 2, mind you it was neutrality in Name Only, they didn't become formally aligned with Germany until after the Germans stormed Southern France in 1942,or that was my understanding.

That is also the reason the US is not a member of the International Criminal Court.

And this is where US Law is interesting and shisty, (you can thank Teddy R for this)...

"Allies" doesn't have to mean diplomatic ties, meaning official statements. Allies can be defined as any entity that is giving aid to the declared enemy.

For example, we could have gone after the Eastern Orthodox Church as an institution if we felt that they were actively aiding German's agenda. Language like this is why we are able to go after "The Taliban and their allies" with military action.

Well they do give Putin quite a lot of support.....still that's something I didn't know, thank you for educating me.

What does the Eastern Orthodox Church have to do with Germany?

Nothing, I was just using that an an example of how our laws are worded in such a way we can pretty much go after any sort of institution that isn't a nation itself if we feel like it and have a political safety net to fall back on.

Not quite. Iceland (along with the Faroe Islands) was invaded because its position in the Atlantic right between the continents made it a potentially important outpost to ensure control of the Atlantic ocean (and continued to be so during the Cold War). Also, Iceland was technically already an independent nation since 1918 — it simply shared a king with Denmark in a way similar to the countries of the British Commonwealth.

Meanwhile, in Unganda...

US officials hope to inspire defections from Lord's Resistance Army with pop music.

Sounds like a plan - as long as the government and the people are as forgiving as the song portrays. Given that the lowest ranking troops and 'wives' are mostly kidnapees it might inspire them to escape, and mid-rankers might be interested if they're also likely to get an amnesty. I don't see Kony or the highest ranking members showing any interest - they're incredibly unlikely to get clemancy.

edited 28th Mar '15 1:00:28 PM by betaalpha

Hope you don't mind the double post, but...

Tunis Bardo Museum attack: Thousands join protest march. Indeed it could be as much as ten thousand. Also:

Update: This article reckons the march was actually tens of thousands strong. And Francois Hollande took part in it.

Also, anyone wanting ideas about how they could more directly combat terrorism, I suggest going on holiday to a certain north African country... as the article says, the terrorists targeted the Bardo museum because they wanted to destroy Tunisia's vital tourism industry.

edited 29th Mar '15 3:38:36 PM by betaalpha