@LesterB99 sure, if ICC is the standard, do you think it will be evenhanded?

i don’t think it’s the court of public opinion pointing out very often that war crimes by international law definitions are committed by the US over the course of most administrations. most Americans certainly don’t know this, but I think it’s nevertheless true, and not always clearly unjustifiable. was Trump’s “no kid gloves” war on ISIS justified by its success despite its means, like Dresden?

@LesterB99 i guess i think that “war crimes” is an aspirational but broken formulation, that it’s either tautological (war is crime!), or or conditional on so many circumstances and tradeoffs that no crime-like legal code could hold and be fairly adjudicated.

holding war criminals and genocidaires to account is fundamentally a political matter, and aspects of victors’ justice inevitably seep into it (but as a political matter we should absolutely hold some to account!)